Comparing free analytics services you could use with Wordpress

Woopra, Google Analytics plus Polaris, WassUp, and Statcounter compared

I’ve been a long-term Statcounter user; loved it for its cheerful no-frills look, and its clear and complete list view of tracker data. But now with the current Telexer site, I’m discovering all kinds of new trackers and analytics services. Desktop clients, Adobe AIR front-ends. Real-time stuff. Old-time stuff. I need to make a choice… The five mentioned here are all free services and could be used with a Wordpress site. Here’s some thoughts on how I think they compare.

Woopra – real-time web analytics on the desktop

Currently in beta. Really good looking, stable desktop app – no waiting for pages to load, wonderful graph sets, a nice dashboard, and most of all: real-time. It has a Wordpress plugin too, and an API, although I have not tried to combine that with my AIR badge clicktracking thing. I’ve been using it for a month now. What I found dissappointing is the way the data is organized, or more specific, how hard it is to delve down into details. Woopra shows the peak, but there’s no way to see what caused it without making the combinations and cross-references yourself; no details, which is really frustrating.

There is a Wordpress plugin, which has its own dashboard page to show stats on. This seems a cheap add-on, it doesn’t compare to the rich interface of the desktop app, or WassUp for that matter.

a page’s visits graph in Woopra

unique features: desktop app; notifications for live events, i.e. visitors for certain keywords or pages; tracks social bookmarks and -networks, feed readers and emails as separate traffic sources
not so hot: in beta, and not so well documented – dont’s see an easy way to track clicks in Flash; hard to filter or drill down into data

Google Analytics – the ubiquitous one

The well-known, almost ubiquitous tracker from Google. It has good looking graphs, and as they’re Flash, they update quickly to another view of the data, so you can easily compare different things. It has an API so you can track clicks on your Flash and AIR badges with it as well. The data is grouped in ways that are not quite what I would like to see: I like to see details of my visitors, and Google de-personalises that info. I guess Google’s uncluttered clear pages also have a downside.

numbers for Site Usage overview in Google Analytics

For Wordpress, I use the Google Analyticator plugin, which has a dashboard widget. This shows data from the day before. This is nice to have in combination with the WassUp real-time tracking plugin.

unique features: site overlay (where did people click); navigation summary (clickpaths); referring sites for a date range (peak: where from?)
not so hot: doesn’t track IP of visitors, nor spam or bots; doesn’t track social sites as separate referrer source; hard to get to the details; web page interface does not remember settings (irritating)

Polaris – Adobe AIR desktop reporting widget for Google Analytics

This is a really cool looking light-weight desktop front-end for the data from Google Analytics. In a small-size window it shows key statistics from your GA Dashboard page in easy to read tables or in very nice looking infographics. Unlike desktop tracker Woopra it does not display real-time data. There’s no auto-refresh option for when you are looking at today’s data. So this is useful to have a quick peek at when you start your day, and then decide if you want to see the full data in GA. The Desktop Reporting company’s yet-to-be-released Dopac – Polaris’ bigger brother – promises to be a full-featured desktop client (like Woopra?) for Google Analytics. Can’t wait, but — ah, there’s a but.

Like many AIR apps I’ve seen, Polaris has a rich visual appearance, but its interface seems unfinished, even untested here and there. No rollover on the close button, window doesn’t remember its last position, non-standard window dragging, no back button on some actions, that kind of thing. I expected the app to refresh its data now and again, but it didn’t – why else would I want a widget-style desktop app if not for monitoring the data over time? This is so not good for AIR development.

unique features: small dashboard style window with good looking info graphics; tracks site uptime with free Internet Vista service
not so hot: seems too beta, has a number of interaction design glitches; does not refresh

WassUp – real-time tracking within Wordpress

This is a plug-in for Wordpress that features real-time tracking. WassUp does not do any analytics, it just displays a self-updating list of most recent visitors, their location and source, and their click path. It uses the Google Chart API to display its track data graph – and that makes it just as good looking and responsive as GA. There’s a nice dashboard widget to show an overview of key data. And as it’s within Wordpress, it links up to Akismet – the spam catcher – to track and label spammer and hacker visits. Of course you’re able to quickly filter those out and only see normal visitor counts like in the other trackers.

a spamming visitor in WassUp

unique features: real-time tracking; Wordpress-only, it shows its data inside wp-admin; the only one to track spam and hack visits
not so hot: not meant for analytics, so it offers none; no API, so no Flash click tracking

Statcounter – the old-style web-based tracker

My favorite for years, it now looks clunky and tired to me – compared to the web 2.0 coolness of the others. Still, I love its “recent visitor activity” page, which is just a simple but clear overview of what’s happening (much like the WassUp list in WordPress). Statcounter also enables filtering of popular pages, so you can have details for one specific page that you’re interested in – aka see where the hits came from for that page. Drilling down is also a bit easier than in Google. But what Google delivers in its drilldown seems more detailed, and faster. It has a plugin for Wordpress, but no API.

visitors list in Statcounter

unique feature: more text-based than the others; easier to read and get an overview from in some cases
not so hot: no API, so no way to track clicks in Flash; its web interface seems clunky and slower

Comparing data: it’s a graded scale

In GA, I can look up a single visitor only by looking at a specific network, but I have to use pulldowns to get to referrer, page, etc. Good old Statcounter shows me that single visitor info right away, in detail, in a little list (including the visitor IP, country and referrer), which makes it easier to have a quick overview of what people are looking for and where they came from. The same visitor info can be found in the WassUp list of recent visitors, with IP, referrer and clickpath. Woopra can notify you when a visitor reaches your site, and you can follow his progress through the site live. In WassUp, for example, I see that my most recent visitor is from Belgium, and has visited 2 pages. The same visitor turns up in Statcounter and Woopra. But I can’t find this specific user, or his network, in GA – apparently there’s a delay but I don’t know how much.

This specific visitor info is, for me, absolutely addictive. It shows me what real people are looking for on my site, and how they do that, like a live usability research panel. It’s good to have the most recent data, but I don’t care much to wait and see what live visitors are doing – just the data is enough. I also like WassUp’s (or: Akismet’s) feature of spammer tracking: always interested in the sleazy side of things, it intrigues me no end to see HOW MUCH there is of it. It’s a relief to see them try but not getting anywhere.

YAY! Spam Peak!

On the other hand, Google Analytics has filtering for a lot of “dimensions” or cross-sections. It’s another way into the data, and it shows percentages for broad, or more refined, data segments. To be honest I wasn’t a fan of GA at all in the past, but now I’m interested. I like the Content Navigation Summary, where you can see navigation to and from a popular page in percentages: a very clear way of presenting the data. Seeing data for “content detail” or one specific page, then splitting it up in dimensions is also a great way to see how a page (or WP post) is doing. A pity that GA does not segment sources like Woopra – I would like to see “direct” sources more specified, to spot sources like “from a social bookmark site”, or “from twitter via bit.ly” (to be sure, that’s not in Woopra either).

Yes, analytics are addictive. Limits need to be set, choices are to be made… So I think, for now…
I’ll pick Google Analytics – for the Analyticator dashboard widget, and WassUp – for the real-time tracking; plus Polaris on the desktop to see if things could even get better. It’s wonderful to see so many beautiful data interfaces now.