[opensourcedex]

Plausible is a free, open source web & product analytics project written in Elixir and released under AGPL-3.0. It has 29,116 GitHub stars, 1,866 forks and 60 open issues, and was last pushed 5 hours ago. On this registry it ranks #3 of 25 tracked projects in Web & Product Analytics, and is listed as an open source replacement for 3 paid products, with 5 head-to-head comparisons available. It gained 71 stars over the last 6 tracked days.

Plausible — Privacy-focused, lightweight web analytics

What is 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.

What it is

Plausible Analytics is an open source web analytics application written in Elixir, built on Phoenix, with PostgreSQL and ClickHouse named in its topic list as the supporting data stores. It sits in the web and product analytics ecosystem, alongside the tracking-script-plus-dashboard model that has dominated the field for years. The project measures traffic rather than individuals: no personal data and no IP addresses are stored, and no cookies or persistent identifiers are used. It is made and hosted in the EU and is fully compliant with GDPR, CCPA and PECR.

The concrete problem is the trade forced by the incumbent. Google Analytics is free to use because Google monetises user data for advertising, and that model comes with data collection, complexity and additional overhead. Mixpanel, the second product Plausible positions itself against, is a paid product analytics tool. Plausible replaces the tracking script and the reporting dashboard: one small script on the site, one page of insights in the dashboard, no layers of menus and no custom report builder. It also imports historical Google Analytics stats so a team can continue where it left off.

Key capabilities

  • Lightweight tracking script, plus an events API for sending events directly rather than through the browser script.
  • Cookie-free measurement: no cookies, no persistent identifiers, no stored IP addresses or personal data.
  • Goal, conversion, revenue attribution and funnel tracking using custom events and dimensions.
  • Codeless tracking for outbound link clicks, form completions, file downloads and 404 error pages.
  • SPA support out of the box, including pushState and hash-based routing.
  • Weekly or monthly reports by email or Slack with traffic spike and drop notifications, alongside a real-time live traffic view.
  • Google Search Console integration for keyword data, with a stats API and CSV export for building custom workflows on the collected data.

Who uses it and how

  • Teams migrating off Google Analytics, importing historical stats and keeping familiar metrics, campaign tracking and Search Console data.
  • Privacy-conscious organisations needing GDPR, CCPA and PECR compliance, where not collecting personal data removes the analytics consent burden.
  • Marketing and product teams that share dashboards publicly by link, making analytics transparent by default.
  • Organisations with EU data-residency requirements, since the project is made and hosted in the EU.
  • Teams sending events from server-side or non-browser sources through the events API.

Getting started

Run it as the managed cloud service at plausible.io, or self-host the community edition. Role-based team member access is available on either path, and the README links to the documentation for setup details.

How it compares

The paid products listed as replaced are Google Analytics and Mixpanel. Google Analytics is free because Google monetises user data for advertising, whereas Plausible is funded entirely by its subscribers; Mixpanel is a paid product analytics tool, while Plausible ships the same category of insight under AGPL-3.0 with a self-hosted community edition. Plausible's own cloud is not free either, but the licence permits self-hosting without a per-event vendor cost, and the data stays on infrastructure the operator controls.

When to use it — and when not to

Self-hosting means operating an Elixir and Phoenix application with PostgreSQL and ClickHouse, plus mail and Slack integrations for scheduled reports, which is real infrastructure rather than a static file. It is the wrong pick for teams that need deeply customised report builders or session-level individual tracking, because Plausible measures traffic, not people, by design. The README is a marketing-style overview that links out to documentation rather than shipping install commands, so budget time in the docs before deploying.

project readme (upstream, from github) — read inline

Plausible Analytics

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.

Plausible Analytics

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 that cut through the noise. No layers of menus or need to create custom reports. All key insights are on a single page, with no training required.

  • Privacy-first and compliant
    Measure traffic, not individuals. No personal data or IP addresses are stored, and no cookies or persistent identifiers are used. Fully compliant with GDPR, CCPA and PECR.
    Read more about our data policy

  • Lightweight
    Our script is tiny, helping your website load faster. You can also send events directly to our events API.

  • Built for modern workflows
    Works with modern frameworks and supports SPAs out of the box, including pushState and hash-based routing. See details.

  • Define key goals and track conversions
    Track goals, conversions, revenue attribution and funnels using custom events and dimensions. Turn on codeless tracking for outbound link clicks, form completions, file downloads and 404 error pages.

  • Easy reporting and sharing
    Get weekly or monthly reports via email or Slack, including traffic spike/drop notifications. Invite team members with role-based access, share dashboards publicly or with anyone using a simple link. Make your analytics transparent by default.

  • Search insights included
    Integrate with Google Search Console to get accurate keyword data directly in your dashboard.

  • API and integrations
    Send events directly via our API and export your stats using the stats API or CSV. Build custom workflows and integrations on top of your data.

  • Real-time insights
    Monitor live traffic and understand what’s happening on your site as it happens.

  • Smooth transition from Google Analytics
    Familiar metrics, campaign tracking and Search Console integration. Import your historical Google Analytics stats and continue where you left off.

Thousands of teams use Plausible to understand their traffic without sacrificing privacy or simplicity. Learn how to get the most out of your Plausible experience.

We are dedicated to making web analytics more privacy-friendly. Our mission is to reduce corporate surveillance by providing an alternative web analytics tool which doesn’t come from the AdTech world. We are completely independent and solely funded by our subscribers.

Interested to learn more? Read more on our website, learn more about the team and our goals on our about page or explore the documentation.

Why is Plausible Analytics Cloud not free like Google Analytics?

Plausible is an independent, open source project funded entirely by our users. We charge a subscription to sustainably develop, maintain and improve the product over the long term.

Google Analytics is free to use because Google monetizes user data for advertising. That model comes with trade-offs: data collection, complexity and additional overhead for compliance and consent.

With Plausible, the business model is simple:

  • No data collection beyond aggregated, anonymized stats
  • No third-party data sharing
  • No advertising or tracking ecosystem
  • You fully own and control your data

We believe paying for analytics should be straightforward. You pay for a product, not with your users’ data, but with a transparent subscription. Learn more.

Getting started with Plausible

The easiest way to get started with Plausible Analytics is with our official managed service in the cloud.

  • Takes ~2 minutes to set up
  • Global CDN, high availability, backups and security included
  • No maintenance required

In order to be compliant with the GDPR and the Schrems II ruling, all visitor data for our managed service in the cloud is exclusively processed on servers and cloud infrastructure owned and operated by European providers. Your website data never leaves the EU.

Our managed hosting can save a substantial amount of developer time and resources. For most sites this ends up being the best value option and the revenue goes to funding the maintenance and further development of Plausible. So you’ll be supporting open source software and getting a great service!

Can Plausible be self-hosted?

Plausible is open source web analytics and we have a free as in beer and self-hosted solution called Plausible Community Edition (CE). Here are the differences between Plausible Analytics managed hosting in the cloud and the Plausible CE:

Plausible Analytics Cloud Plausible Community Edition
Infrastructure management Easy and convenient. It takes 2 minutes to start counting your stats with a worldwide CDN, high availability, backups, security and maintenance all done for you by us. We manage everything so you don’t have to worry about anything and can focus on your stats. You do it all yourself. You need to get a server and you need to manage your infrastructure. You are responsible for installation, maintenance, upgrades, server capacity, uptime, backup, security, stability, consistency, loading time and so on.
Release schedule Continuously developed and improved with new features and updates multiple times per week. It's a long term release published twice per year so latest features and improvements won't be immediately available.
Premium features All features available as listed in our pricing plans. Premium features (marketing funnels, ecommerce revenue goals, SSO and sites API) are not available in order to help support the project's long-term sustainability.
Bot filtering Advanced bot filtering for more accurate stats. Our algorithm detects and excludes non-human traffic patterns. We also exclude known bots by the User-Agent header and filter out traffic from data centers and referrer spam domains. We exclude ~32K data center IP ranges (i.e. a lot of bot IP addresses) by default. Basic bot filtering that targets the most common non-human traffic based on the User-Agent header and referrer spam domains.
Server location All visitor data is exclusively processed on EU-owned cloud infrastructure. We keep your site data on a secure, encrypted and green energy powered server in Germany. This ensures that your site data is protected by the strict European Union data privacy laws and ensures compliance with GDPR. Your website data never leaves the EU. You have full control and can host your instance on any server in any country that you wish. Host it on a server in your basement or host it with any cloud provider wherever you want, even those that are not GDPR compliant.
Data portability You see all your site stats and metrics on our modern-looking, simple to use and fast loading dashboard. You can only see the stats aggregated in the dashboard. You can download the

readme truncated — read the full docs on github

Frequently asked questions

Is Plausible free to use?

Plausible is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does Plausible do?

Privacy-focused, lightweight web analytics

What is Plausible written in?

Plausible is primarily written in Elixir. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/plausible/analytics, and it has 29,116 GitHub stars.

What is a good open source alternative to Google Analytics?

Plausible is one of the open source options listed as an alternative to Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Mixpanel. Compare licences, stars and activity side by side on the Plausible profile.