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Alex Spinov
Alex Spinov

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Umami Has a Free Privacy-First Analytics Platform That Replaces Google Analytics

#umami #analytics #privacy #opensource

Google Analytics tracks your users, sells their data, and got banned in several EU countries. Umami gives you the same insights — page views, visitors, referrers, events — with zero cookies and full GDPR compliance.

What Umami Gives You for Free

  • No cookies — no consent banners needed
  • GDPR/CCPA compliant — by design, not by workaround
  • Real-time dashboard — visitors, page views, referrers, devices
  • Custom events — track clicks, conversions, form submissions
  • Team support — multiple users and websites
  • API — query analytics data programmatically
  • Self-hosted — own your data completely
  • 1KB script — vs Google Analytics' 45KB

Quick Start (Docker) 

git clone https://github.com/umami-software/umami.git
cd umami
docker compose up -d
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Or use Umami Cloud (free tier: 10K events/month).

Add to Your Website 

<script
  defer
  src="https://your-umami.com/script.js"
  data-website-id="your-website-id"
></script>
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One line. No cookies. No consent banner. Done.

Track Custom Events 

// Track a button click
umami.track('signup_click');

// Track with data
umami.track('purchase', {
  product: 'Pro Plan',
  price: 29,
  currency: 'USD'
});

// Track form submission
const form = document.querySelector('form');
form.addEventListener('submit', () => {
  umami.track('contact_form_submitted');
});
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API (Query Your Data) 

// Get page views for last 7 days
const stats = await fetch('https://your-umami.com/api/websites/123/stats', {
  headers: { 'Authorization': `Bearer ${UMAMI_API_KEY}` },
  params: {
    startAt: Date.now() - 7 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000,
    endAt: Date.now()
  }
}).then(r => r.json());

console.log(stats.pageviews);  // Total page views
console.log(stats.visitors);   // Unique visitors
console.log(stats.bounces);    // Bounce rate
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Umami vs Google Analytics vs Plausible vs Fathom

Feature Umami Google Analytics Plausible Fathom
Price Free (self-hosted) Free $9/mo $14/mo
Cookies None Multiple None None
GDPR compliant Yes Questionable Yes Yes
Self-hostable Yes No Yes No
Script size 1KB 45KB 1KB 2KB
Real-time Yes Delayed Yes Yes
Custom events Free Free Paid Paid
Data ownership Full Google Yours Partial

The Verdict

Umami gives you the analytics you need without the privacy violations you don't. Self-hosted, cookie-free, GDPR-compliant, and a 1KB script. Replace Google Analytics and never worry about consent banners again.

Need help building production web scrapers or data pipelines? I build custom solutions. Reach out: spinov001@gmail.com

Check out my awesome-web-scraping collection — 400+ tools for extracting web data.

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