I was faced with a very big challenge of how to record my blog statistics and I was paying critical attention to my server as I did not want to ignite a persistent server load.
WordPress.com Stats was an excellent plugin that did the job perfectly without added load to your server. But since support for this plugin no longer exists and it being integrated into the official Jetpack by WordPress.com plugin, it became a nightmare to have just the Jetpack plugin without all the unnecessary modules which are activated by default once you install and activate it.
You can still download the WordPress.com Stats plugin but you leave your blog to vulnerability since it was last updated in 2011.
What Do I Do?
Good question, I asked similar questions and I was without a statics tool that can really make me sleep at night. I have heard great news about Google Analytics Plugin but I have been reluctant to add it to my list of installed plugins since I already have the javascript running on my blog and I could equally find my way out on the Analytics dashboard. But there are a lot of things I like with the original WordPress.com Stats that Google Analytics can’t just provide for me. Forgive me if I am wrong, or maybe it’s just me.
Introducing Jetpack Lite
After forgetting about WordPress.com Stats and relying on StatCounter to do the job for me, I some how came across this fantastic plugin; Jetpact Lite.
Now, Jetpack is not an official WordPress plugin from Automattic or WordPress.com. It is a modified version of the official Jetpack plugin by Samuel Aguilera. Samuel has created 10 other incredible plugins for WordPress and Jetpack Lite being the 2nd most downloaded, with figures at over 34,000 downloads.
The plugin Author removed every other module from the official Jetpack plugin leaving only Stats module which has the same features as WordPress.com Stats. WP.me Shortlinks module is also included in the lite verson created by Samuel. So basically it’s the same plugin but with a streamlined code and reduced files to fit your exact preference.
Like the official Jetpack plugin, you will be asked to login to your WordPress.com account which will authenticate with your API. You will also have to deactivate and/or delete the official Jetpack plugin if its already installed in your blog.
Other Alternatives
Your Turn
If you where thinking about having something like WordPress.com Stats and you are not comfortable with the official Jetpack WordPress plugin, you can simply download Jetpack Lite; the “not-official version” and the best alternative to Jetpack by WordPress.com.
The author has promised upgrades 🙂 to Jetpack Lite which is currently compatible with the latest version of WordPress; Version 3.6.
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2 Comments
Obasi Miracle
Thanks Nosa, for this timely review of Jetpack Lite, I have always known slimstat and never enjoyed it ‘cos of the removal of stats and mobile site rendering from it.
As for the wordpress.com stat, it is already out of the game and should have been removed from the wordpress repository! No thanks to the developers that still left it lugging in there.
I will look forward to checking out the Jetpack Lite plugin hoping that it will offer me better features since I am getting the review from you.
Thanks for sharing and do have a great day ahead of you bro
Nosa E Nosa
Hello Obasi,
Thanks for stopping by. I have heard lots of stories about Slimstat but you know I always have my reservation for certain things.