Alternative to Google Analytics

[redirection]

I saw this post somewhere and have convinced me to use Piwik Analytics.
I'm currently Downloading it.

- There is not potential for downrange cost which there clearly is in the Google TOS:
2. FEES AND SERVICES . Subject to Section 15 herein, the Service is provided without charge to You for up to 5 million pageviews per month per account, and if You have an active Adwords campaign in good standing, the Service is provided without charge to You without a pageview limitation.

Google may change its fees and payment policies for the Service from time to time including but not limited to the addition of costs for geographic data, the importing of cost data from search engines, or other fees charged to Google or its wholly-owned subsidiaries by 3rd party vendors for the inclusion of data in the Service reports. The changes to the fees or payment policies are effective upon Your acceptance of such changes which will be posted at Google Analytics | Official Website (or such other URL Google may provide from time to time). Unless otherwise stated, all fees are quoted in U.S. Dollars. Any outstanding balance becomes immediately due and payable upon termination of this Agreement for any reason and any collection expenses (including attorneys' fees) incurred by Google will be included in the amount owed, and may be charged to the credit card or other billing mechanism associated with your Adwords account.
Source: Google Analytics | Official Website

- Piwik does not sell or reuse your data which you let Google use under their TOS:
6. INFORMATION RIGHTS AND PUBLICITY . Google and its wholly owned subsidiaries may retain and use, subject to the terms of its Privacy Policy (located at Google Privacy Center , or such other URL as Google may provide from time to time), information collected in Your use of the Service. Google will not share information associated with You or your Site with any third parties unless Google (i) has Your consent; (ii) concludes that it is required by law or has a good faith belief that access, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of Google, its users or the public; or (iii) provides such information in certain limited circumstances to third parties to carry out tasks on Google's behalf (e.g., billing or data storage) with strict restrictions that prevent the data from being used or shared except as directed by Google . When this is done, it is subject to agreements that oblige those parties to process such information only on Google's instructions and in compliance with this Agreement and appropriate confidentiality and security measures."


- Its open source (some people consider this a bad...)

Overall - If you're a small publisher, does the fact Big G can use your data really matter? Or is it more of the fact that they can't reuse it with non-G companies without your permission the bigger deal? I would think they pretty much already have most of this information with or without Analytics being installed, its just the fact you don't give them permission to use it officially.

The Piwik Advantages (from the development site):

Real time web analytics reports: in Piwik, reports are by default generated in real time. For high traffic websites, you can choose the frequency for reports to be processed (more info)
You own your web analytics data: because Piwik is installed on your server, the data is stored in your own database and you can get all the statistics using the powerful Piwik Analytics API
Modern, easy to use User Interface: you can fully customize your dashboard, drag and drop widgets you want to display.
Piwik features are built inside plugins: you can add new features and remove the ones you don’t need. You can build your own web analytics plugins or hire a consultant to have your custom feature built in Piwik
Vibrant international Open community of more than 50,000 active users
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[VIBGYORtel]

hummm......you will find better option in piwik

[cixx6]

I'm currently trying piwik, and I really like their realtime stats widget, its useful if you want to track your lastest visitors.

[togotutor]

Histat is another one, I find it really cool and have been using onmy site for a couple of months.

[redirection]

Histat is another one, I find it really cool and have been using onmy site for a couple of months.

i've tried histat too but i'm sticking with piwik. i like it.

[Akainu]

i have not tried anything else then Google Analytics.