Plausible Analytics

TAS Score: S3/3 — D4/5 — A3 / T2 (D4 not D5: Plausible Cloud is the primary commercial product — self-hosted is supported but not the main focus of the company’s development effort.)

Brief Description

Lightweight, privacy-friendly web analytics. No cookies, no personal data collection, GDPR compliant by design. Self-hosted version is fully functional and identical to the cloud offering.

Architectural Role

Applications layer. Replaces Google Analytics as a website traffic analytics tool. Runs as a standalone service with a PostgreSQL and ClickHouse backend.

Technical Autonomy

Works without internet
Stores data locally
Does not require external accounts
Allows data export (CSV)
Provides offline updates (requires internet for image pulls)

Philosophical Assessment (whose.world criteria)

Criterion	Status	Comments
Pause	✅	Can be stopped cleanly; no permanent damage
Exit	✅	Full CSV export of all stats
Recoverability	✅	Standard PostgreSQL + ClickHouse backups
Visibility	✅	AGPL-3.0, fully auditable
External Dependencies	✅	Runs fully offline after initial setup

Configuration (Minimal)

services:
  plausible_db:
    image: postgres:16
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: plausible
      POSTGRES_USER: plausible
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: changeme
    volumes:
      - plausible_db:/var/lib/postgresql/data

  plausible_events_db:
    image: clickhouse/clickhouse-server:24
    volumes:
      - plausible_events:/var/lib/clickhouse

  plausible:
    image: plausible/analytics:v2
    depends_on: [plausible_db, plausible_events_db]
    environment:
      DATABASE_URL: postgres://plausible:changeme@plausible_db/plausible
      CLICKHOUSE_DATABASE_URL: http://plausible_events_db:8123/plausible_events
      SECRET_KEY_BASE: changeme_generate_with_openssl
      BASE_URL: https://analytics.yourdomain.com
    ports:
      - "8000:8000"

volumes:
  plausible_db:
  plausible_events:

Alternatives

Alternative	Autonomy	Notes
Umami	A3 / T2	Simpler stack, single PostgreSQL database
Google Analytics	A0 / T0	Cloud-only, full data collection

Trajectory

Direction: stable

Plausible has been AGPL-3.0 since launch and has not changed its licensing or self-hosting policy. The team is small (bootstrapped, no VC funding) and explicitly committed to privacy-first analytics. The self-hosted version receives the same updates as the cloud product. Main risk: small team dependency.

Signal assessment:

Signal	Status	Evidence
License	✅	AGPL-3.0 since launch; no changes
Feature gating	➖	All features available in self-hosted; no enterprise tier
Self-hosting	✅	Self-hosted docs actively maintained; Docker images updated regularly
Governance	➖	Small bootstrapped team; no VC pressure; single-company risk

Sources

Website: https://plausible.io
Documentation: https://plausible.io/docs/self-hosting
Repository: https://github.com/plausible/analytics
Docker image: plausible/analytics
Community: https://github.com/plausible/analytics/discussions