Currently active users count in Dynatrace vs Google Analytics

[steven_post]

Hi,

We have a client where they use Google Analytics on the public website, they also have 100% coverage using RUM. We notice a rather big difference in currently active users: Google Analytics shows 970 user while Dynatrace can show over 4000 active sessions. I have a rather good understanding on how Dynatrace comes up with that number (session duration and all that), but I have no idea how Google does this. How do we explain the big difference to business users? Can we somehow get closer to the data from Google Analytics?

When reviewing historical data, the numbers match up, it is only with the live user count that we see such a big difference.

Regards,
Steven

[skrystosik · Accepted solution]

Are you sure that you are looking at the same timeframe for live user sessions in both tools? Question as well is how Google interprets this. Dynatrace will show you number of live, not timeouted sessions. This does not mean that actually user is still on your site. This means that user has open live session. Google may be more sophisticated in this area. I'm personally rather look at chart that is presenting live session count over time in Dynatrace. I think there are more real values available.

Sebastian

[steven_post]

Thanks for your answer Sebastian.

"Are you sure that you are looking at the same timeframe for live user sessions in both tools?"

Yes, the big difference is that Dynatrace counts 'current active sessions', while Google Analytics shows 'current active users'. So it seems that Google no longer counts certain users a lot more quickly than Dynatrace.

Thanks for the tip on the chart, I'll relay that to the customer.