Comparison

A different shape of analytics

Google Analytics is built for advertising measurement across a large surface. VisitWatch is built for understanding one website. If you want the second thing, the difference is mostly about what you no longer have to carry.

Start free Read the guides

What GA4 asks of you

Consent banner before the script runsRequired
Visitors missing when they declineAll of them
Reports to configure before answeringSeveral
Sampling on large date rangesPossible

This is for you if

You are measuring one website and do not need attribution across other people's sites.
You would rather not run a consent banner, and would rather the numbers not have a hole where the declines are.
You want the report to be a screen you open, not a report you build.
You want your own numbers back as CSV without a warehouse in between.
You are fine reading a comparison against the previous period rather than a modelled attribution.

And not for you if

You buy ads and need conversion signals sent back to an ad platform to optimise bidding.
You need attribution modelling across channels and devices over a long window.
You need to export raw event rows into BigQuery and model them yourself.
Your reporting is already built on GA4 and the migration cost outweighs the banner.

These are real reasons to stay. If any of the first three describes your job, GA4 does something this deliberately does not.

What maps to what

Most of the vocabulary carries across. The grey rows are the ones that do not, and they are the whole basis for choosing between the two.

In GA4VisitWatchWhat actually differs

UsersVisitorsCounted per day without a cookie, so the two numbers will not match exactly. Neither is wrong.

SessionsVisitsA run of pageviews from one visitor, ending with the day rather than after thirty minutes of inactivity.

Engaged sessionsBounce rate, average timeTwo figures on the headline strip rather than one derived metric.

ExplorationsTraffic tabsPages, sources, countries and events as four tabs of one table. Nothing to assemble first.

ConversionsConversion goalOne event or path per site. It becomes a column on the breakdowns rather than a separate report.

Funnel explorationFunnelsSteps by path or event, with a per-step breakdown by device, browser or country.

BigQuery exportCSV exportReports export as CSV; the Scale plan adds an API. There is no raw event stream.

Attribution modelling—Not offered. Comparison against the previous period is what this reports instead.

The visitor numbers will differ between the two tools, and neither is the correct one — they count differently. Compare trends, not totals.

The reports, in the order you would actually open them

Not the full product tour. This is the sequence somebody in this situation works through, and what each step is for.

Do the two tools broadly agree?

Overview

Run both for a week before deciding anything. Expect different absolute numbers and similar shapes; if the shapes disagree, that is worth investigating before the totals are.

Are the sources the same ones?

Traffic → Sources

Referrers are resolved to names here, so a hundred Google country domains collapse into one row. That alone accounts for a lot of apparent disagreement.

Does the funnel tell the same story?

Funnels

Define the same sequence you have in GA4. The step counts will differ; the step that loses the most people usually does not.

Can you answer the questions you actually get asked?

Reports

Assemble the document somebody asks you for each month and export it. If it takes less time than the same thing does today, that is the answer.

Running both for a week

The comparison is cheap to make and hard to argue with afterwards. Nothing has to be removed to do it.

Add the script alongside

Both tags can sit on the same page. Nothing conflicts, and no data moves between them.

A minute

Wait a week

A week gives every weekday once, which is the shortest window where a shape means anything.

Seven days

Compare shapes, not totals

Look at whether the two agree on which source grew and which page lost people. That is what you would be relying on either way.

An hour

Questions people in this situation ask

These are on the guides index too, alongside every other question the site answers.

Do I need to remove Google Analytics to use VisitWatch?

No. Both scripts can run on the same page, and running them side by side for a week is the fastest way to see whether the reports here answer your questions.

Why do the visitor numbers differ between tools?

They count differently. VisitWatch counts without a cookie using a key that rotates daily, and it has no consent gate in front of it, so it sees visits a banner would have lost. Compare the trends rather than the totals.

Can I import my Google Analytics history?

No. Reporting starts from the day the script is installed, which is why running both for a period is the sensible way to change over.

Is VisitWatch a full replacement?

For understanding one website, generally yes. For advertising attribution across other sites, sending conversion signals to ad platforms, or modelling raw events in a warehouse, no — and those are the cases where keeping both makes sense.

Try it alongside what you have

Run both for a week and compare the reports on your own traffic. Nothing has to be switched off to start.

14-day free trial. No credit card required.