Open-source web analytics you can self-host

Entry price is the lowest monthly price the vendor lists; “Free” means a free plan or free self-hosting. “At 100k” is the monthly price for 100,000 units, as the vendor bills them. Dates under statuses, prices and script sizes show when we checked them. See how we check every value.

What “open source” and “self-hosted” mean here

This page lists tools that meet two conditions: their code is published under an open-source license, and the vendor supports installing them on your own server. The two often come together, but they are separate properties with different consequences.

Open source. We count a tool as open source when its code is published under an open-source license, such as MIT, GPL or AGPL. These licenses allow anyone to use, study, change and share the code. Copyleft licenses such as GPL and AGPL add conditions: if you share a modified version, and with AGPL also if you let others use a modified version over a network, you have to make your changes available under the same license. Read the license before you change the code or offer the tool to others as a service.

Source-available is a different thing. Some projects publish their code under a license that lets you read it but limits how you may use it, for example by restricting commercial use or forbidding you to offer the software as a hosted service. The directory does not count such code as open source, even when the repository is public. Some projects also split their code: the core is open source, while certain features are sold under a commercial license.

Self-hosted. A tool counts as self-hostable when the vendor provides an official way to run it on infrastructure you control: your own hardware, a rented virtual server or a cloud account. The tracking script then sends data to your server instead of the vendor’s. Tools that can be self-hosted but do not meet the open-source definition above carry a self-hosting label in the full table, but they are not listed on this page.

Running a tool yourself means taking care of the following:

Where the cloud plan fits. A hosted plan takes this work off your hands: the vendor runs the servers, installs the updates and keeps the backups. For some projects, cloud subscriptions are also what pays for the development of the open-source code. The cloud and self-hosted editions are not always identical, so compare them before you decide; the questions below list the differences to look for.

Open source does not mean free

Thirteen of the tools on this page also run a hosted service of their own, and six of those start with a free plan. Two, Ackee and Koko Analytics, come only as software you install.

That hosted plan is often what pays for the code. Plausible writes that revenue from its cloud subscriptions funds development, and that marketing funnels, user journeys, ecommerce revenue goals, single sign-on and the sites API stay out of the Community Edition for the same reason. Matomo takes the other route and sells the extras as plugins: funnels, heatmaps, session recordings, A/B testing, form analytics, custom reports, cohorts and roll-up reporting are premium features on its own site, part of the cloud Business plan and paid plugins on your own server.

The license answers a question about rights, not about price. Before you compare an installation with a subscription, read what the edition you plan to install leaves out.

What you have to do yourself

Each vendor publishes what it expects. Matomo 6.0 asks for a web server with PHP 8.1 or newer and MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.6, and its requirements page sizes the machine by traffic, starting at two processors and 2 GB of memory. Umami asks for Node.js 18.18 or newer and PostgreSQL 12.14 or newer. Rybbit’s quick start asks for a server with at least 2 GB of memory and a domain pointed at it, since browsers block tracking scripts served over plain HTTP.

Then the work repeats. PostHog states that self-hosted deployments are officially unsupported, with changes shipping continuously rather than in tagged releases. Plausible publishes its Community Edition twice a year, so cloud features arrive later, and describes self-hosted bot filtering as the common cases by user agent and referrer spam list, while its hosted service also excludes data-centre address ranges. Lists like that stay current only while somebody updates them, and the same goes for backups: the history exists only where you keep it.

Questions and answers

Is self-hosted web analytics free?

The license lets you use the software without paying for it, but running it has costs: a server and storage, plus the time for installation, updates, backups and monitoring. Some vendors also sell extra features for self-hosted installations. Compare that total with the price of the vendor’s cloud plan at your traffic.

Why does this page show cloud prices?

The cost of a self-hosted installation depends mostly on your server and your time, so there is no single price to compare. The Entry price and At 100k / month columns therefore show the vendor’s hosted plans. A tool that is offered only for self-hosting shows “Free” in these columns, and that figure does not include the cost of your server.

Is the self-hosted edition the same as the cloud plan?

Not always. A vendor may keep some features for its cloud, release the self-hosted edition less often, filter bot traffic in a simpler way or sell some features for self-hosted installations as paid add-ons. Look for these differences in the vendor’s documentation and on its pricing page before you choose between the two.

Does self-hosting solve data protection requirements?

Not by itself. Self-hosting changes who holds the data and where: the data stays on infrastructure you choose, and you become responsible for securing it, controlling access to it and deleting it on time. Whether you still need visitor consent, or an agreement with your hosting provider, depends on your jurisdiction, the tool’s settings and the data you collect. This directory does not give legal advice.

Other collections