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Posted on • Originally published at ossalt.com

Self-Hosting Guide: Deploy Plausible Analytics with Docker

#plausible #analytics #selfhosting #docker

Self-Hosting Guide: Deploy Plausible Analytics with Docker

Plausible Analytics is a privacy-first, cookie-free Google Analytics alternative. Self-hosting costs ~$5/month on a VPS vs $9-19/month for Plausible Cloud. Here's the complete production setup.

Requirements

  • VPS with 1 GB RAM minimum (2 GB recommended)
  • Docker and Docker Compose
  • Domain name (e.g., analytics.yourdomain.com)
  • SMTP service for email reports

Step 1: Server Setup 

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y docker.io docker-compose-plugin

# Start Docker
sudo systemctl enable docker
sudo systemctl start docker
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Step 2: Clone and Configure 

git clone https://github.com/plausible/community-edition.git plausible
cd plausible

# Generate secret key
openssl rand -base64 48

# Edit configuration
cp .env.example .env
nano .env
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Essential .env settings:

BASE_URL=https://analytics.yourdomain.com
SECRET_KEY_BASE=your-generated-64-char-secret
TOTP_VAULT_KEY=your-generated-32-char-key

# SMTP for email reports
MAILER_EMAIL=analytics@yourdomain.com
SMTP_HOST_ADDR=smtp.resend.com
SMTP_HOST_PORT=587
SMTP_USER_NAME=resend
SMTP_USER_PWD=re_your_api_key
SMTP_HOST_SSL_ENABLED=true

# Optional: Google Search Console integration
GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID=your-google-client-id
GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET=your-google-secret

# Optional: MaxMind GeoIP (for city-level data)
MAXMIND_LICENSE_KEY=your-key
MAXMIND_EDITION=GeoLite2-City
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Step 3: Start Plausible 

docker compose up -d
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Plausible runs on port 8000 by default.

Step 4: Reverse Proxy (Caddy) 

# Install Caddy
sudo apt install -y caddy
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# /etc/caddy/Caddyfile
analytics.yourdomain.com {
    reverse_proxy localhost:8000
}
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sudo systemctl restart caddy
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Caddy auto-provisions SSL via Let's Encrypt.

Step 5: DNS

Add an A record: analytics.yourdomain.com → your server IP

Step 6: Create Account and Add Site

  1. Open https://analytics.yourdomain.com
  2. Create your admin account
  3. Add your website domain
  4. Copy the tracking snippet

Step 7: Add Tracking Script 

<script defer data-domain="yourdomain.com"
  src="https://analytics.yourdomain.com/js/script.js"></script>
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Enhanced tracking (optional):

<!-- Track outbound links + file downloads + tagged events -->
<script defer data-domain="yourdomain.com"
  src="https://analytics.yourdomain.com/js/script.tagged-events.outbound-links.file-downloads.js">
</script>
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Step 8: Production Hardening

Backups:

# Backup ClickHouse and PostgreSQL data
docker compose exec plausible_db pg_dump -U postgres plausible > backup.sql
# Or backup the Docker volumes
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Updates:

cd plausible
git pull
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d
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Monitoring:
Add Uptime Kuma to monitor your Plausible instance.

Resource Usage

Metric Value
RAM 512 MB – 1 GB
CPU 1 core
Disk 1-5 GB (depends on traffic)
VPS cost $5-10/month

Recommended VPS Providers

Provider Spec Price
Hetzner 2 vCPU, 2 GB RAM €4.50/month
DigitalOcean 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM $6/month
Linode 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM $5/month
Vultr 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM $5/month

Compare analytics tools on OSSAlt — privacy, features, and self-hosting options side by side.

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