Is it reasonable to use Google Analytics as a repository of statistics about views and likes of blog posts?

Question

CouchDB

I am writing my blog application on angular-express-couchdb.
It is necessary to implement the functions of counting post views and the ability to like posts so that on the main page in the list under each post the number of likes and the number of post views are indicated.
I see two options:
1) Since I connected Google Analytics for all pages, the idea came up to use this service also as a store of data about views and likes. Pull this data through the Google API and cache it on your server for a short time. View is an event that occurs after the user, for example, spent n-seconds on the post page and scrolled to the end of it. Accordingly, like - click on the heart. (protection against cheating: recording in localstorage, user registration is not provided) We are talking about custom likes without social networks, twitters, etc.
2) The second option is simply to fill the database with documents with data about these events.
In general, I understand that it is possible this way and that, but I would like to hear the opinion of people with experience in using Google Analytics: is the first method an adequate method? and if not, why not?

Answer 1

If you are satisfied with the form in which Google gives you statistics and the form in which it receives it, then of course you should use GA.
GA itself is not bad, as is Yandex Metrica, it's just that there is a rather limited list of reports received. Your own statistics in this regard is unlimited, but there are a number of disadvantages, such as additional servers, possibly additional developers

Answer 2

Such analytics can be approximate - I saw somewhere that Google Analytics in the free version does not conduct a detailed analysis of all data, but makes an approximation from a small cut.
Before using this option, I recommend looking for information on this topic.