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https://github.com/zgoat/goatcounter

Easy web analytics. No tracking of personal data.
https://github.com/zgoat/goatcounter

analytics go golang

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Easy web analytics. No tracking of personal data.

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README 

        
GoatCounter is an open source web analytics platform available as a (free)

hosted service or self-hosted app. It aims to offer easy to use and meaningful

privacy-friendly web analytics as an alternative to Google Analytics or Matomo.



There are two ways to run this: as hosted service on [goatcounter.com][www], or

run it on your own server. The source code is completely Open Source/Free

Software, and it can be self-hosted without restrictions.



See [docs/rationale.md](docs/rationale.md) for some more details on the *"why?"*

of this project.



There's a live demo at [https://stats.arp242.net](https://stats.arp242.net).



Please consider [contributing financially][sponsor] if you're using

goatcounter.com to pay for the server costs.



[sponsor]: http://www.goatcounter.com/contribute

[www]: https://www.goatcounter.com



Features

--------

- **Privacy-aware**; doesn’t track users with unique identifiers and doesn't

  need a GDPR notice. Fine-grained **control over which data is collected**.

  Also see the [privacy policy][privacy] and [GDPR consent notices][gdpr].



- **Lightweight** and **fast**; adds just ~3.5K of extra data to your site. Also

  has JavaScript-free "tracking pixel" option, or you can use it from your

  application's middleware or **import from logfiles**.



- Identify **unique visits** without cookies using a non-identifiable hash

  ([technical details][sessions]).



- Keeps useful statistics such as **browser** information, **location**, and

  **screen size**. Keep track of **referring sites** and **campaigns**.



- **Easy**; if you've been confused by the myriad of options and flexibility of

  Google Analytics and Matomo that you don't need then GoatCounter will be a

  breath of fresh air.



- **Accessibility** is a high-priority feature, and the interface works well

  with assistive technology such as screen readers.



- 100% committed to **open source**; you can see exactly what the code does and

  make improvements, or self-host it for any purpose.



- **Own your data**; you can always export all data and **cancel at any time**.



- Integrate on your site with just a **single script tag**:



      



- The JavaScript integration is a good option for most, but you can also use a

  **no-JavaScript image-based tracker**, integrate it in your **backend

  middleware**, or **parse log files**.



[privacy]: https://www.goatcounter.com/privacy

[gdpr]: https://www.goatcounter.com/gdpr

[sessions]: http://www.goatcounter.com/help/sessions



Getting data in to GoatCounter

------------------------------

There are three ways:



1. Add the JavaScript code on your site; this is the easiest and most common

   method. Detailed documentation for this is available at

   https://www.goatcounter.com/code



2. Integrate in your middleware; send data to GoatCounter by calling the API

   from your backend server middleware. Detailed documentation for this is

   available at https://www.goatcounter.com/api#backend-integration



3. Parse logfiles. GoatCounter can parse logfiles from nginx, Apache,

   CloudFront, or any other HTTP middleware or proxy. See `goatcounter help

   import` for detailed documentation on this.



Running your own

----------------

**Note this README is for the latest master and may be inaccurate for the latest

released version; use the [`release-2.5`][latest] branch for the 2.5 README.**



The [release page][releases] has binaries for Linux amd64, arm, and arm64. These

are statically compiled, contain everything you need, and should work in pretty

much any Linux environment. The only other thing you need is somewhere to store

a SQLite database file or a PostgreSQL connection.



GoatCounter should run on any platform supported by Go, but there are no

binaries for them (yet) as cross-compiling SQLite is somewhat complex. You'll

have to build from source if you want to run it on e.g. FreeBSD or macOS.



Generally speaking only the latest release is supported, although critical fixes

(security, data loss, etc.) may get backported to previous releases.



[releases]: https://github.com/arp242/goatcounter/releases

[latest]: https://github.com/arp242/goatcounter/tree/release-2.5



### Deploy scripts and such

- ["StackScript" for Linode][stackscript]; Alpine Linux VPS; you can also use

  this for other Alpine Linux machines.



  If you don't have a Linode account yet then consider using my [referral

  URL][linode] and I'll get some kickback from Linode :-)



  [stackscript]: https://cloud.linode.com/stackscripts/659823

  [linode]: https://www.linode.com/?r=7acaf75737436d859e785dd5c9abe1ae99b4387e



- Some people have created Dockerfiles. You don't really need Docker since

  GoatCounter has no external dependencies; it probably [creates more problems

  than it solves][docker] IMHO. At any rate, here are some that seem alright at

  a glance if you must:



  - https://github.com/baethon/docker-goatcounter (https://hub.docker.com/r/baethon/goatcounter)

  - https://github.com/sent-hil/dokku-gocounter

  - https://github.com/anarcat/goatcounter/blob/Dockerfile/Dockerfile



  [docker]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PivpCKEiQOQ



- Some other guides people have written:

  - [Replacing Google Analytics with GoatCounter](https://rgth.co/blog/replacing-google-analytics-with-goatcounter/) (Ubuntu)

  - [GoatCounter self-hosted setup on a VPS](https://actually.fyi/posts/goatcounter-vps/) (Arch Linux)

  - [GoatCounter server setup on OpenBSD](https://daulton.ca/2021/01/openbsd-goatcounter-server/)



### Building from source

You need Go 1.21 or newer and a C compiler (for SQLite). If you compile it with

`CGO_ENABLED=0` you don't need a C compiler but can only use PostgreSQL.



You can install from source to $GOBIN (`go env GOBIN`) with:



    % git clone --branch=release-2.5 https://github.com/arp242/goatcounter.git

    % cd goatcounter

    % go build -ldflags="-X zgo.at/goatcounter/v2.Version=$(git log -n1 --format='%h_%cI')" ./cmd/goatcounter



Which will produce a `goatcounter` binary in the current directory.



The `-ldflags=[..]` sets the version; this isn't *strictly* required as such,

but it's recommended as it's used to "bust" the cache for static files and may

also be useful later when reporting bugs. This can be any string and doesn't

follow any particular format, you can also set this to the current date or

`banana` or anything you want really.



To use the latest development version switch to the `master` branch.



To build a fully statically linked binary:



    % go build -tags osusergo,netgo,sqlite_omit_load_extension \

        -ldflags="-X zgo.at/goatcounter/v2.Version=$(git log -n1 --format='%h_%cI') -extldflags=-static" \

        ./cmd/goatcounter



It's recommended to use the latest release as in the above command. The master

branch should be reasonably stable but no guarantees, and sometimes I don't

write detailed release/upgrade notes until the actual release so you may run in

to surprises.



You can compile goatcounter without cgo if you're planning to use PostgreSQL and

don't use SQLite:



    % CGO_ENABLED=0 go build \

        -ldflags="-X zgo.at/goatcounter.Version=$(git log -n1 --format='%h_%cI')" \

        ./cmd/goatcounter



Functionally it doesn't matter too much, but builds will be a bit easier and

faster as it won't require a C compiler.



### Running

You can start a server with:



    % goatcounter serve



The default is to use an SQLite database at `./db/goatcounter.sqlite3`, which

will be created if it doesn't exist yet. See the `-db` flag and `goatcounter

help db` to customize this.



Both SQLite and PostgreSQL are supported. SQLite should work well for most

smaller sites, but PostgreSQL gives better performance. There are [some

benchmarks over here][bench] to give some indication of what performance to

expect from SQLite and PostgreSQL.



GoatCounter will listen on port `*:80` and `*:443` by default. You don't need

to run it as root and can grant the appropriate permissions on Linux with:



    % setcap 'cap_net_bind_service=+ep' goatcounter



Listening on a different port can be a bit tricky due to the ACME/Let's Encrypt

certificate generation; `goatcounter help listen` documents this in depth.



You can create new sites with the `db create site` command:



    % goatcounter db create site -vhost stats.example.com -user.email [email protected]



This will ask for a password for your new account; you can also add a password

on the commandline with `-password`. You must also pass the `-db` flag here if

you use something other than the default.



[bench]: https://github.com/arp242/goatcounter/blob/master/docs/benchmark.md



### Updating

You may need to run the database migrations when updating. Use  `goatcounter

serve -automigrate` to always run all pending migrations on startup. This is the

easiest way, although arguably not the "best" way.



Use `goatcounter db migrate ` or `goatcounter db migrate all` to manually run

migrations; generally you want to upload the new version, run migrations while

the old one is still running, and then restart so the new version takes effect.



Use `goatcounter db migrate pending` to get a list of pending migrations, or

`goatcounter db migrate list` to show all migrations.



### PostgreSQL

To use PostgreSQL run GoatCounter with a custom `-db` flag; for example:



    % goatcounter serve -db 'postgresql+dbname=goatcounter'

    % goatcounter serve -db 'postgresql+host=/run/postgresql dbname=goatcounter sslmode=disable'



This follows the format in the `psql` CLI; you can also use the `PG*`

[environment variables](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/libpq-envars.html):



    % PGDATABASE=goatcounter PGHOST=/run/postgresql goatcounter serve -db 'postgresql'



The database will be created automatically if possible; if you want to create it

for a specific user you can use:



    % createuser --interactive --pwprompt goatcounter

    % createdb --owner goatcounter goatcounter



You can manually import the schema with:



    % goatcounter db schema-pgsql | psql --user=goatcounter --dbname=goatcounter



See `goatcounter help db` and the [pq docs][pq] for more details.



[pq]: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/lib/pq#hdr-Connection_String_Parameters



### Development/testing

You can start a test/development server with:



    % goatcounter serve -dev



The `-dev` flag makes some small things a bit more convenient for development;

TLS is disabled by default, it will listen on localhost:8081, the application

will automatically restart on recompiles, templates and static files will be

read directly from the filesystem, and a few other minor changes.



See [.github/CONTRIBUTING.md](/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md) for more details on how

to run a development server, write patches, etc.