Self-hosting is an ops decision
Every tool here is open source and self-hostable, so the question isn’t whether you can own your data — it’s what running the tool costs you in operations. Weigh three things:
- Footprint — how many services you have to stand up and keep alive.
- Infrastructure — a lightweight script + one database, or a columnar event store and a queue.
- Maintenance — updates, backups, and scaling as your volume grows.
This roundup focuses on the self-hosting experience. For a feature-by-feature look at what each tool measures, see the best open source analytics tools.
Web analytics — lightest to run
Umami
A simple, cookieless web-analytics tool on Node with a single Postgres or MySQL database — among the easiest to run, comfortably on a small VPS. Umami v2 added funnels, retention, and journeys, but it stays aggregate (no per-person profiles). MIT-licensed. Best for: a minimal, low-maintenance traffic dashboard. If you outgrow aggregate stats, see Umami vs product analytics.
Plausible
Privacy-first, cookieless web analytics with a famously light script. The Community Edition self-hosts on Elixir with Postgres and ClickHouse — a bit more to run than Umami, still modest. AGPL-3.0. Best for: clean traffic analytics without cookie banners. Compare it as a Plausible alternative.
Matomo
The most full-featured open-source web analytics platform and the closest direct Google Analytics replacement, on PHP + MySQL. More capability means more to operate, and heatmaps and recordings are paid plugins. Best for: a complete GA replacement for web and marketing. See the Matomo alternative.
Product analytics — heavier, but behavioral
PostHog
Open-source (MIT) and very broad — analytics, replay, flags, experiments. The catch for self-hosters: the open-source build is a community “hobby” Docker Compose deployment (one project per instance, no commercial support), and PostHog steers production users to its cloud. Operationally it’s the heaviest option here. Best for: teams that want breadth and will accept the ops. Details: PostHog alternative.
Pug
Open-source (AGPL-3.0) product analytics with unified profiles and autocapture. It’s built to be self-hosted: the API and every worker run as a single Go binary, backed by Postgres, ClickHouse, and NATS — fewer moving parts than a multi-service platform, so the operational surface stays small. Self-hosting is free forever, with no event caps. It’s in open beta today. Best for: product analytics you own without service sprawl. See self-hosting Pug and the setup guide.
How to choose
If you only need website traffic, the lightest tools (Umami, Plausible) are the easiest to run; Matomo is the fullest GA replacement if you accept more ops. If you need product behavior — funnels, retention, and a profile per person — you’re into product analytics, where the event store makes the stack heavier; Pug keeps that footprint smaller by shipping as one binary. Whatever you choose, self-hosting keeps every event on your own infrastructure. Moving off Google specifically? Our free Google Analytics replacement guide walks through it.