Friendly Analytics vs Google Analytics: sovereignty vs free
Managed Matomo hosted in Switzerland versus the free default from Google. What you gain, what you give up, and who should actually make the switch.
Friendly Analytics is managed Matomo hosted in Switzerland: cookieless by default, aligned with GDPR and the Swiss nFADP, from 19 CHF per month. Google Analytics is free and integrates tightly with Google Ads, but processes data on Google's terms and needs prior consent. The real choice is convenience versus data sovereignty.
The short answer
Friendly Analytics is not a Google Analytics clone. It is Matomo, run for you by a Swiss company, hosted in Switzerland or the EU, tuned so that with default settings it runs without cookies. You pay from 59 CHF per month for what Google gives away free, and what you are buying is exactly the thing Google cannot sell you: your analytics not depending on Google.
If your marketing lives inside Google Ads, GA4's integration is worth more than sovereignty and you should probably stay. If you are a Swiss or EU business that mostly needs honest traffic and conversion numbers without a consent-banner fight, Friendly is one of the cleanest ways to get them.
What Friendly Analytics actually is
Three facts cover most of it:
- It is Matomo underneath. The same open-source analytics platform used by organizations like the UN and the European Commission. Friendly's product is Matomo-as-a-Service: they run the servers, updates, and support.
- It is built for the Swiss and EU privacy regimes. Hosting in Switzerland (or the EU), alignment with both the GDPR and Switzerland's revised data protection law (nFADP), and a cookieless default configuration. Friendly's own position is that with default settings a consent banner is usually not required; how that lands for your site is jurisdiction-dependent, so treat it as their claim to verify for your case, not a legal guarantee.
- The pricing is flat and small. Essential at 59 CHF/month; Professional at 129 CHF/month adds the tag manager, heatmaps, and funnels; Enterprise adds SLA and SSO. Annual billing runs about 17% cheaper, and they offer special conditions for nonprofits and young companies.
What you give up versus Google Analytics
Be clear-eyed about the trade, because the losses are real:
- The Google Ads loop. No native audience sharing or conversion feedback into Google's bidding. If paid Google traffic is a core channel, this is the deal-breaker, and it is better to know now.
- Free at any scale. GA4 costs nothing at ten times your traffic. Friendly's plans are cheap, but they are plans, and heavy traffic means higher tiers.
- The ecosystem. Every agency, hire, and Stack Overflow answer assumes GA4. With Matomo-based tools you trade ubiquity for support that actually answers.
What you get back: data on Swiss/EU soil under a contract with a company subject to those laws, measurement that does not evaporate with every consent rejection, and independence from the EU-US transfer framework question that GA4 users get to re-live with every court cycle.
Friendly vs plain Matomo: which flavor?
Since Friendly is Matomo, the real comparison is operational:
- Self-hosted Matomo: free (GPL), unlimited, on your servers, with your time as the recurring cost and paid plugins for some features. Right when you have ops capacity and hard residency requirements.
- Matomo Cloud: from €29/month, run by Matomo's own company, EU-hosted.
- Friendly: from 59 CHF/month, Swiss hosting, cookieless-by-default setup and support as the pitch. Right when you want Matomo without owning any of the operations, and Swiss residency or nFADP alignment specifically matters.
Functionally these are one family; you are choosing who carries the pager and which jurisdiction holds the data.
Which should you pick?
- Stay on GA4 if Google Ads integration earns you real money and you are prepared to run consent properly. That is the honest case for Google, and for plenty of stores it wins.
- Pick Friendly if you are a Swiss or EU SMB, your analytics needs are traffic, sources, and conversions rather than ad-platform plumbing, and you want the consent-banner surface area as small as legally possible.
- Pick self-hosted Matomo if you need what Friendly offers but with full control, and you have someone to own the maintenance for real.
And whichever way you go: switching tools does not fix broken tracking. If the numbers already smell wrong, a Clarity audit first is cheaper than migrating a mess. The wider field of options is in the GA4 alternatives roundup.