HitKeep vs Google Analytics (GA4)

Google Analytics is free and has the largest feature set of any analytics tool in existence. HitKeep is a narrower, privacy-first alternative — and it is honest about that trade-off.

The Core Difference

Google Analytics 4: Your data is processed by Google. It powers their advertising business. Google retains the data and makes it available to you through their interface and API — but you don’t own it.

HitKeep: Your data lives in hitkeep.db on your own server. No third party has access to it, and it never leaves your infrastructure.

Feature Comparison

Feature	HitKeep	Google Analytics 4
Self-hosted / data ownership	✓	✗
Cookie-less by default	✓	✗
Consent banner required (EU)	No	Yes
GDPR compliant	✓ (by design)	Complex / disputed
Open source	✓ MIT	✗
Price	Free	Free (data is the price)
Zero telemetry / data sharing	✓	✗
Air-gap compatible	✓	✗
Goals / conversions	✓	✓
Funnels	✓	✓
UTM tracking	✓	✓
Custom events	✓	✓
Email reports	✓	✓
Shareable dashboards	✓	✓
Ecommerce / purchase tracking	✗	✓
Revenue reporting	✗	✓
Advanced segmentation	✗	✓
Custom dimensions / properties	✗	✓
Exploration reports	✗	✓
Predictive audiences / ML	✗	✓
Anomaly detection / alerts	✗	✓
Cross-device tracking	✗ (by design)	✓
Google Ads integration	✗	✓
Search Console integration	✗	✓
Looker Studio / BigQuery export	✗	✓
Mobile SDK (iOS / Android)	✗	✓
WebAuthn / Passkeys	✓	✗
Tracking snippet size	~2 KB	~45 KB

What HitKeep Is Missing

HitKeep is a web traffic analytics tool. GA4 is a full digital measurement platform. The gaps are real and worth understanding before switching.

Ecommerce and revenue tracking — GA4 has deep ecommerce support: product impressions, add-to-cart events, purchase values, refunds, revenue by channel, and lifetime value attribution. HitKeep tracks pageviews and custom events but has no revenue or shopping cart dimension. Ecommerce event support is on the roadmap.

Advanced segmentation and exploration reports — GA4’s Explore section lets you build custom reports, cohort tables, user path explorations, and funnel explorations with arbitrary filter combinations. HitKeep’s reporting is more structured and less flexible.

Custom dimensions and event parameters — GA4 lets you register custom dimensions at the event and user level and report on them across all data. HitKeep supports event names but not arbitrary parameter dimensions.

Predictive metrics and ML — GA4’s machine learning produces purchase and churn probability scores, predictive audiences, and anomaly detection. HitKeep has none of this.

Alerting — GA4 can alert you when traffic spikes or drops unexpectedly. HitKeep has no alerting or anomaly detection today; this is on the roadmap.

Google ecosystem integrations — GA4 connects natively to Google Ads, Google Search Console, Looker Studio, and BigQuery. HitKeep connects to nothing external by design — this is its privacy strength and its integration limitation simultaneously.

Mobile SDK — GA4 has official iOS, Android, and Flutter SDKs. HitKeep currently only has hk.js for web.

Cross-device tracking — GA4 can stitch sessions across devices using Google’s signed-in identity graph. HitKeep explicitly does not track individual users across sessions — this is a privacy choice, not an oversight.

Privacy & Legal

Multiple European data protection authorities (Austria DSB, French CNIL, Italian Garante, Danish Datatilsynet, Norwegian Datatilsynet) have ruled that Google Analytics transfers personal data to the United States in violation of GDPR, because Google can access the data. Organizations using GA4 in the EU face real regulatory risk.

See: NOYB.eu complaints and EDPB guidance

Cookie-less by default. No personal identifiers stored. IP addresses are used only for geolocation during ingest and are not persisted. Data stays on your server. No consent banner is typically required under the ePrivacy Directive.

Why Developers Switch

The most common reasons teams move from GA4:

GDPR / legal risk — EU organisations removing GA4 to avoid regulatory exposure
Cookie consent fatigue — removing consent banners by switching to cookie-less tracking
Data ownership — GA4’s 14-month data retention default, no raw export without BigQuery
Simplicity — GA4’s interface is complex; most users only need traffic and conversion data
Snippet performance — HitKeep’s hk.js is ~2 KB; GA4’s snippet adds ~45 KB to every page load

What HitKeep Does Not Replace

Be clear-eyed about this before switching:

Google Ads attribution — if you run Google paid campaigns and need click-level attribution, GA4 is tightly integrated with Google Ads in ways no independent tool can replicate
Search Console data — click and impression data from Google Search is only available via Search Console integration with GA4
Exploration reports — GA4’s free-form exploration reporting is genuinely powerful; HitKeep’s reports are more structured
Ecommerce reporting — if you sell products and need detailed revenue analytics, GA4’s ecommerce layer is comprehensive (though HitKeep ecommerce support is on the roadmap)
ML-driven insights — predictive audiences, churn probability, anomaly detection

If you only need to understand web traffic — pageviews, sessions, sources, conversions, and funnels — HitKeep covers this well. If you need deep ecommerce analytics, complex custom reporting, or Google ecosystem integrations, GA4 remains the stronger choice for those specific needs.

Migrating from Google Analytics

HitKeep cannot import historical GA4 data (different data models). Suggested migration:

Install HitKeep and add hk.js to your site
Run both tools in parallel for 2–4 weeks to validate data quality
Remove GA4 once you’re satisfied

Historical GA4 data can be exported via the GA4 Data Export API or BigQuery before you decommission it.

Security & Third-Party Requests

GA4 loads googletagmanager.com and google-analytics.com in every page load. Dashboard users make requests to Google’s infrastructure.

HitKeep serves all assets from your instance. Zero external requests from the browser. Fully auditable under MIT license.

See Security Overview →

Ready to try HitKeep? Get started →

Prefer managed? Join the HitKeep Cloud waitlist →