---
title: Plausible (open source)
description: Cookie-free, privacy-first web analytics, a lightweight Google Analytics alternative you can run on your own EU servers or buy as managed cloud.
canonical: "https://10xgtm.ai/oss/plausible"
type: open-source-review
license: AGPL-3.0 (copyleft, network-use obligations)
repo: "https://github.com/plausible/analytics"
language: Elixir
---

# Plausible

Cookie-free, privacy-first web analytics, a lightweight Google Analytics alternative you can run on your own EU servers or buy as managed cloud.

The cleanest **privacy-first** analytics you can put in front of a marketing team, cookie-free and GDPR-compliant with no consent banner, from a **bootstrapped EU company with no VC and no plans to sell**. The catch for self-hosters: the free Community Edition **trails the cloud**, ships only about twice a year, and leaves out the advanced bot filtering that keeps the numbers honest.

## Project facts

- **License:** AGPL-3.0 (copyleft, network-use obligations)
- **Repo:** https://github.com/plausible/analytics
- **Stars:** 28.7k
- **Language:** Elixir

## What it does

- Cookie-free pageview, visitor, and traffic-source tracking that needs no consent banner, since no personal data or IP address is stored
- Goals, custom events, and funnels that show which pages and campaigns turn visitors into signups and customers
- A single-page dashboard the whole team can read with no training, plus public or link-shared dashboards for clients and stakeholders
- Google Analytics import and UTM campaign tracking, so you can move off GA4 and keep your history
- Google Search Console integration that puts real keyword data next to your traffic
- Weekly and monthly email or Slack reports, traffic spike alerts, and a stats API plus CSV export for your own workflows

## What it can't do

- Show session recordings, heatmaps, or individual user journeys; it measures traffic in aggregate by design, so there is nothing to replay
- Filter bots as well on the free self-hosted CE; the IP-range and behavioral detection that keeps counts clean is cloud-only, so busy self-hosted sites can read high
- Feed Google Ads or Meta conversion tracking cleanly, so teams running heavy paid acquisition often keep a second tool for ad attribution
- Match the cloud feature-for-feature when self-hosted; the CE ships about twice a year and capabilities like large-site sampling are gated to paid plans
- Install and patch itself; self-hosting means running ClickHouse and Postgres and staying on top of security updates, and a serious CE vulnerability sat unpatched on some servers in 2026

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Full review: https://10xgtm.ai/oss/plausible