When comparing Amplitude vs Google Universal Analytics, the Slant community recommends Amplitude for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-platform mobile analytics tools?” Amplitude is ranked 3rd while Google Universal Analytics is ranked 4th. The most important reason people chose Amplitude is:
Any output data you can get in a dashboard, you can also get as JSON through their export API.
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Pros
Pro Get JSON data with export API
Any output data you can get in a dashboard, you can also get as JSON through their export API.
Pro Generous free plan
The free plan allows you to log 10 million events per month. There are also 2 paid plans - Business and Enterprise. Business costs $995 and allows for up to 100M events per month while Enterprise has the price is negotiated on a case by case basis and supports an unlimited number of events.
Pro Event Flows visualize popular user paths
Event Flows, an Enterprise level feature, shows a branching user-action path from or towards a certain page/action.
For example, it could show most popular actions performed after landing on a product page or the most popular path towards clicking the buy button.
Compared to funnels, that allow you to track if users follows a predetermined path and where they drop off, Event Flows show what users choose to do instead. And while it's possible to create a funnel for each branching path, that involves a lot of time and some guesswork which is not present in Event Flows.
Additionally, it's possible to integrate Amplitude with Mode to create a User Paths report. It's similar to the Event Flow, but visualized differently.
Pro SDK is open source and transparent
For apps that need high security auditing, or just if you want to know what code you're including, the SDK is open source with code available on GitHub.
Pro Gives you raw SQL access to your data
Enterprise customers can get direct access to Amazon Redshift's PostgreSQL Database. This offers multiple benefits - it allows for queries that are not supported by the dashboard, gives portability and ownership and allows using that data to build realt-time services based on that data.
Pro Free for most use cases
Google Analytics is free unless you need their premium service, which is $150,000 per year. However, it's only necessary for massively large enterprise size data sets.
Pro Provides free training
Google provides free services that train users in each aspect of Google Analytics, especially when used in conjunction with AdWords.
Pro Integrate with adwords
Pro Allows custom dashboards
Depending on the most important information to the user, the dashboard can be customized in order to put emphasis on certain metrics. This feature allows Google Analytics to satisfy users from a broad range of industries.
Pro Google Play analytics
Because it's a Google product, Google Analytics can tell you how users discovered your app through Google Play.
Pro Import data
Google Analytics allows users to update user information from other sources.
Pro Integrates with AdMob
Since Google owns AdMob, they can provide deep integration, and allow you to respond to data with marketing campaigns.
Cons
Con No installation tracking out of the box
It's possible to enable installation tracking by using a third-party service like Adjust and routing their data to Amplitude.
Con Steep learning curve
Con User-based analytics is lacking
Google Analytics tracks visitor actions, their user action tracking is still very basic. It has started supporting user ID, but in a very basic way.
Con Data may only be downloaded in PDF form
If you want to download data in any other format, you're out of luck. Data can only be downloaded in PDF format.
Con Basic integration takes around 2 hours
Con Can't handle authenticated users
