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Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Betterlytics?

Betterlytics is a privacy‑first, cookieless platform that combines web analytics, client‑side error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring in a single tool. Instead of paying for and integrating separate services for analytics, error tracking, replays, and uptime checks, you get all of them with one lightweight script and one dashboard, without compromising user privacy. You can use our hosted service or deploy it yourself. Start with the Introduction and explore the Dashboard to see what you can do.

Is Betterlytics compliant with privacy regulations?

Betterlytics is designed for GDPR, CCPA and PECR. The tracker sets no cookies and stores nothing on visitors’ devices for analytics, which removes the usual reason for a cookie banner. Data on our hosted service is processed on EU infrastructure, visitor IP addresses are never stored, and each website’s data is isolated to prevent cross‑site tracking. Session Replay is optional, only runs once your site records consent, and masks all text and inputs by default; learn more in the Session Replay guide. Whether your site needs consent overall also depends on your country and the other tools you run, so confirm your setup with your data protection officer.

How does it ensure privacy?

Privacy is built in by design. We do not use cookies. Visitor IP addresses are never stored: the network part of the address is combined with a few coarse browser details and hashed with a secret salt that rotates daily and is deleted within two days, after which not even we can trace a visitor ID back to its network. Each website’s data is isolated to prevent cross‑site tracking. For SPAs or apps with sensitive paths, you can normalize dynamic routes so user‑specific IDs don’t appear in your analytics; see Dynamic URLs. Session Replay is opt‑in and masks text and inputs by default; enable it only after consent where required and configure masking/blocking as needed; see Session Replay. Our hosted service runs on EU infrastructure and is designed to be compliant with GDPR, CCPA and PECR; see the Installation Overview.

What insights can I get?

The overview shows unique visitors, pageviews, bounce rate, scroll depth, and visit duration with interactive charts. You can dive deeper into referrers and channels, geography, devices and browsers, custom events, funnels, user journeys, outbound links, and Core Web Vitals. Beyond analytics, you can track client‑side JavaScript errors with stack traces and session trails, watch session replays, and monitor uptime and SSL certificates with alerts in Slack, Discord, Teams, or via webhooks. Everything respects your time range and query filters. Browse the feature guides under Dashboard.

How do I integrate it?

Most sites can add a single async script tag with your Site ID and start seeing data in minutes; follow the Cloud Quick Start. For React and modern frameworks, we recommend using the @betterlytics/tracker NPM package for a typed API and easier SPA handling; see Custom Events. You can also enable optional features such as Session Replay, Dynamic URLs, Outbound Links and Web Vitals via script attributes or package options.

Can I query my analytics with AI?

Yes. Betterlytics has a built‑in MCP server (Model Context Protocol), so you can connect AI assistants and coding agents like Claude, Cursor, or Codex directly to your analytics data. Ask questions in natural language (“which pages have the highest bounce rate?”, “what errors are affecting the most users?”), run ad‑hoc funnel analyses, or let your coding agent use real traffic data to inform UI and code changes, all without leaving your editor. See the MCP Server guide for setup instructions for each tool.

Who is Betterlytics for?

Teams of all sizes that want actionable insights without cookie banners or invasive tracking: anyone who would rather run one tool than juggle separate analytics, error tracking, and uptime monitoring services, marketers who need clear acquisition and content insights, product and engineering teams optimizing UX and performance, and privacy‑conscious organizations that value data ownership. Choose the hosted service for the fastest setup and managed operations, or self‑host for maximum control over your data and infrastructure.

Do Betterlytics Cloud and self-hosted have the same features?

Mostly, but not always at the same time. New features launch on Betterlytics Cloud first, and the self‑hosted image is updated periodically from our stable releases, so a recently launched feature may be live on Cloud before it reaches the self‑hosted image. Session replay, error tracking, uptime monitoring, and status pages are all included in the self‑hosted image. Check the cloud vs self‑hosted comparison for the current status of each feature.

Is there a free plan?

Yes. The Free plan includes 10,000 events per month, forever, for 1 site and 1 team member. Every module is included: web analytics, funnels, session replay, error tracking, Core Web Vitals and uptime monitoring. When you need more sites, team members, events or longer data retention, you can upgrade to Plus or Business. See the full details on Pricing & Billing and the guides for Upgrading, Changing Plans and Managing Subscription.

What’s the performance impact of the tracking script?

The script loads asynchronously and is lightweight (about 3.5KB gzipped), designed not to block rendering or degrade page performance. Optional add‑ons such as Core Web Vitals collection and Session Replay are disabled by default and only load when you opt in, so you stay in control of any additional overhead. See the Cloud Quick Start for the script tag and the Web Vitals and Session Replay guides for details.

How does Betterlytics compare to other analytics tools?

We have detailed comparison pages that cover features, privacy, performance, and pricing side by side:

For how long is my data stored?

Data retention on Betterlytics Cloud depends on your plan: Free keeps data for 1 year, Plus for 3 years, Business for 5 years, and Enterprise plans get custom retention. On Betterlytics Cloud, Session Replay recordings are kept for 60 days to balance usefulness with privacy and storage considerations. If you self‑host, your analytics data lives in your own database, so retention is entirely under your control, including replay retention, see Self-Hosting → Session Replay. You can review the plan‑specific policies on Pricing & Billing and Cloud replay retention under Session Replay → Storage and Security. For definitions of metrics and how we calculate them, see the Metrics Glossary.

Still have questions?

If you didn’t find what you were looking for, join our Discord community  or reach out via email. You can also browse the Installation Overview to get started or review Pricing & Billing for plan details.

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