A step-by-step plan to move off Google Analytics: audit what you use, pick a tool, run both side by side, recreate goals and remove the old tag safely.
Moving off Google Analytics is less about technology than about not losing things you rely on. The new tool takes a few minutes to install. The work is deciding what you actually use, keeping the history you care about, and removing the old tag and cookie banner in the right order. This is the plan we would follow.
Open Google Analytics and write down the reports and numbers you looked at in the last three months. For most small sites that is a short list: visitors, top pages, where traffic comes from, countries and devices. Also note anything configured on top:
If your list is “traffic, sources, pages, a couple of goals”, almost any alternative will do. If it includes funnels and audiences, read our comparison of alternatives first, because the lightest tools will not cover that.
Most alternatives cannot import Google Analytics data, and Google keeps detailed event-level data for a limited time (up to 14 months, depending on your property’s retention setting). Before you switch, export what you will want later:
Keep these somewhere you will find them. A year-over-year comparison later is far easier with a spreadsheet of last year’s numbers than with nothing.
Decide between hosted and self-hosted, and how much depth you need. Hosted tools (Plausible, Fathom, Simple Analytics, Tidemark Cloud and others) need no server. Self-hosted tools (Matomo, Umami, Plausible Community Edition, Tidemark) keep the data on your own hosting. The alternatives guide and the self-hosting guide will narrow it down.
Do not remove Google Analytics yet. Add the new tool’s script to the same pages. With Tidemark, for example, it is one line in your <head>:
<script defer data-domain="yourdomain.com"
src="https://app.tidemarkanalytics.com/js/script.js"></script>
Run both for at least two to four weeks, long enough to cover a full cycle of your traffic. The numbers will not match exactly, and that is normal: tools define visitors, sessions and bounce rate differently, filter bots differently, and are affected differently by ad blockers. Compare trends over time, not exact totals.
List the conversions you tracked and recreate them. In most privacy-friendly tools a goal is either a page visit (for example /thank-you) or a custom event you send from your code. Tools that follow Plausible’s conventions, including Tidemark, share the same pattern:
window.plausible('Signup')
Add the matching goal in the new tool’s settings. Outbound link clicks, file downloads and form submissions can usually be turned on with a script option instead of code. See our guide to tracking links and downloads without cookies.
If you are moving between privacy-friendly tools, imports are often possible. Tidemark can import a Plausible export, for example. Google Analytics history cannot generally be imported, which is why step 2 matters.
Once Google Analytics is gone, your site may no longer need the analytics part of its consent banner, but that depends on what else you run (ads, embedded video, chat widgets) and on the rules where you operate. Read our note on cookie banners, then update your privacy policy to describe what you use now. Ask a qualified adviser if you are unsure.
When the new numbers look right and your goals are firing:
Send teammates a short note: where the dashboard is, which numbers will look different, and that history before the switch lives in the exports you saved. Set a calendar reminder for a month out to review whether the new tool answers the questions you actually ask.
Most people finish in a weekend and spend the following month mostly checking that nothing is missing.