Privacy-First Web Analytics

Privacy-first web analytics tools collect usage data without personal identifiers, cookies, or fingerprinting. They are designed to comply with GDPR, CCPA, and ePrivacy regulations out of the box, eliminating the need for consent banners. These tools focus on aggregate metrics — page views, referral sources, device types, and geographic regions — rather than individual visitor tracking, providing actionable insight without compromising user trust.

Open-source implementations we recommend:

Plausible — lightweight, cookie-free, under 1 KB script. Self-hostable Community Edition via Docker Compose. Built with Elixir and ClickHouse. AGPL v3.

Umami — simple, fast, privacy-focused. Built with Next.js, supports MySQL or PostgreSQL. No feature gating — fully open with easy self-hosting. MIT.

Matomo — the most mature open-source analytics platform (formerly Piwik). Full-featured self-hosted core with optional paid plugins for heatmaps and A/B testing. PHP-based. GPL v3.