To get to know customers and understand their experiences, businesses need an effective way to monitor app performance and gather user insights. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of tools and platforms designed to do just that.
The real question is, who comes out on top in a direct Firebase vs Matomo comparison?
After all, choosing an app analytics solution will directly affect a company’s ability to gather and analyse data.
This article will compare Firebase and Matomo to help you understand their key capabilities, similarities and differences — and, most importantly, choose the right analytics tool for your company.
An introduction to Firebase and Matomo
One thing to note before getting into this Firebase vs Matomo comparison is that the two platforms have different purposes.
While Firebase is mobile-focused, Matomo, is a flexible analytics platform that offers a broader range of features for tracking both websites and mobile apps. That’s the most notable difference between the two tools.
Matomo dashboard and Firebase dashboard
What is Firebase?
Firebase is Google’s mobile application development platform. It offers developers a suite of features for building, testing and managing mobile apps.
It launched in 2011 as a real-time database, providing an API for storing and syncing application data. The platform expanded its focus to mobile and web application development and was acquired by Google in 2014.
As of March 2024, Google Firebase ranks as the most widely used software development kit (SDK) for mobile analytics, with an integration rate of 72% for iOS apps and nearly 99% for Android apps.
Key features and capabilities
Firebase is a comprehensive app development platform with two main categories — Build and Run — and more than 20 in-suite products.
The platform’s primary focus is app development. It has tools and features for making and deploying web apps, databases for storing and sharing data, and integration with Google’s AI technology.
For analytics and tracking app performance, Firebase relies on Google Analytics — a leading web analytics service — with features including:
- Near-real-time reporting with StreamView and DebugView
- Unlimited reporting for up to 500 distinct events
- Audience segmentation based on device data and user behaviour
- Option to export raw data to BigQuery
It also integrates with many popular mobile advertising technology platforms — including Google Ads and AdMob — Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) for visual analytics and BigQuery, Google’s data warehouse solution.
What is Matomo?
Matomo’s open-source analytics software is the leading GDPR-compliant alternative to Google Analytics. Formerly known as Matomo (Piwik), Matomo launched in 2007 as an open-source project to address the growing global concerns surrounding data ownership and privacy. The goal was — and still is — to offer a more secure, privacy-focused alternative to the analytics tools on the market.
Matomo released its first version to the public in 2008. By 2018, the platform had expanded to reach 100,000 active users.
Today, it’s one of the most trusted web analytics platforms, supporting 50+ languages and over 1.4 million websites.
Key features and capabilities
Here’s an overview of what Matomo has to offer:
- Visits log with details about each visitor and the actions they performed
- Screenviews (including Entry and Exit screens)
- Custom User ID
- Audience segmentation
- Goal conversion tracking
- Ecommerce tracking
- Custom dimensions
- Custom alerts with email and SMS notifications
- Scheduled email reports (PDF and HTML)
- Tracking searches within the app
- Campaign tracking with Acquisition reports (available with Matomo’s iOS SDK)
- Content tracking (available with Matomo’s iOS SDK)
Matomo users can access most features through the iOS and Android Software Development Kits (SDKs) for mobile app tracking.
Matomo integrates with over 100 tools, including content management systems (CMS), Ecommerce platforms and CRMs. Most notably, it connects with WordPress through a free plugin, offering a privacy-friendly alternative to third-party services like Google Analytics.
Matomo’s all-in-one solution goes beyond mobile app analytics and supports complete website analytics — one of its main advantages over Firebase.
Firebase vs Matomo: Comparison table
The table below compares Matomo Analytics and Firebase side-by-side and summarises the two platforms’ key features and capabilities.
Ease of use
Both platforms are user-friendly and intuitive, with easy-to-navigate interfaces that work for non-technical users.
Firebase
Firebase is generally easy to set up with its ample documentation, including how-to content and online courses available for free.
The Firebase console is easy to navigate, too. The four top-level categories — Develop, Stability, Analytics and Grow — are available through the navigation menu on the left. The central dashboard shows relevant metrics, graphs and charts for the current project.
Firebase Crashlytics dashboard with events grouped into issues (Image Source)
Matomo
The navigation bar on the left-hand side provides easy access to the main sections. Users can also get a basic explanation of each feature by clicking on the question mark next to it, which adds to the ease of use.
Matomo’s main dashboard, navigation bar and widgets (Image Source)
The interface supports drag-and-drop functionality, so it’s easy to customise the main dashboard. Furthermore, users can customise widgets to show different bits of analytics data and make their dashboards as detailed or simple as needed.
Experiments with A/B testing
One of the main things that Matomo and Firebase have in common is the ability to create and run A/B test experiments.
Firebase
Firebase’s A/B Testing feature supports both product and marketing experiments. It’s possible to test different variants of elements that directly affect the user experience — the app’s user interface and new features, for example — as well as those related to marketing and engagement campaigns, such as messaging.
Firebase connects with Google Analytics, providing access to key performance metrics and insights into how different variations affect user actions.
Matomo
Matomo makes it easy to run experiments with different versions of web pages and app interfaces — including layouts, colour schemes, CTAs, forms and headlines — and determine the best-performing variations.
Matomo A/B test results overview summary and evolution graph
When setting up A/B tests, users can choose up to three success metrics. The platform automatically tracks the detected effects (along with statistical significance) and notifies them when one of the variations performs better than the original.
Customer segmentation based on shared characteristics
Another feature that Matomo and Firebase have in common is user segmentation.
Firebase
Audience segmentation in Firebase is available through the Google Analytics integration, with the option to import existing segments created outside of Firebase. Users can directly define custom audiences based on up to 25 different user properties, such as geographic location and language preferences.
Matomo
Matomo’s Segmentation feature allows users to narrow down Visits Log reports to see specific groups of visitors.
Matomo real-time Visitors log
Some of the most commonly used segments include returning customers, mobile visits, search engine visits, bounced visits and visits from a particular geographic region. Users can also build custom segments using more than 40 dimensions and unlimited and/or conditions.
Custom visitor segments in Matomo
Ecommerce tracking
Both tools support Ecommerce tracking, allowing users to track key sales metrics, better understand shopping experiences and improve the profitability of their online store.
Firebase
Firebase can log custom events relevant to online stores, measuring Ecommerce activities such as viewing product details, adding a product to the cart, starting the checkout process and completing a purchase.
Along with Google’s prescribed parameters, Firebase users have an additional 27 custom parameters — “item_color,” “in_stock,” or “purchase_history,” for example — to use as metrics or dimensions in their Analytics reports.
Matomo
Matomo has advanced features for Ecommerce analytics, with reporting capabilities that go beyond simply tracking the revenue generated through online sales. It includes a high-level overview and session-level data for individual users, providing a comprehensive view of customers’ purchase behaviours.
Matomo Analytics provides insights into the following metrics:
- Total number of Ecommerce orders
- Number of products purchased
- Average order value (AOV)
- Total revenue generated
- Cart abandonment
- Conversion tracking for Ecommerce orders
- Shipping costs
- Discounts applied
Matomo’s Ecommerce evolution graph and key metrics
Advanced privacy features
Matomo’s privacy-minded approach to web analytics is a key distinction that gives it a clear advantage over Firebase.
Matomo’s advanced GDPR Tools
Firebase
While Google’s Firebase provides security rules, configuring them is error-prone. If not implemented correctly, it can cause vulnerabilities and expose sensitive data. in 2020, there was an incident involving Firebase, where researchers found that roughly 24,000 Android apps leaked data due to misconfigured Firebase databases.
The researchers examined more than 500,000 apps available on the Google Play store and discovered that more than 4,282 Android apps were leaking sensitive information through Firebase.
Matomo
Matomo is a trusted analytics solution that was built with privacy in mind. It gives users access to more advanced privacy controls, including:
- 100% data ownership
- Data anonymisation to protect user privacy and eliminate the need to show a tracking consent screen
- Optional configurations not to collect or process any personally identifiable information (PII)
- Supports opt-out mechanisms to avoid collecting and tracking data from users with DoNotTrack enabled in their browser
No data sampling
Data sampling is another area where Matomo Analytics has a clear advantage.
Firebase
Since Firebase is Google’s integrated platform for app development, it relies on Google Analytics — which is known to use data sampling.
Using only a small portion of available data to generate results and draw conclusions can speed up the analytics process. However, sampled data has a major downside — it leaves room for inaccuracies and misrepresentations.
Matomo
Unlike GA, Matomo doesn’t rely on data sampling — regardless of the size of the data set it’s working with. By processing 100% of collected data rather than basing results on a smaller sample, Matomo can deliver more accurate and complete insights into user behaviour.
GDPR compliance
In addition to the General Data Protection Regulation, which took effect in 2018, the European Union (EU) has introduced two additional laws to protect consumers’ online privacy: the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act.
That is, data processing and privacy regulations are getting stricter, making it imperative for organisations to choose an analytics platform that adheres to these requirements and ensures compliance.
Firebase
Google Analytics is not GDPR-compliant — meaning that, as a service running on Google’s Cloud infrastructure, Firebase is not GDPR-compliant, either. The main reason is that analytics data is sent to and stored on US-based servers, which goes against EU privacy laws.
Matomo
Unlike Google Analytics, Matomo stores analytics data in the EU rather than transferring it to the US. That, along with Matomo’s advanced privacy features and data anonymisation, ensures full compliance with GDPR.
While the French Data Protection Authority, the CNIL, considers GA illegal under GDPR, Matomo, on the other hand, is one of the few analytics services that can collect data without tracking consent in France. It also allows users to comply with other strict privacy laws, such as HIPAA, CCPA, PECR and LGPD. Matomo also features an advanced GDPR Manager — a feature not available in Firebase — to ensure websites fully comply with these strict regulations.
Flexibility and customisation options
The open-source software market is set to reach $97.3 billion by 2031. One of the main reasons is the need for increased flexibility, reliability and security.
Open source services global market size forecast, 2023-2031 (Image Source)
As open-source software, Matomo has the edge over Firebase in terms of overall flexibility and customisation options.
Firebase
While flexible, Firebase is still proprietary software; it limits users to the features and customisation options provided by the platform.
Matomo
Matomo has been an open-source project from the beginning. It’s licensed under the GNU General Public License v3, meaning the source code is freely available and allows modifications and distribution.
Users can configure the platform to their reporting needs and legal requirements and get hands-on by creating plugins or adding new features. Additionally, it has a White Label option, allowing users to personalise Matomo’s dashboard and reports further and add their branding.
Additional deployment options
When it comes to deployment options, Matomo has an advantage.
Firebase
Since Firebase runs on Google’s Cloud infrastructure, it doesn’t support on-premise deployment.
Matomo
Matomo offers two hosting solutions:
- Matomo Cloud, an easy-to-set-up solution the company maintains, updates, and hosts in Frankfurt, Germany, to adhere to EU privacy laws. In addition to the Cloud-based solution,
- Matomo On-Premise is a self-hosted version — which is freely available as open-source.
Hosting Matomo on-premise gives businesses complete control over their data and where it’s stored. That’s why the self-hosted solution is preferred for companies handling sensitive data.
Comparing Firebase’s and Matomo’s pricing plans
Here’s how Firebase and Matomo compare in terms of available pricing plans.
Firebase
Firebase has two pricing plans:
- The free version (known as the Spark Plan) includes A/B Testing, Analytics, App Distribution, Cloud Messaging, Crashlytics, In-App Messaging, Performance Monitoring, Remote Config and App Check (which is subject to specific quotas and daily or monthly limitations determined by attestation providers)
- The pay-as-you-go version (known as the Blaze Plan) includes the no-cost features available with the Spark Plan, in addition to App Hosting, Cloud Functions, Data Connect and access to Vertex AI
The cost of Firebase depends on usage — mainly data volumes and storage needs. While this pricing model is flexible, it can be expensive for large-scale applications.
On the plus side, as mentioned above, the basic version of Firebase is free; analytics and performance monitoring are available as no-cost services.
Matomo
Matomo Cloud includes two plans:
- The Business plan starts at €22 per month and supports up to 50,000 hits per month with reports and features like A/B Testing, GDPR Manager, Roll-Up Reporting, Multi-Channel Attribution and Cohorts
- The Enterprise plan is priced custom and offers more advanced features like Crash Analytics, SEO Web Vitals and SAML authentication
Instead of a free plan, Matomo Cloud comes with a 21-day free trial. Additionally, users who opt for annual billing get two months free.
As discussed earlier, Matomo offers an on-premise deployment option that’s completely free. It’s also worth noting that users who choose to install the On-Premise version of Matomo Analytics can switch to Matomo Cloud at any point.
Why Matomo is a better choice
The choice between Firebase and Matomo depends on specific needs and requirements. Both are powerful analytics solutions, but they’re built for different purposes.
Firebase’s features are mostly geared towards building and managing mobile and web apps. In that sense, it can’t compete with dedicated web analytics tools like Matomo. Moreover, it might not be able to provide a complete view of app user behaviour.
Heatmap feature in Matomo
As an all-in-one, advanced tool for web analytics, Matomo has a broader range of features and reporting capabilities. Here are a few examples of Matomo’s features that aren’t available in Firebase:
- Session Recording
- Heatmaps
- GDPR Manager
- Log Analytics
- White Label
Additional features aside, there are a few more reasons why Matomo is a good option instead of Firebase Analytics alternative:
- Using Matomo for web and app analytics grants users an end-to-end view of their entire digital experience.
- Advanced privacy features, support for DoNotTrack browser preferences and data anonymisation techniques
- No data sampling — regardless of the amount of data collected — for 100% accurate reporting
- No limits on data or the number of websites
- Raw data access through Matomo Live Reporting API and direct access to the MySQL database for Matomo On-Premise users
- 100% data ownership with no possibility of it being shared with any third parties and complete control over where the data is stored for Matomo On-Premise users
- Compliance with GDPR and other privacy laws and regulations, including HIPAA and CCPA
Conclusion
As we’ve already mentioned, the decision between Firebase and Matomo ultimately comes down to a company’s needs and goals. These two platforms were built with different uses in mind.
Firebase can be a solid option for companies primarily interested in app development and management. It’s a mobile-focused platform, after all.
However, for organisations looking for accurate insights and complete control over their data, Matomo’s all-in-one, analytics-specific solution is the way to go.
Matomo is fully compliant with GDPR and other privacy regulations. And since it doesn’t rely on data sampling, you can also count on 100% accurate reporting.
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