Plugin comparison
SwiftWebDev Dashboard & Analytics vs MonsterInsights: a cookieless MonsterInsights alternative for WordPress
Both plugins put visitor numbers inside your WordPress admin. The big difference is where the numbers come from. MonsterInsights reads them from your Google Analytics account. SwiftWebDev Dashboard counts visits on your own site and keeps them in your own database.
Short answer
Pick MonsterInsights if you already use Google Analytics 4 and want its reports, Search Console data or eCommerce tracking inside WordPress. Pick SwiftWebDev Dashboard if you want simple visitor stats with no cookies and no Google account, plus PageSpeed scores and site health on the same screen.
MonsterInsights vs SwiftWebDev Dashboard, row by row
Facts from the official MonsterInsights pricing, features and wordpress.org pages, checked October 2026. A star marks the plugin that does that job better. MonsterInsights wins several rows, and that is fine: they are built for different jobs.
| Topic | MonsterInsights | SwiftWebDev Dashboard |
|---|---|---|
| Setup and privacy | ||
| Setup | Install the plugin, then connect the Google account that owns your Google Analytics 4 property. | Install and activate. No account, no sign-up and no API key. |
| Google account needed | Yes, with a Google Analytics 4 property. | No. |
| Cookies and consent | Loads Google’s gtag.js, which sets the _ga cookies. Works with Cookie Notice and CookieBot to ask for consent first. EU compliance addon from the Plus plan. | No cookies or browser storage. Each visit is a one-way hash with a daily random value, and IP addresses are never saved. |
| Where data is stored | In Google Analytics. MonsterInsights shows the reports inside WordPress. | In your own WordPress database. Raw visits are deleted after 48 hours and daily totals are kept for 180 days. Page addresses are not stored. |
| Front-end script | Google’s gtag.js tracking tag. | One small counter script that runs after the page has loaded. |
| What you see in wp-admin | ||
| Admin dashboard and menu | An Insights menu with analytics reports: overview, countries, referrals, top posts and pages. | Its own dashboard under one SwiftWebDev menu item, plus a modern style for the admin menu with your own logo. The classic dashboard stays one click away. |
| Top pages and referrers | Top posts and pages, referrals and countries in the free Lite version, read from Google Analytics. | Not in the free plugin, which shows totals, trends, busiest days and engagement. PRO adds top pages, traffic sources, referrers and countries. |
| PageSpeed scores and fixes | Page speed reports are a paid feature. The free Lite version does not include them. | Free: mobile and desktop scores, Core Web Vitals and a ranked list of fixes for your homepage or any other page. PRO adds weekly scheduled tests. |
| Updates and site health | Not listed on its features page. | Pending updates, PHP version and Site Health status on the dashboard. |
| Search Console data | Yes, a Search Console report with rankings, clicks and CTR (paid feature). | No. |
| Deeper analytics | ||
| Real-time visitors | From the Plus plan. | In SwiftWebDev Dashboard PRO. |
| Form and click tracking | Form conversion tracking across the major form plugins, from the Pro plan. | Forms, clicks, on-site search and custom events in SwiftWebDev Dashboard PRO. |
| eCommerce tracking | One-click eCommerce tracking with WooCommerce support, from the Pro plan. | Not offered. |
| Session recordings | Not listed. The Elite plan adds surveys and heatmaps through UserFeedback. | In SwiftWebDev Dashboard PRO, with form inputs masked. |
| Track record | 2+ million active installs on wordpress.org, version 11. | New: version 1.0.0, released in 2026. |
| Price | ||
| Free version | Yes, MonsterInsights Lite on wordpress.org. | Yes, the full free plugin. |
| Paid plans (per year) | Plus $99.50 for 1 site, Pro $199.50 for 5 sites, Elite $299.50 for 5 sites, Agency $399.50 for 25 sites. First-year prices: renewals are at the full price ($199, $399, $599, $799). | Personal $25 for 1 site, Business $100 for 5 sites, Unlimited $299 for unlimited sites. Every plan has every PRO feature. |
Prices are in US dollars, as listed on monsterinsights.com/pricing and on the SwiftWebDev Dashboard PRO page on October 30, 2026. Check both pages before you buy: prices change.
Watch the cookieless stats before you switch
This tutorial walks through visitors, page views and sessions, the period picker, and how each visit is counted without cookies or a Google Analytics account.
Read the transcript
Real visitor stats. No cookies, no Google account. Open SwiftWebDev in the admin menu. Your visitor stats are on the dashboard, in six cards. You do not need a Google Analytics account, and no cookies are used. The top three cards are Visitors, Page Views, and Sessions. Visitors are the unique people who came to your site. Page views count every page they opened. Sessions are separate visits, so one person can have several.
Use the period picker at the top to choose the last seven, thirty, or ninety days. Thirty is the default. Each card compares the total with the period just before it. Green means it went up, red means it went down, and the sparkline shows the daily trend. Visitors over time shows a bar for each day, with page views as a line. Hover a bar to see the numbers for that day. Busiest days shows the average visitors for each day of the week, and names your busiest day.
Engagement adds four numbers: pages per visit, visits per visitor, average visitors per day, and your best day in the period. How is a visit counted? After a page loads, one small script sends a single request to your own site. Bots, link previews, and prefetched pages are skipped. Logged-in users are not counted by default, so your own visits do not inflate the numbers. You can change this in SwiftWebDev Dashboard settings, in your user menu.
There are no cookies and no browser storage. Your server turns the IP address and browser into a one-way code, mixed with a random value that changes every day. The IP address, browser details, and page addresses are never saved. A new session starts after thirty minutes without a page view. Because the code changes daily, a person who visits on two different days is counted once on each day.
Raw visit records are deleted after forty-eight hours. Only daily totals are kept, for one hundred and eighty days, enough to compare ninety days with the ninety before. Everything stays in your own WordPress database. For deeper reports, like real-time visitors, traffic sources, and top pages, there is the separate SwiftWebDev Dashboard PRO add-on. The free stats work fully on their own.
That is cookieless visitor stats in SwiftWebDev Dashboard. Next: Google PageSpeed scores for any page of your site. Subscribe for more SwiftWebDev Dashboard tutorials.
Which one fits your site?
When to choose MonsterInsights
- You already run Google Analytics 4 and want its reports without leaving WordPress.
- You sell with WooCommerce and need revenue and eCommerce tracking.
- You want Search Console rankings and clicks next to your traffic.
- You need form conversion tracking tied into Google Analytics.
- You already have a consent banner set up for Google cookies.
When to choose SwiftWebDev Dashboard
- You want visitor numbers with no Google account, no cookies and no API key.
- You want your visit data in your own database, not on a third-party service.
- You care about speed and want PageSpeed scores and plain-language fixes for free.
- You want updates, PHP version and Site Health on the same screen as your traffic.
- You want a cleaner admin: a new dashboard and a modern admin menu.
What a paid plan costs per year
Both plugins are free to start. If you upgrade, here are the closest plans by site count. The plans do not include the same features: MonsterInsights Pro adds eCommerce and Search Console, SwiftWebDev Dashboard PRO adds real-time visitors, session recordings and weekly speed tests.
See SwiftWebDev Dashboard PRO plansSwitching, or using both
SwiftWebDev Dashboard counts on your own server, so it does not touch your Google Analytics setup. You can run it next to MonsterInsights while you compare the numbers. SwiftWebDev Dashboard starts counting on the day you activate it and does not import Google Analytics history. If you later remove MonsterInsights, your past data stays in your Google Analytics account. Read the SwiftWebDev Dashboard docs.
Questions about switching from MonsterInsights
Is SwiftWebDev Dashboard a full MonsterInsights alternative?
For visitor stats inside WordPress, yes. For Google Analytics features such as eCommerce revenue, Search Console reports or GA4 audiences, no. SwiftWebDev Dashboard does not connect to Google Analytics. It counts visits on your own site instead.
Does MonsterInsights need a Google Analytics account?
Yes. MonsterInsights connects your site to a Google Analytics 4 property, and you sign in with the Google account that owns it. SwiftWebDev Dashboard needs no account of any kind.
Do I still need a cookie banner with SwiftWebDev Dashboard?
SwiftWebDev Dashboard does not set an analytics cookie, so it adds no cookie of its own to your banner. Whether your site needs a banner depends on everything else on the page, such as embeds, ads or other tools, and on where your visitors live. This is general information, not legal advice.
Will SwiftWebDev Dashboard slow down my site?
The visitor counter is a small script that sends one request per page view after the page has loaded. SwiftWebDev Dashboard adds nothing else to your front end. Speed tests run only when an administrator clicks Run test. See how to check your PageSpeed score in WordPress.
Can I keep my Google Analytics data if I switch?
Your history stays in your Google Analytics account, because that is where MonsterInsights reads it from. SwiftWebDev Dashboard does not import it. It starts its own count on the day you activate it.
Which is cheaper?
Both have a free version. For one site, SwiftWebDev Dashboard PRO Personal is $25 per year. MonsterInsights Plus is $99.50 in the first year and $199 per year on renewal, as listed on its pricing page in October 2026. The plans include different features, so compare what you need.
Try the cookieless option on your own site
SwiftWebDev Dashboard is free. Install it, open your dashboard and see visitors, speed scores and site health in one place. No account needed.