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