Difference between unique visitors / unique user IDs / Users

Hello,

I’ve been looking online for a clear definition of the distinction between:

  • unique visitors
  • users (this metric can be charted in the built-in visitors report, but not in the custom report)
  • unique user ID (vice-versa, this is found in the custom report, but not in the built-in visitors report. Is it the same?)

Unfortunately, I could not find any such clear distinction.

The values are also not helping me:
on a past week (so where all pre-processing has been done) I see:

  • Unique visitors (built-in): 1715
  • users (built-in): 777
  • Unique visitors (custom report): 3298 (this has been clarified already then)
  • Unique user id (custom report): 1760

Could you maybe point me to any documentation if available? (or post the answer here? :slight_smile: )

Hi,

For name clarifications the Matomo glossary is always helpful:
https://glossary.matomo.org/

Maybe someone else can better explain the exact differences than me.