Plausible Analytics

Overview

Plausible tells you how many people visit your websites, where they come from, and which pages they read, on one clear dashboard. It uses no cookies and collects no personal data, so in most places you do not need a cookie banner. The script you add to your site is tiny and does not slow it down.

Features

• One dashboard per website: visitors, page views, bounce rate, visit length, top pages, and where visitors came from
• Live view of who is on your site right now
• Countries, devices, browsers, and operating systems
• Goals and custom events, such as sign-ups, button clicks, outbound links, and file downloads, with funnels to see where people drop off
• Campaign tracking with UTM tags
• Import past traffic from CSV files, such as an export from another Plausible
• Invite your team, and share a dashboard with a private link or embed it in another page
• A stats API for your own reports and tools

Setting up

The first account you register after install becomes the administrator. After that, new accounts can only join by invitation.

1. Add a website and give its domain, for example example.com.
2. Copy the snippet Plausible shows you into the <head> of every page on that site.
3. Visit your site. The visit appears on the dashboard within a few seconds.

Good to know

• Your websites send visits to this app, and the app stays private. moose keeps the dashboard behind the box login. The tracking script and the address that receives visits are the exception: they answer anyone, so visitors' browsers can reach them. The stats API is open too, and it needs an API key you create in Plausible. Nothing to switch on.
• Shared links work for anyone you send them to. Each link carries its own secret, and you can add a password.
• The "public dashboard" switch opens your numbers to anyone. The dashboard page itself stays behind the box login, but the numbers behind it can then be read by anyone who knows the site's domain. To share stats, send a shared link instead.
• On a box at home, only visitors on your home network are counted. The tracking script has to be reachable from your visitors' browsers, and a home box is only reachable on your local network.
• Location is by country. Regions and cities need a free MaxMind account, which this app does not set up.
• A few things come from outside the box. Plausible fetches a public list of spam referrers from GitHub when it starts, profile pictures from Gravatar, and the icons of sites that send you visitors from DuckDuckGo. Your visitors' data is not sent anywhere.
• Email is off until you connect a mail provider. Without one, password reset emails, invitations, and weekly reports are not sent. Everything else works.