Had this exact problem last year when our marketing team wouldn’t stop complaining about GA4. Tested 8 different tools.
Microsoft Clarity is free and dead simple. Shows visitor counts, sessions, traffic sources. Takes 5 minutes to set up and won’t fry your brain.
GoatCounter is even more basic - just a visitor counter with source tracking. Super lightweight if you want numbers without bloat.
Check out this breakdown of alternatives:
I’ve run Clarity on three company sites for months. Zero complaints and it loads faster than GA ever did. Session recordings are a nice bonus - you can watch exactly how people navigate without drowning in reports.