# fivebar vs Google Analytics Google Analytics is free and does nearly everything. fivebar does less, without cookies, on one page you can read at a glance. Both group your visits into channels on Google’s own scheme, so the figures broadly line up, and both now have [a channel for visits from AI assistants](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9756891) such as ChatGPT. Most of what differs is what Google Analytics does to tell visitors apart, and what you have to build yourself. ## No cookies Google Analytics [sets cookies](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/11397207) on each visitor, one of them to tell one browser from another across visits, for two years unless a site sets otherwise. Google offers a [consent mode](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9976101) for sites that ask first. fivebar [sets no cookies](https://fiveb.ar/privacy/index.md) and keeps nothing in the visitor’s browser: it counts each visitor once a day, by a code made with a secret that’s replaced at midnight and never kept. ## One page to read fivebar’s [dashboard](https://fiveb.ar/docs/panes.md) is one page: the figures and a chart, then pages, sources, countries, devices, goals and engagement, each a click from its full list, and nearly any row a filter for the rest. Speed, Errors and Bots are a page each beside it. fivebar counts every pageview, with no [sampling](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/13331292), which estimates from part of the data, and no [thresholds](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9383630), which leave rows out. ## How fast your pages load Google Analytics 4 has no report of page speed, and no measure of it among [its metrics](https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/data/v1/api-schema). Google’s own guide to [measuring Core Web Vitals with it](https://web.dev/articles/vitals-ga4) has you add a library to your pages, export your events to BigQuery and write the queries. fivebar’s tag already times every page load in your visitors’ own browsers, and the [Speed page](https://fiveb.ar/docs/speed.md) rates each measure by Google’s thresholds, with the pages that load slowest listed first. ![fivebar’s Speed page for djangodocs.dev: six tiles, TTFB, FCP, LCP, INP, CLS and PLT, each rated, then LCP for each day against Google’s thresholds](https://fiveb.ar/img/vs/speed-light.webp?v=437afae7) djangodocs.dev, whose stats are public, from 12 to 18 October 2026. One slow Sunday put its LCP past poor. ## Pages that fail Google Analytics has no report of 404s: you look for your error page’s title among [page titles](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/13844738), or [send an event](https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/ga4/events) of your own. Chrome, Edge and Firefox tell fivebar’s script the status of every page they load, so the [Errors page](https://fiveb.ar/docs/error-pages.md) fills itself: which addresses fail, how often, and where their visitors came from, which is how a broken link shows up. ![fivebar’s Errors page for djangodocs.dev: 33 errors on 31 pages, a 15% error rate, each a 404, by day, status, source and device](https://fiveb.ar/img/vs/errors-light.webp?v=24e534e6) djangodocs.dev answered 33 page loads with a 404 that week, nearly all of them on one Saturday. ## The bots it left out Google Analytics leaves out known bots, and you [can’t see how many](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9888366). fivebar counts everything it leaves out on a [Bots page](https://fiveb.ar/docs/bots.md): how many pageviews, which pages, which networks, and why each was taken for a bot, by rules its docs set out. ![fivebar’s Bots page for djangodocs.dev: 94 pageviews taken for bots, 30% of them all, by day, and why: a hosting network, an automated browser or a crawler](https://fiveb.ar/img/vs/bots-light.webp?v=af2f5515) Nearly a third of djangodocs.dev’s pageviews that week were bots’, most of them from servers. ## Asking an app Google’s [MCP server for Google Analytics](https://github.com/googleanalytics/google-analytics-mcp) is marked experimental, reads only, and runs on your own computer: you install it with Python, set up a Google Cloud project with two APIs turned on, and sign in with Google’s command-line tools. Inside Google Analytics there’s [Ask Advisor](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/16675569), a Gemini chat, in beta. fivebar’s [MCP server](https://fiveb.ar/docs/mcp.md) is an address: add `https://fiveb.ar/api/mcp` to Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Cursor or any app that takes one, sign in and choose Allow. The app reads your stats with fivebar’s rules about what they mean, and if you tick a box, adds goals and changes settings when you ask. ## Where your stats are kept Google [collects EU and UK visits on servers there](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/12017362), which drop each IP address, then sends them on to Analytics’ own servers, relying on the [EU-US Data Privacy Framework](https://business.safety.google/adsdatatransfers/) to take them to the US. Nothing fivebar keeps is at rest outside the EU, or on a US company’s server, and your stats are on its servers in Germany, at Hetzner ([Infrastructure](https://fiveb.ar/docs/infrastructure.md)). ## Prices Google Analytics is free. Its paid edition, 360, is [sold by contract](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/11202874), through [Google or a partner](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/14985986). fivebar’s plans start at $5 a month for 10k pageviews, $50 for a million and $165 for ten ([Pricing](https://fiveb.ar/pricing/index.md)), each with every feature and up to 1,024 sites. ## What Google Analytics has that fivebar doesn’t - **[Funnels](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9327974)** and explorations of every kind. - **[Ecommerce](https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/ga4/ecommerce)**: purchases, products and revenue. - **Google Ads**: [audiences](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9267572) to advertise to. - **[BigQuery export](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9358801)** of every event. - **Apps and websites** [in one property](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9303323). - **No price**, however busy your site. ## Switching [Add fivebar’s tag](https://fiveb.ar/docs/install.md) beside Google’s, and run both for a few weeks, so you have both counts for the same days. Expect different visitors: Google counts users, browsers it tells apart by a cookie, across any range, and fivebar each visitor once a day. Where your pages call [`gtag('event', …)`](https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/ga4/events), call [`tally()`](https://fiveb.ar/docs/events.md) with the same name and parameters. fivebar can’t bring your Google Analytics history over yet. Checked on 19 October 2026, on Google’s own pages, each linked where it’s used.