Web Analytics · Comparison
Cloudflare Web Analytics vs. Google Analytics
Cloudflare Web Analytics and Google Analytics compared across Company facts, Pricing, Analytics capabilities, Privacy & compliance, Data ownership & deployment and Platform & integrations — every fact sourced and re-verified from each vendor's public material.
Cloudflare Web Analytics
Free, privacy-first web analytics that tracks page views without cookies or fingerprinting.
Google Analytics
Free web and app analytics platform by Google with audience and conversion insights.
Company facts
Headquarters
San Francisco, CA
Mountain View, CA Google's main campus (Googleplex) is in Mountain View, CA. GA4 is a Google product.
Employees
5.2k
190.8k Alphabet/Google had ~190,820 full-time employees at year-end 2025 per company reporting.
Pricing
Offers Free Tier
Cloudflare Web Analytics is entirely free — there are no paid tiers for this product.
GA4 standard is entirely free to use with no time limit. Google Analytics 360 is the paid enterprise tier.
Free Trial Length (Days)
0 days
0 days No free trial needed — GA4 standard is permanently free. No paid plan exists at entry level.
Entry Plan Website Limit
10 sites Soft limit of 10 sites per account (free product; raisable via Cloudflare support).
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Analytics capabilities
Real-Time Dashboard
No live/current-visitors view; real-time dashboard updates are for paid zone analytics, not the free Web Analytics product.
Realtime report shows active users in last 5 and 30 minutes, events, sources, and pages as they happen.
Custom Event Tracking
Web Analytics tracks only pageviews/visits; custom event tracking requires the separate Zaraz product.
Custom events tracked via gtag('event', '<name>', {params}) or Google Tag Manager on any plan.
Goal / Conversion Tracking
No goal or conversion rate reporting in Cloudflare Web Analytics.
Any event can be marked as a key event (conversion); GA4 reports key-event counts and rates by source, medium, and campaign.
Funnels
No
Funnel Exploration (in Explore) supports up to 10 steps with per-step drop-off rates, open and closed funnel modes.
Ecommerce / Revenue Tracking
Revenue tracking is a Zaraz product feature, not part of Cloudflare Web Analytics.
Native ecommerce reporting includes revenue by transaction, purchase journey, checkout journey, and monetization overview.
Heatmaps
No
GA4 has no built-in click/scroll heatmap feature. Heatmaps require a separate third-party tool (e.g. Hotjar, Microsoft Clarity).
Privacy & compliance
Cookieless Tracking
Cookieless by default — does not use cookies or localStorage to collect usage metrics.
GA4 uses first-party cookies (_ga, _ga_<id>) by default. Cookieless operation is not a supported mode.
Consent Banner Required
No cookie banner needed for Web Analytics alone; the tool sets no cookies and collects no personal identifiers.
GA4 sets cookies and processes personal data; GDPR/ePrivacy require a consent banner for EU users.
GDPR Compliant
Cloudflare maintains a GDPR trust page and uses EU Standard Contractual Clauses for data transfers.
Google states it operates as a GDPR data processor for GA4, with Data Processing Terms, ISO 27001, and consent tooling.
EU Data Residency
Free Web Analytics product does not offer EU data residency; Data Localization Suite is a separate enterprise add-on.
EU traffic is initially collected on EU servers but is then forwarded to Google Analytics processing servers globally; data is not stored exclusively in the EU.
Data ownership & deployment
Open Source
Proprietary cloud product. Counterscale is a separate MIT-licensed community project, not Cloudflare Web Analytics.
GA4 is a proprietary cloud service. No source code is publicly available.
License
proprietary
proprietary GA4 is a closed-source cloud product. API client libraries are Apache 2.0 but the platform is proprietary.
Self-Hostable
No
GA4 is cloud-only with no self-hosting option. All data is sent to Google's servers.
Data Retention (Months)
6 mo Free plan retains approximately 6 months of analytics history.
14 mo Free GA4 properties can choose 2 or 14 months retention for user/event-level data; 14 months is the maximum on the free tier.
Unlimited Data Retention
No
Free GA4 caps retention at 14 months for user/event-level data. No unlimited/forever retention option on any GA4 tier.
Google Analytics Import
No
GA4 cannot import historical Universal Analytics analytics data. Data Import covers external business data (cost, item, user, offline events) only — not migrating legacy GA report history.
Raw Data Export
Web Analytics (RUM) data is queryable and pageable via the GraphQL Analytics API; no in-dashboard CSV button.
Raw event-level data exportable to BigQuery (free sandbox available); daily and streaming export modes. Data API also available.
Platform & integrations
Has API
GraphQL Analytics API provides programmatic access to Web Analytics data.
GA4 Data API (v1) enables programmatic querying of analytics data with runReport, runRealtimeReport, and more.
Tracking Script Size (KB)
11.2 KB Measured compressed transfer size.
135.7 KB gtag.js baseline payload; varies with property configuration.
Official WordPress Plugin
No official Cloudflare-published WordPress plugin specifically for Web Analytics; community plugins exist.
Site Kit by Google is an official Google-published WordPress plugin that includes GA4 integration.
Email Reports
Weekly email digest reports available via Cloudflare's Notifications system.
GA4 admins can schedule up to 50 reports for email delivery (daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly) in PDF or CSV format.
Public Dashboard Sharing
No public or shareable-link dashboard; sharing requires granting Cloudflare account access.
GA4 reports cannot be shared publicly without a Google account. Share links require recipients to have GA property access.
The verdict
Cloudflare Web Analytics Best for privacy-first, low-overhead pageview counts
Cookieless by default with no consent banner required, versus GA4 which sets cookies and needs one. Its tracking script is 11.2 KB against GA4's 135.7 KB. Fully free with no paid tier. The trade-off: no real-time dashboard, custom events, goal tracking, funnels, or ecommerce reporting, and only 6 months of retention.
Full profile Google Analytics Best for conversion, funnel, and ecommerce reporting
GA4 adds goal/conversion tracking, up-to-10-step funnels, native ecommerce revenue reporting, custom events, and a real-time dashboard — none of which Cloudflare Web Analytics offers. It retains 14 months of data versus 6, and ships an official WordPress plugin (Site Kit). The cost: first-party cookies and a required consent banner.
Full profileSources · 38 verified references
sec.gov about.google macrotrends.net cloudflare.com marketingplatform.google.com developers.cloudflare.com + 7 more
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