Looking for simple analytics (similar to Plausible) that supports cookies reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Daniel15 · 2023-10-10 01:42 Google Analytics is broken on a bunch of my sites thanks to the GA4 migration. Since I have to update everything anyways, I'm looking at the possibility of replacing Google Analytics with something I self- host that's more privacy-focused. I've tried Plausible, Umami and Swetrix (the latter of which I like the most). They're all very lightweight and most are pretty efficient due to their use of a column-oriented database (Clickhouse) for storing the analytics data - makes way more sense than a row-oriented database like MySQL for this use case. However, these systems are all cookie-less. This is *usually* fine, however one of my sites is commonly used in schools on their computers. Cookieless analytics works by tracking sessions based on IP address and user-agent, so in places like schools with one external IP and the same browser on every computer, it just looks like one user in the analytics. I'd like to know the actual number of users. I'm looking for a similarly lightweight analytics system that does use cookies (first-party cookies only) to handle this particular use case. Does anyone know of one? Thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thekrautboy · 2023-10-10 02:14 I have only used Plausible myself and the reason they dont offer cookie-based tracking is user privacy, not as a lack of feature. If you want to make use of that, check the list from the subreddit sidebar for analytics options: https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted#analytics Out of the ones you already mentioned, the only one i know gets mentioned often is Matomo. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Daniel15 · 2023-10-10 02:59 Any site that you log in to already has a cookie to keep you logged in. If I'm self-hosting an analytics system, what's the privacy issue with using the same cookie for analytics too? A session token is not UII as once the session expires, there's no way to tie it back to a particular person. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thekrautboy · 2023-10-10 03:06 Argue that with the creators of Plausible, not with me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Zycuty · 2023-10-10 06:34 Tell that to GDPR lol ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Stetsed · 2023-10-10 08:42 So the GDPR will actually disagree with you, you are not simply allowed to use a login cookie to also be tracking. You will have to get consent via a cookie popup banner from the user to use cookies for purposes that are not essential(tracking is not essential) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thekrautboy · 2023-10-10 09:48 Clearly OP knows better, or doesnt care. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- allanmeter · 2023-10-10 11:39 Matomo? Any chance this might fit your needs? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Daniel15 · 2023-10-11 04:54 Cookie banner is fine with me. Some of my sites are only for Australian people so I don't really need cookie banners on those. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Daniel15 · 2023-10-11 08:05 I'm already showing a cookie banner so I'm fine in terms of GDPR. I just want something lighter than Google Analytics and that collects less personal information.