Analytics on a Static Site Means Giving Up the Easy Way

Server-rendered apps get request logging almost for free — every hit passes through code that can record it. A fully static site has no such chokepoint; every page view has to be reported by something running in the visitor's browser, which means analytics becomes another script competing for the same performance budget it's supposed to be measuring.

The trade shows up in the details: a lightweight, privacy-respecting script adds less overhead but usually less detail; a full-featured analytics suite adds real detail but real weight, and sometimes a cookie-consent banner the static-site pitch was quietly trying to avoid in the first place.

None of the options are wrong exactly — they're just genuinely different bets, and the mistake is picking one without noticing the site has silently taken on a client-side dependency it didn't have before.