Plausible Analytics

What it does

A single 6MB Docker image gives you a full analytics dashboard. No database to configure separately, no JavaScript bloat on your site. You get page views, bounce rate, and referral sources - nothing you don't need.

Why we like it

Google Analytics collects 47 data points per visitor and still can't tell you if a campaign worked. Plausible shows you the five numbers that matter on one page. We've run it for two years. It's the tool we recommend most to people leaving the analytics-industrial complex.

What it replaces

Google Analytics 360, Fathom, Vercel Analytics, Simple Analytics

Setup guide

Here's the setup, step by step. A single 6MB Docker image gives you a full analytics dashboard. No database to configure separately, no JavaScript bloat on your site. You get page views, bounce rate, and referral sources - nothing you don't need.

The code

This is the actual configuration you'll use. Lines you need to edit are highlighted.

version: "3"services:  plausible:    image: ghcr.io/plausible/analytics:latest    ports:      - "8000:8000"    environment:      - BASE_URL=https://stats.yourdomain.com  ← your domain      - SECRET_KEY_BASE=change-me-to-random  ← generate a secret    depends_on: [db]  db:    image: postgres:16

Resource cost

Runs fine on a $5/month VPS. Uses ~100MB RAM at idle.