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Google Analytics vs Simple Analytics - Comparison 2025

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Google Analytics vs. Simple Analytics

Last updated on

Reviewed by Camin McCluskey

Stackfix Co-Founder & CTO

Google Analytics and Simple Analytics serve distinctly different needs in the web analytics space. Google Analytics is better suited for larger organizations requiring comprehensive analytics capabilities and marketing platform integrations, despite its steep learning curve and complex interface.

Simple Analytics, on the other hand, is ideal for small to medium businesses seeking straightforward website analytics with minimal setup time and easier data access, though it lacks advanced features. The choice between them largely depends on whether you prioritize analytical power and integrations (Google Analytics) or ease of use and simplicity (Simple Analytics).

Advantages of Google Analytics

Google Analytics is significantly more powerful at integrations than Simple Analytics

While Simple Analytics offers basic API access, Google Analytics provides extensive integration capabilities with the entire Google ecosystem and major marketing platforms. This is crucial for businesses that need to connect their analytics with advertising platforms or require comprehensive marketing attribution.

Google Analytics offers more comprehensive functionality than Simple Analytics

Despite its complexity, Google Analytics provides significantly more advanced features including cohort analysis, user journey mapping, and extensive customization options that Simple Analytics lacks. This makes it better suited for businesses requiring deep analytical capabilities.

Advantages of Simple Analytics

Simple Analytics is significantly easier to use than Google Analytics

With a clean, focused interface and all features accessible from one main dashboard, Simple Analytics can be mastered in under 20 minutes. This contrasts sharply with Google Analytics' steep learning curve and complex navigation.

Simple Analytics offers better data exportability than Google Analytics

While Google Analytics' export process feels clunky and outdated, Simple Analytics provides straightforward self-serve export functionality and a robust API for programmatic access. This makes it easier for businesses to work with their analytics data.

Simple Analytics has a more straightforward setup process than Google Analytics

Simple Analytics offers an intuitive setup process with just a simple script installation, plus helpful onboarding through free trials and live demos. This makes it more accessible than Google Analytics' initial simplicity but complex customization requirements.

Google Analytics is best for

Businesses with basic web analytics needs who prioritize Google ecosystem integration
Who need comprehensive traffic analysis and acquisition channel tracking
And/or who need industry benchmarking capabilities

Simple Analytics is best for

Businesses with basic web analytics needs who prioritize simplicity over advanced features
Who need quick setup and intuitive dashboards for tracking core metrics like pageviews and referrals
And/or who need GDPR-compliant analytics with robust data export capabilities

Google Analytics is less good for

Businesses with complex product analytics needs who require an intuitive, user-friendly interface
Who need comprehensive user behavior analysis like heatmaps and session replays
And/or who need reliable customer support and clear documentation

Simple Analytics is less good for

Businesses with complex analytics requirements needing advanced features like heatmaps, session replays, or user journey mapping
Who need extensive dashboard customization and reporting flexibility
And/or who need robust data warehouse integrations and third-party tool connectivity

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Google Analytics

Simple Analytics

Pricing, features & ratings

	Google Analytics Starting at $0 Billed monthly Pricing calculator Visit Website	Simple Analytics Starting at $0 Billed monthly Pricing calculator Visit Website

Stackfix Verdict
Functionality	4 Functionality 4/10 <p>Google Analytics excels at website visitor tracking but struggles with product analytics. It offers solid traffic analysis and acquisition data but falls short on user behavior insights. Its real power comes from Google Ads integrations and benchmarking functionality.</p>	3 Functionality 3/10 <p>Simple Analytics is a very lightweight web analytics product. As such it lacks many complex features you might want such as heatmaps or session replay. However, it does the basics well - page views, live visitor counts, referral source tracking etc.</p>
Ease of Use	3 Ease of Use 3/10 <p>GA4 is surprisingly difficult to use despite its popularity. Finding basic metrics often requires hunting through multiple screens. The learning curve is steep, and the recent redesign has only made things worse by disrupting established workflows.</p>	7 Ease of Use 7/10 <p>Thanks to its relatively limited feature set - nearly all of Simple Analytics' features are accessible on one main dashboard. As such it would take an average SMB employee less than 20 mins to master its use.</p>
Look and feel	2 Look and feel 2/10 <p>GA4's interface is cluttered and confusing. Navigation is a labyrinth of menus and submenus that hide basic information. Reports load quickly but finding the right one is a chore. The design prioritizes Google's needs over users', making common tasks unnecessarily difficult.</p>	5 Look and feel 5/10 <p>Simple Analytics' design aesthetic is dark and fairly developer oriented. That being said, its core dashboard will feel very familiar and its data visualizations and graphs are easy to read. Our main complaint is that we faced delays on page load of up to 4 seconds in some instances.</p>
Customisability	6 Customisability 6/10 <p>Google Analytics offers decent customization through custom dimensions and metrics, but implementing these requires technical knowledge. Custom reports are possible but clunky to configure.</p>	4 Customisability 4/10 <p>Beyond custom events, Simple Analytics offers limited scope for customization. We would like to have seen more options to tweak the dashboard itself and change how data is visualized.</p>
Ease of Setup	7 Ease of Setup 7/10 <p>Drop in a tracking code and you're done. Setting up Google Analytics takes minutes, making it very simple to start with like most web analytics products. However, to make full use of the product there is a fair amount of customization that you can action after initial installation.</p>	7 Ease of Setup 7/10 <p>Simple Analytics stays true to its name as it offers a very intuitive setup process - only requiring a simple script. We appreciated the offer of a self-serve free trial as well as a live demo to get a feel for the tool before installation.</p>
Customer Support	3 Customer Support 3/10 <p>Support is practically non-existent for free users. Google offers documentation but it's often outdated or unclear. Users mostly rely on community forums for help, creating a significant gap compared to privacy-focused alternatives that provide stronger documentation.</p>	3 Customer Support 3/10 <p>Simple Analytics' developer documentation is not well presented. We specifically missed the presence of any kind of search bar at all meaning you'll need to trudge through dozens of pages if you're looking for something specific.</p>
Integratability	8 Integratability 8/10 <p>Google Analytics integrates seamlessly with Google's ecosystem (especially Google Ads) and offers connections to major marketing platforms. Its status as the industry standard means most tools support it, though privacy-focused competitors are quickly catching up.</p>	3 Integratability 3/10 <p>Simple Analytics offers a fairly robust API through which you can interact with data as well as make platform changes. However, it offers little to no integrations beyond this.</p>
Ease of Migration	5 Ease of Migration 5/10 <p>Data export options are adequate but outdated. Reports can be exported to spreadsheets or accessed via API, but the process feels clunky compared to modern alternatives.</p>	7 Ease of Migration 7/10 <p>Simple Analytics offers self-serve export functionality for key datapoints via its web app. Additionally, its API is robust and allows business to access datapoints programatically.</p>

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