Plausible Has a Free Privacy-Friendly Analytics That Is 45x Smaller Than Google Analytics

#plausible #analytics #privacy #webdev

Google Analytics script is 45KB. Plausible is <1KB. No cookies. No tracking across sites. GDPR-compliant by design. And it tells you everything you actually need to know.

Plausible vs Google Analytics

	Google Analytics	Plausible
Script size	45KB	<1KB
Cookies	Yes (requires consent)	No cookies
GDPR consent banner	Required	Not needed
Data ownership	Google owns it	You own it
Dashboard	Complex (100+ reports)	Simple (1 page)
Setup time	30 min	2 min
Self-host	No	Yes

Setup

<script defer data-domain="yoursite.com" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script>

One line. No cookie banners. No consent popups. Done.

What You See

One clean dashboard showing:

Unique visitors (daily, weekly, monthly)
Page views and bounce rate
Visit duration
Traffic sources (referrers, UTM parameters)
Top pages
Countries and devices
Goals and conversions

Custom Events

// Track button clicks
document.getElementById("signup-btn").addEventListener("click", () => {
  plausible("Signup");
});

// Track with properties
plausible("Purchase", { props: { plan: "premium", value: "49" } });

// Track 404 pages
plausible("404", { props: { path: document.location.pathname } });

Revenue Tracking

plausible("Purchase", { revenue: { currency: "USD", amount: 49.99 } });

Track revenue per source — know which channels drive actual money.

Self-Host (Docker)

services:
  plausible:
    image: ghcr.io/plausible/community-edition:latest
    ports:
      - "8000:8000"
    environment:
      - BASE_URL=https://analytics.yoursite.com
      - SECRET_KEY_BASE=your-secret
    depends_on:
      - db
      - clickhouse
  db:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: postgres
  clickhouse:
    image: clickhouse/clickhouse-server:latest

Self-host = unlimited sites, unlimited traffic, zero cost.

Pricing

Self-hosted: Free forever
Cloud: $9/mo for 10K monthly visitors

Need web analytics or data solutions? I build developer tools and scraping infrastructure. Email spinov001@gmail.com or check my Apify tools.

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