head to head · open source
Plausible vs shynet
Plausible has 29,116 GitHub stars, 1,866 forks, 60 open issues and last shipped yesterday. shynet has 3,155 stars, 208 forks, 63 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. Plausible leads on adoption by 823% (29,116 vs 3,155 stars). Plausible is written in Elixir under AGPL-3.0; shynet is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Plausible has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, shynet 7%. Plausible was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (analytics, privacy), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Plausible | shynet | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Elixir | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-03-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 208 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Plausible if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Elixir
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick shynet if
- You want the shynet feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and shynet fits your workflow better
About Plausible
Plausible Analytics is an open source, privacy first web analytics tool — a lightweight, cookie free alternative to Google Analytics — for teams that want traffic and conversion insights without collecting personal data, available as a managed cloud service or a self hosted community edition under the AGPL 3.0 licence.
read the full Plausible overview →
About shynet
Shynet is an open source web analytics application written in Python and built with Django. It lives in the self hosted web and product analytics ecosystem, where operators collect visit data on their own infrastructure instead of sending it to a third party service. The project is released under the Apache 2.0 license and aims to provide detailed analytics without cookies or required JavaScript.
read the full shynet overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Plausible or shynet more popular?
Plausible has 29,116 GitHub stars and shynet has 3,155. Plausible has the larger community by that measure.
Are Plausible and shynet free?
Both are open source. Plausible is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and shynet under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Plausible and shynet?
Plausible is written in Elixir and shynet in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Plausible or shynet?
Choose Plausible if you want the larger community (29,116 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose shynet if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.