Options for Hosting Your Own Non-JavaScript-Based Analytics

Numerous website analytics platforms help you track website visitors and usage data. The most famous of these is Google Analytics, which is widely used (including this website), probably because it is easy to integrate, feature-rich, and free (until you need to upgrade to the enterprise level, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars).

I have no particular objection to Google Analytics. In fact, I really like it, especially after I learned more about customizing it, like we did on CSS-Tricks and CodePen.

But there are other options. In particular, I want to look at some other options, these:

• You can host your analytics data yourself. It is always good to have your own data.
• JavaScript is not required for data collection. JavaScript is now often blocked due to growing vigilance against third-party JavaScript. It's interesting to consider completely inconspicuous server log-based analysis.

I haven't found many options to choose from. One of the classic solutions I always think of in this type of solution is Shaun Inman's Mint, but Mint no longer accepts new customers. Maybe I'm not looking in all the right places, maybe you can help. If you know more options – especially those you have experience – please leave a comment in the comments.

Fathom Analytics

This is a tool Dave Rupert has used and written articles on his personal website. They have a paid hosted version that is still focused on privacy because it does not track or store user data. But they also have a free self-hosted version that you can run on your own. The actual data collection is done through the JavaScript code snippet you put into the website.

I'm using @usefathom and @HasuraHQ on Postgres via my @gatsbyjs blog https://www.php.cn/link/1951434fd86f7c1af10d4b8dc1624460 to get my stats (generate the "Maximum Views" list in the footer).

— knut (@kmelve) September 9, 2019

Ackee

This tool is based on Node.js and can only be hosted by itself. The actual data collection is done through the JavaScript code snippet you put into the website.

Matomo On-Premise

Matomo Cloud is their hosted version, while On-Premise is their self-hosted version. The actual data collection is done through the JavaScript code snippet you put into the website.

I personally use Matomo in my side project. It's powerful and makes me love it. ✌

— RaKesh Mandal (@rkalways_) September 10, 2019

GoAccess

GoAccess is worth paying attention because it is the first "Web Log Analyzer" in its list, which means it looks at access logs created by the web server, rather than relying on the client-side JavaScript report. In theory, this should be more accurate, because client-side JavaScript can be blocked. GoAccess generates reports that can be viewed in the terminal, as well as browser-based charts.

I'm using GoAccess as a static site generated on cronjob ( https://www.php.cn/link/589614f4059c694cd0fd49e71249d610 .

— Shane Hudson (@ShaneHudson) September 9, 2019

Netlify Analytics

Netlify Analytics is not self-hosted and you will not install it yourself on the server you rented. One important reason to use Netlify is that it prevents you from handling your own server. Analytics are based on server logs, not JavaScript, as they may be more accurate and do not affect performance.

Web hosts are able to provide analysis services to their users because they can configure their own logging, etc. For example, I also have analytical data on this website via Flywheel without installing anything as they can analyze traffic through their servers. We wrote an overview of the service when it was released.

AWStats

AWStats is the oldest analytical tool. When I started using the web, all web hosting providers advertised the AWStats dashboard as part of their products. It runs on Perl and like the last two services mentioned above, it fetches data from the server log.

It's not pretty, but it's free, open source, and has nearly 20 years of software project stability.

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