Open-source Review Series

There are a lot of great open-source projects out there, but the time-consuming process of installing, configuring, and learning new systems with no guarantees the software can even support your use-cases can be a major source of friction.

The purpose of the open-source review series is to dive into different open-source projects so you as the reader can gain an understanding of the feature set and capabilities of different open-source software so you don’t have to spend time figuring it out yourself.

Plausible.io — Open source Google Analytics alternative

Plausible is a fully GDPR compliant website analytics platform, made and hosted in the EU. The script adds less than 1 KB so it’s lightweight, lightning fast, and privacy-focused.

Plausible takes a progressive approach to web tracking:

  • Cookie-free
  • Does not collect personal data
  • No persistent identifiers
  • User count is based on unique IP addresses and is cleared every 24 hours
  • Open source

Project Overview — As of 27/02/2015

Plausible is intuitive, lightweight and open source web analytics. No cookies and fully compliant with GDPR, CCPA and PECR. Made and hosted in the EU, powered by European-owned cloud infrastructure.

  • Repository: GitHub link
  • Created by: RaspAP
  • First Commit: September 2, 2019
  • Number of stars: 15k+
  • Number of commits: 2000+

Installation methods

Self-hosted

Plausible has created a Git repository with alla the configuration files needed to self-host the software. Your first step will be to clone this repo to your server, update two configuration files, and then start the Plausible app and database containers. These are the other steps to install Plausible Analytics on Ubuntu 20.04:

  1. Step 1 – Installing Plausible Analytics with Docker Compose
  2. Step 2 — Installing and Configuring Nginx
  3. Step 3 — Installing Certbot and Setting Up SSL Certificates

Integration guides

Plausible can be integrated with several popural website builders and content management systems (CMS):

Characteristic

Privacy and data ownership

One of the primary reasons why I moved to Plausible Analytics was privacy. Google Analytics tracks user behavior using cookies, which can be used to track individuals across multiple websites. This means that Google can build detailed profiles of users and their online behavior, which can then be used for advertising and other purposes. As a website owner, I didn’t want to be complicit in this data collection, nor did I want to expose my users to it.

Plausible Analytics takes a different approach. It does not use cookies or any other form of user tracking, which means that user data is not stored on its servers. Instead, Plausible Analytics uses server logs to track website traffic and user behavior. This means that user data remains on your own server, giving you complete control over your data and ensuring the privacy of your users.

Because Plausible Analytics does not use cookies, it is not affected by the upcoming changes to cookie tracking in web browsers such as Safari and Firefox. This gives me confidence that my analytics data will continue to be accurate and reliable.

Ease of use

Google Analytics is a powerful tool, but it can be overwhelming for beginners. It has a steep learning curve, and it can take time to master all of its features. Plausible Analytics, on the other hand, is designed to be simple and easy to use. It has a clean and intuitive interface that makes it easy to get started with tracking your website traffic.

Plausible Analytics provides all of the essential data that I need to understand how my website is performing. I can see how many visitors I have had, how long they stayed on my website, which pages they visited, and more. This data is presented in a clear and easy-to-understand format, which allows me to quickly identify trends and patterns.

Cost

Google Analytics is free to use, but it comes with a catch. In order to use Google Analytics, you need to allow Google to collect and use your data. This means that Google can use your data for its own purposes, including advertising. In addition, as a free service, there are limitations to what you can do with Google Analytics.

Plausible Analytics is a paid service. However, the cost is very reasonable, starting at just $9 per month. This gives you access to all of its features, including unlimited websites and pageviews. Because Plausible Analytics is a privacy-focused service, you can be sure that your data is not being used for advertising or any other purposes.

Transparency

Google Analytics is a black box when it comes to data collection and analysis. It is not always clear what data Google is collecting, how it is being used, and who has access to it. This lack of transparency can be a concern for website owners who want to know what data is being collected and how it is being used.

Plausible Analytics is transparent about its data collection and analysis. It provides clear documentation on how it collects and analyzes data, and it is upfront about what data it collects and how it is used. This transparency is important for website owners who want to ensure that their data is being used ethically and transparently.

Features

Quick and easy to integrate

Simple to set up and integrate with popular tools such as WordPress, Ghost, Squarespace, Wix and Weebly. Supports single-page applications and hash-based routing.

  • A powerful and flexible API: Our API offers a way to retrieve your stats programmatically, send your metrics wherever you want and present them in whatever shape you want.

  • Keep an eye on your traffic with weekly and/or monthly reports: Get traffic spike notifications so you don’t miss being on the Hacker News. Reports can be sent to multiple recipients.

  • Serve the script as a first-party connection: You can set up a proxy to serve our script from your domain name as a first-party connection and get more accurate stats. There’s the events API for server side tracking too.

  • Own and control your data: Your site data will never be shared with or sold to any third-parties. It will never be monetized, mined and harvested for personal and behavioral trends.

  • Filter the dashboard by anything you click on: Dig more in-depth and get further insights by filtering. Click on any metric to filter your dashboard by it. Mix and match filters too.

  • Integrate with Search Console: Integrate with Google Search Console to see search queries people use to find your site in Google’s search results directly in your Plausible dashboard.

  • Analyze marketing campaigns: Tag your paid ads, emails and social media posts with UTM tags and analyze your ecommerce and marketing campaigns from click to conversion.

Conclusion

If you want an open source google analytics alternative then Plausible is easily worth the cost. also one of Plausible’s headline benefits is that it has been designed as a privacy first analytics tool. This might sound like an ideological factor, but it has real practical implications too.

Plausible only collects anonymous user data and does not use cookies. This means that unlike most analytics solutions, it complies with both GDPR and the European Cookie Law, so it’s a tick in the box for legal compliance.