Ayup! I’ve been using Koko Analytics on my websites for several years now. This review shares a few thoughts on the increasingly popular WordPress plugin. I’ll cover the simple, yet substantial stats, privacy benefits, use cases and the integration with WordPress.
Koko Analytics is currently active on 60’000+ sites and has a five-star rating based on 231 reviews. It’s completely free, with the option to unlock additional features with a pro subscription. The developer is ibericode, an umbrella company for projects by Danny van Kooten and friends.
Koko Analytics is a privacy-friendly, open-source and highly efficient analytics plugin for WordPress.
It does not use any external services and respects your visitor’s privacy.
Koko Analytics Review
Having recently moved my personal site back to WordPress from Squarespace, something occurred to me about Koko Analytics; the visitor data you’re presented with is refreshingly minimal.
You can see how many views each page/post receives and where the traffic came from. Furthermore, you get a handy comparison on visitor numbers and page views against the previous period.
Simple, beautiful and not in any way overwhelming. Conversely, anything like GA4 or even Squarespace analytics can easily feel off-putting. Way too much going on for most people’s needs.
With the pro upgrade, you unlock access to everything you’ll see on the demo site above. Knowing the countries your visitors are in and the browsers they’re on can be extremely useful. You can set up custom events, and it includes email reports, traffic spike alerts and more.
- Single site – $59 per year
- Five sites – $99 per year
- Unlimited – $199 per year
No hassle of setting up Google Analytics, or integrating analytics in WP. You can just see the most important user stats right off the WordPress Backend. I also like that it’s build with privacy of the visitors in mind.
Privacy and cookies
One of the main appeals of Koko Analytics is its focus on privacy. Love this aspect! If you turn off all cookie usage, you might not even have to annoy visitors with a consent banner. Different rules for different countries and all that, but I’m confident you probably won’t need one.
Google Analytics cookies provide insights into user behaviour, but privacy laws now require explicit consent before tracking.
Koko Analytics is GDPR and CCPA compliant. None of the data is stored, processed, shared or sold. This is far from being the case with Google’s offering. Statistics are general, rather than tracking individual visitor’s every move. Nice!
Lastly, everything stays on your website and server. No data is sent halfway around the world to another country with potentially less interest in protecting your visitors’ privacy.
WordPress integration
The plugin works seamlessly with your WordPress dashboard. It’s fast, lightweight, and not going to slow your site down. Massive tick!
I have it set up so that I can see today’s top pages/referrers and traffic numbers as soon as I log in. This, actually, is what I appreciated most when I moved my site back to WordPress.
More often than not, it’s all I need to know. Quick, simple and effortless. A quick glance whenever I pass through the dashboard works a treat. Every now and then, I’ll click through to view all statistics, but it’s useful to not have to always do this.
On Squarespace, it took three clicks to reach your analytics. Not that this puts you off, but it doesn’t exactly encourage you to view your stats every time you log in either.
Well maintained
I follow Danny over on Mastodon, so know first hand how well the plugin is maintained. It’s obvious that he takes this seriously. Whenever any small issues or conflicts arise due to WordPress updates, he’s on it.
Does what it says on the tin, no more, no less.
Fast, efficient, simple, and intuitive. Works wonders for simple needs.
Suitable for business websites?
As well as using Koko Analytics on my portfolio and blog, it’s also installed on my business site. Over at Leaflet Lion, SEO and visitor statistics are lot more important than on this site.
Still, however, there’s more than enough data to see how everything’s performing on search engines. Many SEO specialists will argue that you need to dive into GA4 for your site to have a real impact. Nope!
I get that each business and website will have its own requirements. For me, though, page views and referral sources are all I’m really interested in. Of course, I use this in addition to Google Search Console. This way, I can also keep track of indexed pages, impressions and search terms.
Yes, I’m a fan…
To sum up this Koko Analytics review, in case you hadn’t already guessed, I’m a huge fan. Five key advantages that stand out are:
- Simple, easy to absorb stats
- Privacy friendly
- Seamless WordPress integration
- Well maintained
- No need to show a consent banner*
All in all, a really useful plugin. One that you can sometimes take for granted, I guess. Ultimately, that was the driving force behind this post. It fully deserves all the appreciation and support it receives.
Nice work, Danny and team!
Good to know; there are no affiliate links in this article. I’m simply sharing some genuine feedback on a plugin that I use daily.
* May depend on your country of residence and would require you to select cookieless from the tracking settings.