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GoatCounter: Open-source hosted/self-hosted web analytics

goatcounter.com

41–50 of 52 posts

Re: GoatCounter: Open-source hosted/self-hosted web analytics

#41
post #2

nice to see a alternative to https://plausible.io/ . UI looks a little rough in comparison, but that's maybe more a matter of taste.

There are plenty of alternatives: https://european-alternatives.eu/category/web-analytics-serv... I'm building one of them, Pirsch.

Thanks for European-alternatives. Didn’t know that site.

Re: GoatCounter: Open-source hosted/self-hosted web analytics

#43

I was after something like this a while ago. Settled on Umami https://umami.is/ . Great projects!

Good to know, how is Umami treating you? Any pros/cons that may be quick to share?

My install got nuked a couple times on updates, but love it otherwise.

Re: GoatCounter: Open-source hosted/self-hosted web analytics

#44
One warning: the site claims you don't need a "cookie popup" since it doesn't use cookies. That's false. The ePrivacy directive states that reading or writing any data from the user device other than for the purpose of serving the site needs permission.

This thing uses the user agent string and IP to identify users, so you need a permission popup. It's great that they put much effort into not storing those things, using hashes etc, but that does not remove the requirement for permission under the ePrivacy directive.

Re: GoatCounter: Open-source hosted/self-hosted web analytics

#47
For some basic analytics a la "I want to know which of my blog posts are read the most", I highly recommend GoAccess[1]. It doesn't require JavaScript and uses access logs instead. There are of course some pros and cons of that approach. When I've migrated from Google Analytics a few years ago, I've ran both at the same time for a while, and the relative numbers were pretty close.

[1] https://goaccess.io/

Re: GoatCounter: Open-source hosted/self-hosted web analytics

#48
post #44

One warning: the site claims you don't need a "cookie popup" since it doesn't use cookies. That's false. The ePrivacy directive states that reading or writing any data from the user device other than for the purpose of serving the site needs permission. This thing uses the user agent string and IP to identify users, so you need a permission popup. It's great that they put much effort into not storing those things, us…

Spot on. The author acknowledges that cookies are actually more privacy friendly, but then concludes with “it is what it is”. Kind of disappointing.

This is my major gripe with all the privacy friendly analytics (disclaimer: I authored two, namely Fathom when it was still open-source and Koko Analytics) tools that submerged over the past few years. Elaborate work went into bypassing cookies, only to make things worse from a privacy perspective in the end.

Re: GoatCounter: Open-source hosted/self-hosted web analytics

#49
post #44

One warning: the site claims you don't need a "cookie popup" since it doesn't use cookies. That's false. The ePrivacy directive states that reading or writing any data from the user device other than for the purpose of serving the site needs permission. This thing uses the user agent string and IP to identify users, so you need a permission popup. It's great that they put much effort into not storing those things, us…

At this point, why doesn't the browser implement the cookie popup so every site doesn't have to re-invent it? Just don't allow access to cookies programmatically until the user has allowed it via the browser's built-in popup.

This already happens for things like notifications and location access, is this something being worked on for the future?

Re: GoatCounter: Open-source hosted/self-hosted web analytics

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to know, how is Umami treating you? Any pros/cons that may be quick to share?

My raspberry couldn’t handle it

Which PI? And for how much traffic?

If you want, please DM me and I can give you a license to try UXWizz on your Raspberry Pi.

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