Google Analytics is free, powerful, and increasingly awkward: cookie banners, privacy regulations, ad blockers that strip its script, and a dashboard that answers questions nobody asked. Plausible Analytics takes the opposite approach. It tracks pageviews, referrers, devices, and goals, stores no personal data, needs no cookie banner in most jurisdictions, and fits on one screen. The hosted version starts at $9 a month. The self-hosted version costs only the server it runs on.

The install is a Docker Compose setup with two containers: the Plausible application and a ClickHouse database that stores the events. A 1 GB VPS handles a small site comfortably, and 2 GB is the comfortable minimum once traffic grows past a few thousand visits a day. The official repository ships a ready-made Compose file, and the first run takes about fifteen minutes plus the time to point your domain at the server and add the tracking script to your site.

The tracking script is a single line of JavaScript, under 1 KB in size, which is roughly forty-five times smaller than the Google Analytics script. That size difference is visible in page speed scores and in ad-blocker behavior: most blockers ignore Plausible because it collects no personal data, so your numbers are closer to reality than a GA install that silently loses a quarter of its visitors. Custom events and goals cover the conversions that matter, such as button clicks, form submissions, and outbound link clicks, without any additional configuration beyond one attribute on the element.

Privacy is the point, so treat it as a feature rather than a limitation. Plausible does not use cookies, does not fingerprint visitors, and does not store IP addresses. That means no cookie banner in the EU for most sites, no data shared with advertisers, and no privacy policy paragraph explaining third-party tracking. The tradeoff is that you lose the deep demographic and audience data GA collects, but for a small site or a startup, pageviews, referrers, and goals are usually the only numbers that change decisions.

Maintenance is light but real. Update the containers monthly, back up the ClickHouse data directory on a schedule, and watch disk usage, because analytics data grows steadily. If the server is also running other services, give Plausible its own Compose project so an upgrade to one service cannot break another. Put it behind HTTPS and restrict the admin login to your own network or a VPN if the stats are sensitive.

Plausible is not the right analytics tool for everyone. Large sites with complex funnels, e-commerce attribution, or a marketing team that lives in GA will miss features. For a blog, a documentation site, a landing page, or a small SaaS product, it answers the three questions that matter: how many visitors, where did they come from, and what did they do. Self-hosted, those answers cost nothing but the server you already have.

If you run more than one site, Plausible handles them all from a single dashboard, and the self-hosted version has no per-site fee at all. Add each site as a separate property, use the same tracking script with a different data-domain attribute, and compare traffic across properties in one view. Shared links let you send a client or a collaborator a read-only dashboard without creating an account for them, which is a small feature that saves a surprising amount of back and forth. For an agency or a freelancer with several client sites, that multi-site view is the feature that justifies the self-hosting effort on its own.