GAinWP Google Analytics Integration for WordPress vs SlimStat Analytics

The GAinWP Google Analytics Integration for WordPress plugin easily integrates Google Analytics tracking and dashboard reporting into your website in just minutes. It was created from the excellent Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress (GADWP) plugin to maintain a simple, direct Google Analytics integration for those concerned about data privacy. In addition to a set of general Google Analytics stats, in-depth page reports and in-depth post reports allow further segmentation of your analytics data, providing performance details for each post or page from your website. The Google Analytics tracking code is fully customizable through options and hooks, allowing advanced data collection like custom dimensions and events. Google Analytics Real-Time Stats Google Analytics reports, in real-time, in your dashboard screen: Real-time number of visitors Real-time acquisition channels Real-time traffic sources details Google Analytics Reports The Google Analytics reports you need, on your dashboard, in your All Posts and All Pages screens, and on site’s frontend: Sessions, organic searches, page views, bounce rate analytics stats Locations, pages, referrers, keywords, 404 errors analytics stats Traffic channels, social networks, traffic mediums, search engines analytics stats Device categories, browsers, operating systems, screen resolutions, mobile brands analytics stats In addition, you can control who can view specific Google Analytics reports by setting permissions based on user roles. Google Analytics Tracking Installs the latest Google Analytics tracking code and allows full code customization: Universal Google Analytics (analytics.js) tracking code Global Site Tag (gtag.js) tracking code Enhanced link attribution Remarketing, demographics and interests tracking Page Speed sampling rate control User sampling rate control Cross domain tracking Exclude user roles from tracking Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) support for Google Analytics Ecommerce support for Google Analytics User privacy oriented features: IP address anonymization option to follow Do Not Track (DNT) sent by browsers support for user tracking opt-out GAinWP enables you to easily track events like: Downloads Emails Outbound links Affiliate links Fragment identifiers Telephone Page Scrolling Depth Custom event categories, actions and labels using annotated HTML elements With GAinWP you can use custom dimensions to track: Authors Publication year Publication month Categories Tags User engagement Actions and filters are available for further Google Analytics tracking code customization. Google Tag Manager Tracking As an alternative to Google Analytics tracking code, you can use Google Tag Manager for tracking: Google Tag Manager code Data Layer variables: authors, publication year, publication month, categories, tags, user type Exclude user roles from tracking Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) support for Google Tag Manager Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) features Google Tag Manager basic tracking Google Analytics basic tracking Automatically removes amp/ from Google Analytics tracking page URL Scrolling depth tracking Custom dimensions tracking User sampling rate control Form submit tracking File downloads tracking Affiliate links tracking Hashmarks, outbound links, telephones and e-mails tracking Custom event categories, actions and labels using annotated HTML elements GAinWP on Multisite This plugin is fully compatible with multisite network installs, allowing three setup modes: Mode 1: network activated using multiple Google Analytics accounts Mode 2: network activated using a single Google Analytics account Mode 3: network deactivated using multiple Google Analytics accounts GAinWP on GitHub You can submit feature requests or bugs on GAinWP repository. Why this Plugin The IntelligenceWP project leverages the GADWP plugin for core Google Analytics integrations. After the Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress changed maintainers in April 2018, users expressed concern over the new auth process proving 3rd party access to Google API keys and analytics data. GAinWP implements a direct auth process where API keys only reside in your WordPress site eliminating 3rd party access. The long term goal of the project is to provide an open, standards based Google Analytics WordPress API to facilitate integration of Google Analytics data by other plugins and themes into WordPress. Credits This plugin was originally created by Alin Marcu as the Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress (GADWP) Standard Installation Upload the full ga-in directory into your wp-content/plugins directory. In WordPress select Plugins from your sidebar menu and activate the GAINWP – Google Analytics Integration for WordPress plugin. Open the plugin General Settings page, which is located under Google Analytics menu. Make sure Setup Mode is set to “Tracking & Reporting” (default). Click the Authorize Plugin button. Click the red Get Access Code link to open a new browser tab/window and follow the steps to generate the code. Back on your WordPress browser tab/window, copy and paste the access code into the Access Code input field. Click Save Access Code button. After the save, select the Tracking ID / View for your site. Click the Save Changes button. Reporting Only Installation Complete steps 1-3 from the Standard Installation. Set Setup Mode to “Reporting only”. Click Save Changes. Complete steps 5-8 from the Standard Installation. Tracking Only Installation Follow setups 1-3 of the Standard Installation. Set Setup Mode to “Tracking only”. Copy and paste your Tracking ID from Google Analytics into the Tracking ID input. Click Save Changes. Localization You can translate GAinWP on translate.wordpress.org. License GAinWP it’s released under the GPLv2, you can use it free of charge on your personal or commercial website.

Most analytics plugins quietly hand your visitors to someone else’s cloud. SlimStat doesn’t. Every pageview, click, and visitor lands in your own WordPress database and stays there: yours to read in real time, yours to purge whenever you want, never shipped off to Google or anyone else. See the whole story the moment it happens: who’s on your site right now, where they are in the world, what they’re reading, and which links they follow on the way out. Set a goal and watch it convert, or chain a few steps into a WooCommerce funnel and see exactly where people slip away. It’s the depth you’d expect from a hosted analytics service, running entirely on your own terms. Best part: privacy isn’t a setting you have to hunt for. Anonymized IPs, Do Not Track, a consent banner, and scheduled data cleanup are GDPR-ready from the first activation. Thousands of WordPress sites already trust SlimStat to keep their analytics honest, fast, and entirely their own. Main Features Real-time access log — Your site’s pulse, live. Watch each visit land the instant it happens: the page, the spot on the map, the search or link that sent them, how quickly your server replied, human or bot. Complete access log — Every visit in one searchable table. Drill into the full history and break it down by date, country, browser, OS, referrer, search term, or content type to answer the questions the summary charts can’t. Goals & funnels — Turn raw traffic into answers. Define a goal to measure a conversion (a WooCommerce sale, a signup, a key pageview) and see uniques, totals, and conversion rate. Or chain steps into a funnel to spot exactly where visitors drop off. One goal is free; up to five goals and full funnels unlock with Pro. Outbound link report — See which external links actually earn clicks. SlimStat records every outbound link your visitors follow, so you know what’s sending traffic off your site and which partnerships pull their weight. Know your visitors — Go past pageviews to the people behind them: returning readers, logged-in users, and a full audience breakdown by country, language, browser, OS, and screen size. (Pro’s User Overview adds per-visitor journeys, time on site, and Gravatars.) Your data, your server — No third-party cloud, no Google looking over your shoulder. Every byte lives in your WordPress database, and one-way IP hashing lets you count unique visitors without ever storing who they are. GDPR, sorted — Anonymize or hash IPs, honor Do Not Track, auto-purge old records on a schedule, and drop in a translatable consent banner that snaps straight into the WP Consent API (WPML and Polylang welcome). Compliance by design, not an afterthought. Admin bar stats — Keep an eye on the numbers without leaving your work. Online visitors, pageviews, and top pages sit one glance away in the WordPress admin bar, on every screen. Make every report yours — Rearrange, add, or hide widgets across Real-Time, Overview, Audience, Site Analysis, and Traffic Sources until each screen shows exactly what you care about. Shortcodes — Drop any report into a widget, post, or page with a single shortcode. Filters — Decide who counts. Skip your own team, known bots, whole IP ranges, admin pages, or entire countries so your stats reflect real visitors, not noise. Geolocation — Put a city and country to every visitor, plus their browser and operating system, powered by MaxMind and Browscap. World map — Watch your audience light up across the globe at a glance, even from your phone (map by JQVMap). Export & email — Download your reports as CSV files, generate user heatmaps, or get the day’s numbers in your inbox each morning (heatmaps and email reports via Pro). Cache-friendly — Plays nicely with W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, Cloudflare, and most caching plugins. Pro Pack Features Love the free plugin? Pro is for sites that live by their numbers. It adds the heavier tools without changing a thing about how SlimStat respects your data: Email reports — Wake up to the numbers that matter. Schedule the reports you care about and have them land in your inbox as clean HTML tables, with the columns laid out your way. Heatmaps — See exactly where visitors click, and where they don’t, with a heatmap layer painted right over your live pages. User overview — Follow individual registered users: what they viewed, how long they stayed, and how fast your server answered, with Gravatars to put a face to the visit. Extended overview — Add your own columns to the User Overview report and export file, so it tracks exactly what your site cares about. More goals & funnels — Up to five conversion goals and three full funnels, with ready-made templates for WooCommerce checkout, signups, and content engagement. Network analytics — Run reports and settings across an entire multisite network from one place. MaxMind integration — Connect MaxMind’s geolocation API for richer, more precise detail on where your visitors come from. Custom database — Store all your analytics in a separate, external database to keep your main WordPress DB lean. Export to Excel — Download any report as a ready-to-share Excel file. Requirements WordPress 5.6+ PHP 7.4+ MySQL 5.0.3+ At least 5 MB of free web space (240 MB if you plan on using the external libraries for geolocation and browser detection) At least 10 MB of free DB space At least 32 Mb of free PHP memory for the tracker (peak memory usage) Please note If you decide to uninstall Slimstat Analytics, all the stats will be PERMANENTLY deleted from your database. Make sure to setup a database backup (wp_slim_*) to avoid losing your data. Report Bugs Having trouble with a bug? Please create an issue on GitHub. Kindly note that GitHub is exclusively for bug reports; other inquiries will be closed. For security vulnerabilities, please report them through the Patchstack Vulnerability Disclosure Program. The Patchstack team will validate, triage, and handle any security issues.