Welcome back to the deep dive today. We're on a mission really to simplify web
metrics
If you're just tired of those confusing dashboards or spending hours trying to
figure out GDPR compliance or you know
Watching your own website slow down because of all these trackers, which it does
then this deep dive is definitely for you
We're looking at plausible analytics
It's a simple open source alternative that really tries to fix the big problems
with web metrics
It does it focuses on privacy and clarity over just collecting endless amounts of
data
Exactly, and before we really unpack this I do want to thank the supporter of our
deep dive today
Oh court, the show is supported by safe server
They specialize in hosting this kind of software and can support you in your
digital transformation for more information
Just visit www.safeserver.de
It's great to get into this because when you really analyze plausible you see they've
Positioned themselves against well the spattest quo their core identity the two
pillars
they really hang their hat on are just absolute simplicity and
Uncompromising privacy compliance they're trying to give you what you need without
selling out your visitors data. Okay, let's start there
Then let's unpack that frustration with the business model because that really is
the philosophical foundation
For years the big tools like Google Analytics have been free
Why is that a problem? Well, the sources are really clear on this
The established tools are free because you are the product the old saying exactly
their entire fortune is built on this idea of
surveillance capitalism collecting just
Vast complex amounts of personal information about people across sites across
devices to build profiles
But they then sell for ads right to monetize through advertising they extract data
and plausibles approach is yeah complete opposite
Totally. They are an independently owned open source project and their funding
structure comes from paid subscriptions from you the customer from you
So there's absolutely zero incentive to collect sell or you know share personal
information with anyone you keep
100% ownership and control over your own data, which is a huge psychological and
legal difference
So if you're a beginner or a small business owner that subscription is basically a
vote for transparency
Okay, let's jump into that first pillar then
Simplicity when you open something like Google Analytics, you're just hit with all
these menus custom reports metrics. You don't even understand
How does plausible actually solve that for a new user?
They call it clutter free and our sources really confirm
This is true instead of this massive dashboard built for I don't know every
possible metric, right?
Plausible focuses on delivering the essential insights page views visitor sources
top pages conversions all on one single page
Just one page one digestible page. No layers of menus to dig through no need for
custom reports and really no training necessary
It's all there on a single screen that immediately just cuts the learning curve
down to almost nothing
But simplicity also means technical performance for your site, right?
We have to talk about speed we do this is what they call the lightweight script
benefit
The little piece of code you add to your site. It's microscopic. How small are we
talking?
It's roughly 75 times smaller than the Google Analytics script and this isn't just
a fun fact. It has very tangible
Real world impacts. Okay, like what I mean besides making your pages load faster
Which is obviously huge for SEO and keeping users happy. Well, it also has this
surprising sustainability angle
Oh interesting because the script is so small and needs so few resources. It
actually reduces your website's carbon footprint
The source is highlight that a site with say a hundred thousand monthly visitors
can save about eight point two kilograms of co2 emissions a year
Just from switching analytics tools just by making that switch and while eight
point two kilos might sound small
You scale that across millions of websites and it starts to make a real statement
about supporting more ethical lightweight tech
Wow that connection between tech choices and environmental impact. That's a great
piece of knowledge for our listeners
Yeah, okay. Let's move to the second pillar, which is maybe the most critical one
today
Privacy. Mm-hmm. We're constantly hearing about GDPR CCPA all these compliance
headaches
This is really where plausible design choices shine. Their goal is to measure
aggregate traffic not individual people
What's the mechanism for that?
The key is that they don't use any tracking cookies at all and they never store
personal
Identifiers like IP addresses in their database by avoiding that kind of persistent
identification
They simply can't track someone across different websites or devices
Okay
I have to devil's advocate here for a second if they're not using cookies or IP
addresses is the data you get still accurate
Is it reliable? That's a great question. And the answer is yes, absolutely
They use hashed and salted visitor identifiers that get reset every single day
So it's anonymous completely it lets them count unique visitors within a 24-hour
window correctly
But without ever being able to tie that person to their past behavior or their
identity
It's a really effective compromise between measurement and ethics. So what about
all those acronyms that scare every web developer?
Yeah GDP are CCPA PCCR for a beginner
What do those even mean and how does plausible deal with them? Excellent point
So GDPR is the big strict EU law
CCPA is California's version and PCR is the European directive on privacy and
communications
They all regulate how you have to ask for permission before you track people, right?
And since plausible doesn't collect personal data in the first place, they are
compliant by design
So the huge practical benefit for anyone using plausible is they can ditch the most
annoying thing on the internet the cookie banner
Precisely no need for those complicated
Legalistic cookie or GDPR consent banners because you aren't collecting the data
that needs consent to begin with you just respect privacy
Automatically and since we're on legal compliance, where is this data physically
stored? That's a huge question now
It is for anyone using the managed plausible cloud service. All
Visitor data is processed exclusively on EU owned cloud infrastructure. Okay, the
sources are specific
It's often hosted on a secure encrypted server in Germany
And that is absolutely essential because it keeps your data under the strictest EU
laws and avoids all those legal nightmares with data
Transfers outside the EU that security in clear location must make things so much
easier for small businesses. Yeah, okay
Let's talk power people might worry that simplicity means you can't actually
measure if your marketing is working
That's the trade-off people expect but plausible handles conversions quite well.
You can define key goals and
Track them using custom events. What does that mean custom events?
it means you can track sophisticated things like the exact revenue from an e-commerce
sale or
Measure when someone clicks an outbound link to a partner or see who downloaded a
specific file
You can even track when visitors hit a 404 error page. It sounds pretty modern, too
I saw they handle things the big tools can struggle with like AI traffic and
complex apps
That's a key detail. It shows they're built for the web of today. They have
automatic scroll depth tracking
Which is fantastic for content sites and they can actually segment traffic from new
AI tools like chat GPT or perplexity
So you can see if AI is sending you readers exactly plus they offer excellent SPA
support. Whoa time out
What is SPA support in simple terms? Good catch
SPA is a single-page application
think of websites built with modern tools like react or view where the whole page
doesn't reload when you click a link only parts of
a change right and traditional analytics often miss those internal clicks
Plausible make sure those are properly registered as new page views. So your data
is actually accurate that makes the data much more reliable
So if someone is currently using a competitor, is it a total nightmare to switch?
Not at all
They know most people are coming from those other tools. So they've really focused
on a smooth migration
They have a real-time dashboard entry page reports and critically they integrate
with Google search console
Why is that important? Because that integration lets you pull in the search
keywords people use to find you
Which plausible can't collect directly because of its privacy focus
They even let you import your historical stats from Google Analytics to keep that
continuity
Okay, so let's say a beginner is sold. They're ready to switch. They have two main
options
the managed cloud service or
Self-hosting the open source version. This is a critical choice. Let's break them
down. Absolutely
Let's start with the easiest choice for I'd say the vast majority of our listeners
The plausible analytics cloud the managed service and who's that for?
This is perfect for the beginner the small business owner any team that just wants
simplicity and zero headaches with infrastructure
You can get started in about two minutes and plausible handles everything
Everything the server security backups maintenance a worldwide CDN for speed you
get continuous updates and crucially
You get all the premium features like marketing funnels and the stats API
Plus you get support directly from the creators and this managed service is what
actually funds the whole project correct
It ensures the software keeps getting developed and a key benefit of the cloud is
its advanced bot filtering
They exclude something like thirty two thousand known data center IP ranges
Why does that matter so much?
Because fake bot traffic can completely skew your numbers your conversion rates and
lead you to make really bad business decisions
The cloud gives you the purest most accurate data. Okay, so that's the simple path
What about the other one the plausible community edition or CE?
The self-hosted one who should pick that this is really for the advanced developer
a tech savvy team or maybe an organization
With extremely restrictive data policies. The cost saving is basically offset by
the time you'll spend managing the infrastructure
So you're responsible for the server security uptime everything. It is a
significant ongoing commitment
And is there a trade-off and what the software can do there is the release schedule
is much slower
Maybe twice a year
So you don't get the latest features right away and those premium features like the
marketing funnels or the really important stats API for using
Your data elsewhere. They're just not included
Support is from the community not the creators right from community forums
But the self-hosted option does give you one ultimate power
Raw data access. What does it actually mean?
It means you get full access to the raw logs directly from the click house database
underneath for the developer
That means you can query manipulate and export every single piece of data. They
record its total granular control
This has been an incredibly clear deep dive
It's obvious why plausible has over 15,000 paying subscribers, right their whole
promise just resonates right now
intuitive fast ethical analytics that gets rid of the complexity and
More importantly the surveillance and if you connect this to the bigger picture the
choice you make for your analytics
Really is a reflection of your values
How so by choosing a subscription model like for plausible you are directly
investing in the long-term
Sustainability of open source software and you're essentially voting with your
wallet against the entire business model of surveillance capitalism
It's a powerful decision. It really is it supports a cleaner simpler and just a
more ethical internet a
Fantastic thought to leave our listeners with thank you for walking us through this
deep dive into plausible analytics
My pleasure and once again a huge thank you to our supporter safe server for making
this deep dive possible
Safe server specializes in hosting the software and supporting your digital
transformation. You can learn more at
www.safeserver.de
We encourage you to continue your own deep dive into privacy respecting technology.
We'll see you next time