Piwik analytics

[RObiN-HoOD]

I stumbled upon Piwik, an open source alternative to GA, that is quite impressive indeed, installed on your private server.

Anyone used it in conjunction with IPB? Opinions?

[GreenLinks]

Why spare resources to track statistics where as Google Analytics does it perfectly ?

[Grumpy]

Why spare resources to track statistics where as Google Analytics does it perfectly ?

I'd guess...

1. independence
2. information privacy
3. confidentiality
4. hate google?
5. Over their 90million req/month limit? (although seems rarely enforced)
6. Want to use features GA does not have?
7. Want to ADD features neither has?

[Aussie Cable]

I'd guess...

1. independence
2. information privacy
3. confidentiality
4. hate google?
5. Over their 90million req/month limit? (although seems rarely enforced)
6. Want to use features GA does not have?
7. Want to ADD features neither has?

LOL, excellent summary

Personally I use Piwik because I can track more with it than what Google analytics can, like in the private area's that I do not give GA or anyone else access to.

[RObiN-HoOD]

LOL, excellent summary

Personally I use Piwik because I can track more with it than what Google analytics can, like in the private area's that I do not give GA or anyone else access to.

I just installed it and set it up out of the box.

Since you use it, is that enough, or should it need special configuration to track extra stuff etc?

[GreenLinks]

I'd guess...

1. independence
2. information privacy
3. confidentiality
4. hate google?
5. Over their 90million req/month limit? (although seems rarely enforced)
6. Want to use features GA does not have?
7. Want to ADD features neither has?

5. If you have 90 million request per month , the servers you'll need will be massive. You'll surely have tons of other options instead of Piwik. Additionally servers that will monitor activity will not be cheap at all.

None of the other questions actually means a lot. You just used those to support your choice but all are actually none factor. Important factor is the money you need to spend on your servers.

[Aussie Cable]

I just installed it and set it up out of the box.

Since you use it, is that enough, or should it need special configuration to track extra stuff etc?

It seems to be fine for what I need out of analytics.

Don't get the wrong idea here, I also use GA, I find that Piwik gives me more data for the private area's of our community (because I don't allow GoogleBOT access to these area's).

[Grumpy]

5. If you have 90 million request per month , the servers you'll need will be massive. You'll surely have tons of other options instead of Piwik. Additionally servers that will monitor activity will not be cheap at all.

None of the other questions actually means a lot. You just used those to support your choice but all are actually none factor. Important factor is the money you need to spend on your servers.

Re #5: Even if you have tons of other options (which there isn't actually -- actually many alts like clicky simply doesn't accept sites too big), I'm not sure I understand your point... Are you implying Piwik is bad simply because there are more options? And at a pricing point, in-house solutions like piwik is LOT cheaper than track-for-you solutions by orders of magnitude.

The other points may not mean a lot to you, but it means a lot to others. Extreame above is a live example of where GA could not have been used. I've also rolled out several apps before that couldn't be tracked via GA for sensitivity reasons or be facing countless lawsuits. The "live" features is also a big one. Many other solutions offered it since long before GA rolled it out. If you wanted it, you had to get something else. If you have an application and want to track some areas GA isn't really designed for, GA can't be extended. What if you want to track the backend too in sync with front?

[MisterPhilip]

I feel I shall throw my $0.02 into the ring since this is my profession (Web analytics implementation engineer... this is all I deal with, every day ;))

Anyone used it in conjunction with IPB? Opinions?

Since it essentially is a drop in replacement for GA, it's basically GA but with no limitations. In other words, awesomeness.

Personally I use Piwik because I can track more with it than what Google analytics can, like in the private area's that I do not give GA or anyone else access to.

Just because you do not allow Google Bots into specific areas of your site doesn't mean it can't be tracked in Google Analytics. Your visitors send data to Google by requesting a pixel with a lot of URL parameters. These URL parameters and referrer information are what allow you to see the data in GA, not Google's bots. Even things like the in-page analytics will work.

Since you use it, is that enough, or should it need special configuration to track extra stuff etc?

Congrats on the install :) By default you don't need anything extra. However now you have the ability to track user-identifiable information in Piwik, unlike GA. This is great for debugging to be able to track down a specific member and see paths or other variables they used.

Don't get the wrong idea here, I also use GA, I find that Piwik gives me more data for the private area's of our community (because I don't allow GoogleBOT access to these area's).

Again, see above about how blocking Google bots != blocking Google Analytics data.

Re #5: Even if you have tons of other options (which there isn't actually -- actually many alts like clicky simply doesn't accept sites too big), I'm not sure I understand your point... Are you implying Piwik is bad simply because there are more options? And at a pricing point, in-house solutions like piwik is LOT cheaper than track-for-you solutions by orders of magnitude.

There are a lot of other options out there, Adobe SiteCatalyst (now Adobe Analytics), Webtrends, IBM Coremetrics are just a few to name. None of these are free but they can be a lot cheaper than you might expect.

In any case, Piwik is a great alternative to those looking to move away from Google Analytics. GA is great because it is super simple and you don't have to worry about anything. Piwik is great because it allows you to have a bit more flexibility and more types of data. Neither is necessarily better than the other in all cases. It will always depend on your situation to name a winner.

PS - I am currently developing 2 apps that do the same thing, 1 for Piwik and 1 for Google Analytics. Kinda similar to this app, but with options I've found suitable for making good business decisions needed from analytics.

[Eric Allione]

I'd guess...

• hate google?
• Want to use features GA does not have?

There's always Google Analytics Premium if you want to rob a bank for the sake of your hobby site.

pricetag:

150k/year

[RObiN-HoOD]

Congrats on the install :smile: By default you don't need anything extra. However now you have

the ability to track user-identifiable information in Piwik

, unlike GA. This is great for debugging to be able to track down a specific member and see paths or other variables they used.

PS - I am currently developing 2 apps that do the same thing, 1 for Piwik and 1 for Google Analytics. Kinda similar to

this app

, but with options I've found suitable for making good business decisions needed from analytics.

Is it easy to set this up? Can you tell me how?

Is the piwik app you a re mentioning for IPB to track thing in piwik? Is yes, when is it going to be ready approx.?

[MisterPhilip]

Is it easy to set this up? Can you tell me how?

Sure, you can pass in Custom Variables into Piwik, with things like member name, email address, IP, etc. And I should add a disclaimer here, just because this information is passed in doesn't mean it is necessarily used in a malicious way. Everyone screams "ZOMG PRIVACY!" but these reports are rarely looked at (usually for debugging purposes to see why something went wrong.) Also, a lot of this data can be found in server logs, so it isn't like the data isn't somewhere already.

Is the piwik app you a re mentioning for IPB to track thing in piwik? Is yes, when is it going to be ready approx.?

Correct, it's goal is to allow for admins to set custom variables to things like what skin they are using, what member group they are, etc. and custom events such as new forum post, member registration, etc. This will likely be free for release (hopefully sometime within the next month - GA will be first to release), with a future paid version that has paid support / pulls in data from GA/Piwik's APIs and shows various reports in the IPB admin interface. All of the above can be done by editing your templates without the need for an app. This just makes it a bit easier to do. Anyways, enough shamless advertising here. :tongue:

[RObiN-HoOD]

Great! I look forward to it. :)

I am one of those lazy admins that needs everything ready, because I am actually more of a Community Manager rather than an admin these days, so I appreciate every bit of automation and time-saver, that's why I pay for mods anyway.