head to head · open source
Plausible vs shynet
Plausible has 29,752 GitHub stars, 1,928 forks, 60 open issues and last shipped yesterday. shynet has 3,157 stars, 212 forks, 63 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. Plausible leads on adoption by 842% (29,752 vs 3,157 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 | ★ 30K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Elixir | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-03-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 212 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Plausible if
- You weight community size — 30K 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 Live Demo Open Source Docs Contributing Plausible Analytics is an open source, privacy first web analytics tool. Lightweight, cookie free alternative to Google Analytics. Available in managed cloud or self hosted community edition. 🔐 Privacy focused 🛡️ GDPR, CCPA, PECR compliant 📊 Simple, fast dashboard 🪶 Lightweight script 🇪🇺 Made and hosted in the EU Why Plausible? Here's what makes Plausible a great Google Analytics alternative and why we're trusted by thousands of paying subscribers to deliver their website and business insights: Clutter free Plausible provides simple web analytics…
read the full Plausible overview →
About shynet
Modern, privacy friendly, and cookie free web analytics. Getting started » Screenshots • Features • Office Hours Motivation There are a lot of web analytics tools. Unfortunately, most of them come with the following caveats: They require handing all of your visitors' info to a third party company They use cookies to track visitors across sessions, so you need to have those annoying cookie notices They collect so much personal data that even the NSA is jealous They are closed source and/or expensive, often with limited data portability They are hard to use Shynet has none of these caveats. You host it…
read the full shynet overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Plausible or shynet more popular?
Plausible has 29,752 GitHub stars and shynet has 3,157. 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 (29,752 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.