No. 30 of 30 ยท Enterprise suites
Google Analytics 4
The default nobody chose, free at the point of use and expensive everywhere else.
It is the only tool here that ties directly into Google Ads conversion bidding, which is why most of its users cannot leave.
The verdict
Google Analytics 4 is the most installed analytics tool in the world and the one I would recommend least often, which is an uncomfortable pair of sentences that the rest of this entry has to earn. It is free, it is deep, and if you spend money on Google Ads it is close to mandatory, because the conversion signal that feeds smart bidding comes from here and no rival can supply it.
Everything else about it is a cost. The 2020 move from Universal Analytics to GA4 replaced a session-based model that marketers understood with an event-based one that mostly they do not, discarded historic data on a published deadline, and turned a tool people could use into one that needs a specialist. Reports that took two clicks now take a custom exploration. Data thresholding hides rows when volumes are low, without always telling you clearly that it has.
What you actually get
The accuracy score of 4 is the one that should worry a marketer most, and it has nothing to do with Google's engineering. GA4 sets cookies, so in the EU and UK it needs consent, and a meaningful share of visitors decline. It is also the single most blocked script on the web, so ad blockers remove another slice. Then sampling and thresholding shape what is left. The number in your dashboard is not your traffic, it is a filtered projection of it, and very few of the people making decisions from it know by how much. This is the exact gap Simple Analytics built an enterprise product around measuring.
The privacy score of 2 is not a moral judgement, it is a description. Data goes to an advertising company, which uses it within a documented but broad set of purposes, and successive European data protection authorities have found specific configurations unlawful before Google reworked them. You do not own the raw data without BigQuery export, retention defaults are short, and the terms are Google's to change. Free has a meaning here, and it is the ordinary one.
Best for
Anyone spending real money on Google Ads, where the conversion signal for smart bidding is the product and no alternative can replace it. Also the right pick if you need Looker Studio and BigQuery in the same ecosystem.
Getting it running
A tag, usually through Google Tag Manager, then configuration: events, conversions, consent mode, data streams and a filtering plan. The most fiddly setup of any free tool here, and the reason a consultancy industry exists around it.
What to watch out for
Consent loss, ad-blocker loss, sampling and thresholding stack up and are rarely quantified by the people relying on the output. The interface is genuinely hard to learn. Historic Universal Analytics data was discarded on a published schedule, which is worth remembering when judging how much continuity to expect. Free at the point of use, paid for in data.
Pricing and practicalities
Free at ordinary volumes. GA360 is quoted and is a six-figure annual contract. BigQuery export is available on the free tier, which is the single best reason to keep it running alongside something else. Retention defaults to a short window and must be changed deliberately. Read 2026-09-11.
Who should go elsewhere
Anyone who does not buy Google Ads and wants to know how many people read their site, which is most site owners, and who will get a truer number and a simpler life from Absolutely Analytics or Plausible Analytics. Also not for anyone who must avoid a consent banner.
How it compares
Against Matomo the comparison is close on features and decisive on ownership: Matomo gives you the same analytical depth with the data on your own terms. Against Plausible Analytics, which publishes a Google Analytics importer for exactly this journey, GA4 wins only on Ads integration and depth.
Head to head:
The ten measures
Each measure is scored 0 to 10 and weighted. The overall figure is the weighted mean, and it is relative to the other 29 tools on this list rather than absolute. How this works.
What this rests on
Google's own Analytics documentation on consent mode, data thresholding, sampling and retention, read 2026-09-11; its published Universal Analytics sunset schedule; published European data protection authority decisions on Google Analytics configurations.
Desk research against Google's published documentation and public regulatory decisions. The accuracy judgement is an assessment of documented mechanisms, consent, blocking, sampling and thresholding, rather than a measurement of loss on any particular site, which will vary widely.
This is a desk review. I have not been given access by the vendor, I have no commercial relationship with them, and everything above is my opinion rather than a statement of fact. If something here is wrong, tell me and I will correct it.