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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Google Analytics

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/AGoogle Analytics is perhaps the best-known web analytics product and, as a free product, it has massive adoption. Although it lacks some enterprise-level features compared to its competitors in the space, the launch of the paid Google Analytics Premium edition seems likely to close the gap.

    $0

    per month

    DiskStation

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/ADiskStation is a line of network-attached storage (NAS) solutions from Synology headquartered in Taiwan.N/A
    Pricing
    Google AnalyticsDiskStation
    Editions & Modules
    Google Analytics 360
    150,000
    per year
    Google Analytics
    Free
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Google AnalyticsDiskStation
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Google AnalyticsDiskStation
    Considered Both Products
    Google
    No answer on this topic
    Synology
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    96%
    Would buy again
    101 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    29 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    100 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    29 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    99%
    Happy with the feature set
    104 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    29 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    77 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    26 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    87 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    27 Answers
    Features
    Google AnalyticsDiskStation
    Web Analytics
    Comparison of Web Analytics features of Google Analytics and Synology DiskStation
    Feature
    Google Analytics
    8.4
    11 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Synology DiskStation
    -
    Ratings
    Lead Conversion Tracking8.210 Ratings00 Ratings
    Bounce Rate Measurement8.410 Ratings00 Ratings
    Device and Browser Reporting9.311 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pageview Tracking9.111 Ratings00 Ratings
    Event Tracking8.411 Ratings00 Ratings
    Reporting in real-time7.810 Ratings00 Ratings
    Referral Source Tracking8.610 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable Dashboards7.910 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Google AnalyticsDiskStation
    Small Businesses
    Matomo Analytics
    Score9 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Lead Forensics
    Score8.9 out of 10
    FreeNAS
    Score5.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Chartbeat
    Score9.2 out of 10
    FreeNAS
    Score5.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Google AnalyticsDiskStation
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (193 ratings)
    9.2
    (30 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (51 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    7.4
    (19 ratings)
    9.1
    (9 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.0
    (42 ratings)
    9.7
    (7 ratings)
    Online Training
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    6.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Google AnalyticsDiskStation
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Google
    Google Analytics is particularly well suited for tracking and analyzing customer behavior on a grocery e-commerce platform. It provides a wealth of information about customer behavior, including what products are most popular, what pages are visited the most, and where customers are coming from. This information can help the platform optimize its website for better customer engagement and conversion rates. However, Google Analytics may not be the best tool for more advanced, granular analysis of customer behavior, such as tracking individual customer journeys or understanding customer motivations. In these cases, it may be more appropriate to use additional tools or solutions that provide deeper insights into customer behavior.
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    Synology
    The Synology DiskStation is well suited as a NAS solution, easy enough to mirror a Windows file server shares setup. Access to the Hyperbackup utility eliminates the need to purchase a tape backup solution. A portable USB drive can be used as the initial backup target. For air gap purposes can connect Hyperbackup to the various cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, GCP to copy backup data there. Utilizing it as a backup solution has also been great, instead of purchasing a tape solution, tapes and an offsite tape repository. Active Backup for Business is another excellent backup utility for physical servers, VMWare virtual machines, etc. Restoring files is fairly intuitive. Until Synology introduced the dual controller setup, using it as a SAN was less appropriate as there was occasional downtime when the controller had an issue but this was less important for the scenarios we were using it for. It would be more of a concern if we had used it for things that require more robust uptime requirements. Overall we are happy with the features of the Synology DiskStation.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Google
    • Multiple reports to see website use and behavior
    • Allows you to customize reports with days, weeks, months, and years
    • You can build out a dashboard to easily view stats from multiple websites in one place
    • You can share analytics reports via the dashboard, automatically emailed PDFs or in other formats
    Incentivized
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    Synology
    • Synology DiskStation offers lots of options for creating links to share files or request that some uploads files. It makes it really easy to just share a link that can have an expiration or a set number of times it is accessed.
    • We always had enough storage on our Synology DiskStation, we never had to worry about something being too big to upload or share.
    • Love how you can create folders that are shared and also have some that are private. This makes it so easy to have shared collaborations with coworkers or clients, but also allows you to have a private place to save things that only you need.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Google
    • Data sampling is somewhat inaccurate on the free tier - this is addressed in premium but is expensive.
    • Some of the UI is very similar in naming when presenting different data, some in-situ information might be useful.
    • Gotchas around filtering and data validation.
    • Implementation can be tricky, it can take a lot of time and expertise to get a full, accurate picture of your metrics.
    Incentivized
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    Synology
    • While BTRFS is a more advanced file system than ext4, it also is in a perpetual state of development, with many features not fully functional and a plethora of bugs. Synology has managed to overcome many of these limitations by placing BTRFS on top of a LVM, but there are much better file systems that Synology could have used, such as OpenZFS.
    • DSM's built-in backup software, HyperBackup, while robust, oftentimes runs into issues. Specifically, backups can be working fine for months or years, and then suddenly the backups will fail. Sometimes these failures can be resolved, but oftentimes the backups need to be completely restarted. Fortunately, even when the backup fails, the existing backups are still accessible, it is just that new backups can not be performed.
    • The underlying Linux OS provides significant benefits, but also adds a fair amount of complexity. Most of that complexity is wonderfully hidden by the DSM interface, but when certain problems arise, delving into the Linux command line is not out of the question.
    • Perhaps the biggest issue with Synology DiskStation is Synology's support. The issue isn't that the support is bad, but it can be frustratingly slow when dealing with a major issue. Synology does have a very active community that is always willing to help, but nothing beats first-party support.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Google
    We will continue to use Google Analytics for several reasons. It is free, which is a huge selling point. It houses all of our ecommerce stores' data, and though it can't account for refunds or fraud orders, gives us and our clients directional, real time information on individual and group store performance.
    Incentivized
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    Synology
    As long as Synology give us support for our hard drivers we will not change. I know Synology has now forced their hands to buy their own hard drivers and their new line of products. But if we still have support for old hard drivers from other manufacturers then we will still use Synology Nas. Otherwise we change manufacturers
    Read full review
    Usability
    Google
    Google Analytics provides a wealth of data, down to minute levels. That is it's greatest detriment: find the right information when you need it can be a cumbersome task. You are able to create shortcuts, however, so it can mitigate some of this problem. Google is continually refining Analytics, so I do not doubt there will be improvements
    Read full review
    Synology
    The Synology DiskStation is easy to set up and manage. The interface is clean and features are well documented. These units are reliable and can be set up to do scheduled integrity checks so failures can be mitigated before they halt business operations. The available packages for expanded roles makes these devices versatile.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Google
    We all know Google is at top when it comes to availability. We have never faced any such instances where I can suggest otherwise. All you need is a Google account, a device and internet connection to use this super powerful tool for reporting and visualising your site data, traffic, events, etc. that too in real time.
    Read full review
    Synology
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Google
    This has been a catalyst for improving our site's traffic handling capabilities. We were able to identify exit% from our sites through it and we used recommendations to handle and implement the same in our sites. We have been increasing the usage of Google Analytics in our sites and never had any performance related issues if we used Analytics
    Read full review
    Synology
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Google
    The Google reps respond very quickly. However, sometimes they can overly call you to set up an apportionment. I'm very proficient and sometimes when I talk to reps, they give beginner tutorials and insights that are a waste of time. I wish Google would understand my level of expertise and assign me to a rep (long-term) that doesn't have to walk me through the basics.
    Incentivized
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    Synology
    Unfortunately, the one time I've had to reach out to DiskStation support, it did not go well. My NAS appliance wasn't appearing on the network, and no matter what the support team tried, they could not get it back online. Instead of offering to send me a new unit, they told me to go buy a new one - obviously, this was a disappointing response and not very eco-friendly either! Fortunately, through some internet research of my own, and some ingenuity, I figured out I could restore my NAS to factory settings by removing all the drives and resetting. Only then did I realize I had a bad disk. I had to experiment for a while to figure out which one it was. Once I had done that, though, I was able to get the latest DiskStation loaded back on, no thanks to the DiskStation support crew. If notifications were rock solid, I suspect I would have caught the bad disk before it because an OS problem, but I never received a bad-disk notification.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    Google
    love the product and training they provide for businesses of all sizes. The following list of links will help you get started with Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented by Google Analytics.
    1. How to Use Google Analytics for Beginners – Mahalo’s how-to guide for beginners.
    2. A beginner’s guide to Google Analytics – A free eBook walking you through Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented.
    3. Getting to Know Your Google Analytics Dashboard – The title says it all! This is a brief post with one goal: to introduce you to the Google Analytics dashboard.
    4. Google Analytics for Beginners: How to Make the Most of Your Traffic Reports– This guide doesn’t cover setup, but it does a great job of helping you to better understand the data being presented.
    5. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 1: Setup – A video presentation that walks you through Google Analytics setup.
    6. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 2: Essential Stats – A video presentation that introduces you to some of the most important data being presented in Google Analytics.
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    Synology
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Google
    I think my biggest take away from the Google Analytics implementation was that there needs to be a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it before you start. Originally the analytics were added to track visitors, but as we became more savvy with the product, we began adding more and more functionality, and defining guidelines as we went along. While not detrimental to our success, this lack of an overarching goal resulted in some minor setbacks in implementation and the collection of some messy data that is unusable.
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    Synology
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Google
    I have not used Adobe Analytics as much, but I know they offer something called customer journey analytics, which we are evaluating now. I have used Semrush, and I find them much better than Google Analytics. I feel a fairly nontechnical person could learn Semrush in about a month. They also offer features like competitive analysis (on content, keywords, traffic, etc.), which is very useful. If you have to choose one among Semrush and Google Analytics, I would say go for Semrush.
    Incentivized
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    Synology
    Synology DiskStation packs a punch with the latest and greatest feature set which goes above and beyond many other vendors. It allows for a turn-key solution to cover almost every use case in the SMB market leaving other vendors behind.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Google
    Google Analytics is currently handling the reporting and tracking of near about 80 sites in our project. And I am not talking about the sites from different projects. They may have way more accounts than that. Never ever felt a performance issue from Google's end while generating or customising reports or tracking custom events or creating custom dimensions
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    Synology
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Google
    • It has helped us gain understanding of what is going on on our website.
    • It has helped us determine areas that need fixing (i.e. pages with extremely high bounce rates may need to be redone).
    • It has helped us understand our biggest avenues for bringing traffic to the website and business in general.
    • It has helped guide our website redesign.
    Incentivized
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    Synology
    • Minimal investment in the hardware, big return on productivity
    • Streamlined IT needs, we no longer have to hire our IT vendor to assist us as regularly as we did when we were running servers
    • Productivity on the road through web access has increased productivity and billable hours for remote employees
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots