Comparison with Other Tools
There is no single “best” analytics tool. Liwan is designed for a small self-hosted setup with no external database. If you need deeper product analytics or marketing-specific workflows, another tool may fit better.
At a Glance
Section titled “At a Glance”| Tool | Self-hosted | Hosted cloud | Self-contained1 | Funnels/Goals | Ads attribution2 | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liwan | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ➖ | Apache-2.0 |
| Matomo | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | GPL-3.0 |
| Plausible | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ➖ | AGPL-3.03 |
| Umami | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | MIT |
| PostHog | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ➖ | MIT |
| Mixpanel | ❌ | ✅ | N/A | ✅ | ➖ | Proprietary |
| Google Analytics | ❌ | ✅ | N/A | ✅ | ✅ | Proprietary |
Tool-by-tool Notes
Section titled “Tool-by-tool Notes”Liwan fits teams that want basic web analytics with low operational overhead. It works well for blogs, content sites, and smaller products where simple traffic reporting is enough.
Matomo
Section titled “Matomo”Matomo is a mature platform with a broad feature set and many customization options. Compared to Liwan, it generally includes more built-in reporting depth (for example goals, funnels, ecommerce reporting, and plugins). It is usually a better fit when you need that depth and are comfortable operating a larger stack.
Plausible
Section titled “Plausible”Plausible focuses on simple analytics with a clean product workflow. Compared to Liwan, it typically has stronger built-in goal and event reporting. It can be a good fit if you want privacy-focused analytics and do not need a self-contained setup. The self-hosted Community Edition is AGPL-3.0, which can be a downside for teams that require a permissive license policy. Plausible also has a hosted offering, and features can differ from the Community Edition.
Umami is lightweight, open source, and widely used. Compared to Liwan, it often has more community integrations and a more familiar web-app style dashboard flow. It can be a good fit if you want a self-hosted setup and do not mind running an external database.
PostHog
Section titled “PostHog”PostHog is often used for product analytics-heavy setups. Compared to Liwan, it usually covers a wider range of product analytics features (for example funnels, retention, and cohorts), with higher operational complexity.
Mixpanel
Section titled “Mixpanel”Mixpanel is commonly used for product analytics, especially funnels, retention, and behavior analysis. Compared to Liwan, it is more focused on deep product analytics workflows, but it is a hosted proprietary product.
Google Analytics
Section titled “Google Analytics”Google Analytics is widely used for ad and marketing integrations and attribution workflows. Compared to Liwan, it generally has deeper campaign attribution and conversion tracking. It is not self-hosted, and data is processed in a third-party cloud. If tighter data control is a requirement, self-hosted options are often preferred.