Live data from Hacker News

RybbitL Open source Google Analytics replacement

github.com

71–80 of 173 posts

Re: RybbitL Open source Google Analytics replacement

#71
post #20

The market for Google Analytics alternatives is crowded. There's Plausible, Ahrefs web analytics, onedollarstats.com, PostHog, Matomo, Unami, Grafana, Microsoft Clarity (free at any scale), and so many others. Despite minor differences these products all compete for the same users (e.g. if someone is a PostHog customer they probably won't be using Ahref web analytics) yet most of these companies offer generous free t…

Builder of rybbit here - I will probably add a free tier in the following weeks. I didn't was because I was scared of being overloaded by an influx of free users, but that doesn't scare me anymore. I started working on this 4 months ago and only publicly launched a few days ago. As for monetization, I have no idea yet. I'm happy to collect stars for the time being. What do you think I should do?

Not sure, but I'm definitely interested in following your business and seeing what your strategy will become because I was building something similar but when larger teams starting releasing free solutions I couldn't think of a way to compete. Best of luck.

Re: RybbitL Open source Google Analytics replacement

#72
post #9

For me, the best Google analytics replacement has been nothing. Just don’t do analytics at all. Your web site will still work without it. In fact, it will work better!

I can't imagine someone trying to run a web business with no analytics.

Re: RybbitL Open source Google Analytics replacement

#73
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just not realistic though. People with marketing departments need analytics. Otherwise, they atrophy and reveal to everyone they are not as necessary as led to believe. People without marketing departments probably never look at the logs like you.

True, but for personal/hobby sites you probably are just better off just not knowing. Nothing good comes of tying your self-worth to how much attention you think you're getting.

Why would you jump to the conclusion that any of it is about "self-worth"?

Maybe you're writing for an audience and you want to see what resonates most with them.

Sometimes popularity is a good thing to measure, not for your ego, but by how much you are helping others.

It is sad when people assume metrics are about vanity, rather than about how much we're helping others.

Re: RybbitL Open source Google Analytics replacement

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time we did analytics and error analysis by running shell scripts executing awk, sed and grep over a apache or nginx access log or error log. What I am trying to say is that you can still do analytics, even pretty advanced stuff with some more elaborate scripting, if you want. The only thing you need is the access log. Something which has been largely forgotten ever since tools like Urchin became a thing…

However, if you do this, you will still need to comply with all relevant privacy laws. For example, in the EU, you need user consent to use server logs that include IP addresses for analytics. You also need to provide post-consent opt-outs and privacy statements and audit logs and all off a sudden you're building another analytics tool.

How exactly does that work? You need consent for server logs? Am I able to run fail2ban without consent?

Re: RybbitL Open source Google Analytics replacement

#75
post #9

For me, the best Google analytics replacement has been nothing. Just don’t do analytics at all. Your web site will still work without it. In fact, it will work better!

> Your web site will still work without it. In fact, it will work better!

It objectively won't.

Analytics tell you where your website isn't working, so you can fix it. Buttons you thought were obvious that users are blind to. Pages where nobody scrolls because they didn't realize there was more content. Figuring out where users get stuck because they don't understand the navigation you designed. Etc etc etc.

If you have a hobby website, then sure maybe analytics don't matter. But the idea that sites work better without analytics makes as much sense as saying you'll see better when you wear dark sunglasses.

Re: RybbitL Open source Google Analytics replacement

#76
post #20

The market for Google Analytics alternatives is crowded. There's Plausible, Ahrefs web analytics, onedollarstats.com, PostHog, Matomo, Unami, Grafana, Microsoft Clarity (free at any scale), and so many others. Despite minor differences these products all compete for the same users (e.g. if someone is a PostHog customer they probably won't be using Ahref web analytics) yet most of these companies offer generous free t…

As a founder in this space, it not as bad as you think. There are niches in this crowded yet broad space. Plausible - good for self-hosting, but their SaaS is very expensive and FOSS vs SaaS offering differ. Ahrefs - they will use your traffic to improve your competitor research, you really should use them cautiously. Matomo - feature rich but can be overwhelming. Posthog - its SaaS is US based so dismissed early by…

> Posthog - its SaaS is US based so dismissed early by EU customers.

Posthog has had an EU server for years. I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Re: RybbitL Open source Google Analytics replacement

#77
post #9

For me, the best Google analytics replacement has been nothing. Just don’t do analytics at all. Your web site will still work without it. In fact, it will work better!

That's just not realistic though. People with marketing departments need analytics. Otherwise, they atrophy and reveal to everyone they are not as necessary as led to believe. People without marketing departments probably never look at the logs like you.

> Otherwise, they atrophy and reveal to everyone they are not as necessary as led to believe.

In my experience, when analytics and the related ads tracking tools break, Marketing departments are revealed to be much more important than generally believed in the business.

Re: RybbitL Open source Google Analytics replacement

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, if you do this, you will still need to comply with all relevant privacy laws. For example, in the EU, you need user consent to use server logs that include IP addresses for analytics. You also need to provide post-consent opt-outs and privacy statements and audit logs and all off a sudden you're building another analytics tool.

How exactly does that work? You need consent for server logs? Am I able to run fail2ban without consent?

In the EU, IP addresses are personal data and you need a legal basis for each form of processing. You could make an argument that Fail2Ban falls under legitimate interest, but there is now precedent that analytics must have user consent and another legal basis will not be accepted.

Re: RybbitL Open source Google Analytics replacement

#80
Can the creator /user/bill_yang explain this contradiction in the readme? It claims to support tracking unique users, but then immediately afterwards claims not to track users. Do you mean that you don't do any user tracking by default?

> Key Features

> - All key web analytics metrics including sessions, unique users, pageviews, bounce rate, session duration

> - No cookies or user tracking - GDPR & CCPA compliant

Post reply on HN