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Self-Hosting Umami: Lightweight Website Analytics

Umami is a simple, fast, privacy-focused analytics tool. Beautiful dashboard, real-time data, and under 2 KB script.

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What Is Umami?


Umami is a simple analytics tool focused on giving you the metrics that matter without tracking individual users.


Umami vs Plausible


Both are excellent privacy-focused analytics tools:


  • Umami: Free and open source, no paid version
  • Plausible: Open source with paid cloud offering
  • Umami: React-based, modern UI
  • Plausible: Phoenix/Elixir, slightly different aesthetic
  • Both: No cookies, GDPR compliant

    • Umami is 100% free. Plausible has a paid tier if you want managed hosting.


    Features


    Real-Time Dashboard

    See visitors on your site right now. No delay between page view and dashboard update.


    Metrics

  • Visitors and page views
  • Bounce rate and visit duration
  • Pages viewed
  • Referral sources
  • Countries, browsers, devices, OS

    • Custom Events

    Track specific actions:

    umami.track('signup-button-click');

    umami.track('purchase', { product: 'basic-plan', value: 9.99 });


    Multiple Sites

    Track multiple websites from one Umami instance.


    Teams

    Share dashboards with team members. Role-based access.


    API

    Full API for programmatic access to your analytics data.


    Deployment


    1. Deploy Umami on TinyPod

    2. Add your website

    3. Copy the tracking script to your site

    4. Data appears immediately


    Resources: 1 CPU, 512 MB RAM with PostgreSQL or MySQL.


    Adding to Your Site


    Add one script tag:

    <script async src="https://analytics.yourdomain.com/script.js" data-website-id="your-id"></script>


    That's it. Under 2 KB, no cookies, no consent banner needed.


    Custom Reports


    Umami supports UTM parameters for campaign tracking:

  • utm_source: Where traffic came from
  • utm_medium: Marketing medium (email, social, cpc)
  • utm_campaign: Campaign name

    • Public Dashboards


    Share analytics publicly. Create a shareable link for stakeholders or display on a public page.


    Why Not Google Analytics?


    1. Privacy: Umami collects zero personal data

    2. Speed: 2 KB vs 45 KB script

    3. Simplicity: One dashboard vs GA's complexity

    4. Compliance: No cookie consent needed

    5. Ownership: Your data on your server