Analytics · checked 2026-10-14Can I vibecode Plausible?
YES· one-shottable
A one-person version of Plausible is a small collector: a script posts the page and referrer, an endpoint writes a row, and a dashboard counts rows. Visitors are told apart by a hash that changes daily instead of a cookie, so nothing is stored in the browser. An agent can finish that on SQLite in one session, the way GoatCounter and Umami did. What a prompt won't give you is the hardening of a service others rely on: bot and spam filtering that keeps up, fast queries on millions of events, funnels, revenue attribution and the Search Console link. If you run several sites or share reports with clients, self-hosting Plausible's own Community Edition is the shorter road.
$9/moprice
$108you'd save a year
one sittingbuild time
—people replaced it
What you need on hand.
DifficultyIntermediate · Some system setup or keys.
TimeAn evening, plus DNS and a server for the public address
- Claude Code, Codex or CursorAny of them can run the prompt.
- Node.js 22better-sqlite3 compiles a native module, so build tools must be installed.
- A small server and a domainVisitors' browsers must reach the collector over HTTPS; Caddy fetches certificates for you.
- A country database fileDB-IP Lite downloads without an account; MaxMind GeoLite2 needs a free signup.
Before you buildPlausible has no free hosted plan, but GoatCounter and the Community Edition cost nothing in licences; look at them before building.
- 1. Install one agent: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor.
- 2. Make an empty folder and open it in the agent.
- 3. Paste the prompt below, press enter, and answer its questions as it builds.
The prompt
Build me a small web analytics server to replace Plausible. Requirements: - Node.js 22 + TypeScript: a Fastify server. `npm start` serves the dashboard and the collector on http://localhost:4700. - Storage: better-sqlite3 in ./data/stats.db. An events table (site, ts, path, referrer host, utm_source, utm_campaign, country, browser, os, device, visitor_hash, event name) plus daily rollup tables so the dashboard stays fast. - Script: GET /s.js returns a script under 2 KB that POSTs the page URL and document.referrer to /api/event on load and on history.pushState changes. It sets no cookies, uses no localStorage, honours Do Not Track and exposes window.track(name, props). - Visitors: visitor_hash = SHA-256 of a daily random salt + site + IP + user agent. Rotate the salt at midnight UTC and delete old ones. Never store IPs. Country from a DB-IP Lite or GeoLite2 .mmdb file (path in .env) via `maxmind`; browser and OS from `ua-parser-js`. - Filtering: drop bots with `isbot`, drop IPs listed in EXCLUDE_IPS, accept events only for the domains listed in SITES (all in .env). - Dashboard: server-rendered pages (Eta) with uPlot charts. A site picker, date ranges (today, 7d, 30d, 12 months, custom), a visitors and pageviews line chart, and top pages, entry pages, sources, UTM campaigns, countries, browsers and devices. Clicking a row filters every other panel. A goal is a path or a custom event name, shown with its conversion rate. - A read-only public share link per site, using a random token. - A nightly job rolls up raw events older than RETENTION_DAYS (default 730) and deletes them. - Single owner: one password in .env and a signed cookie. The collector stays open but is rate-limited per IP. No accounts, no telemetry, local-first. - Out of scope: funnels, revenue attribution, Search Console, email reports, teams. - README: the script tag to paste into a site, running behind Caddy for HTTPS, and a note that the collector must be reachable from your visitors' browsers.
Opens your agent with the prompt filled in, you press enter. Or copy it and paste it into an empty folder.
Then keep going
Next prompts, same folder.
The first prompt builds the core. Run these one at a time in the same folder to grow it into your own Plausible.
Add a Plausible import to the analytics server in this folder. Requirements: - Take the path of the unzipped CSV export from Plausible (Site Settings > Imports & Exports). Read the files first and print which ones hold daily totals and which hold top-lists. - Store the imported rows in separate tables marked imported, never mixed with raw events. - In the dashboard, show imported days before the first local event with an "imported" badge, and leave out panels the export does not cover. - Make the import idempotent: running it twice must not double the numbers. - Update the README.
Add a weekly email report to the analytics server in this folder. Requirements: - Every Monday 07:00 in the timezone from .env, send a plain HTML email through nodemailer with SMTP settings from .env. - Content per site: visitors and pageviews vs the previous week, top 5 pages, top 5 sources, and any goal that moved by more than 20 percent. - A --preview flag writes the email to ./out/report.html instead of sending it. - Update the README with the SMTP setup.
Add funnels to the analytics server in this folder. Requirements: - A funnel is 2 to 4 ordered steps; each step is a path or a custom event name. - Count a visitor_hash for a step only if it completed the previous steps the same day, and show counts and step-to-step conversion as horizontal bars. - Save funnels per site in SQLite; add a page to create, edit and delete them. - Add tests with a fixture of events that covers a visitor skipping a step. - Update the README and explain why funnels only work within one day.
What you lose
- Funnels, custom properties and revenue attribution
- Search Console keywords inside the dashboard
- Teammates with their own logins, shared links and embedded dashboards
- A bot and data-centre filter that someone keeps current
- Fast queries once traffic grows past what one SQLite file handles comfortably
Why people still pay
Nine dollars buys not having to run anything: no ClickHouse upgrades, no spam lists to maintain, EU hosting and a vendor to ask when numbers look wrong. Agencies add teammates and client links, and the subscription-funded, no-ads model is part of why people trust the numbers.
Plausible or your own copy?
Over
Your usage
3h ×$/h
Plausible, 1 yr$108
Your own copy, 1 yr$44running + build session
You keep$65pays for itself in 2 months
Estimate · Free if you already have a server, about $5 a month for a small VPS otherwise. The build itself is token usage on your agent plan.
Take your data, then cancel.
1 · Take your data out of Plausible
- 1Open Site Settings > Imports & Exports and click Export to CSV in the Export Data panel. Plausible emails you when the file is ready and the link works for 24 hours; the file covers all native stats for the site.
- 2For a quick snapshot, use Export stats on the dashboard after choosing a date range and filters: you get a ZIP of CSV reports, but each CSV holds at most 300 rows and the page reports 100.
- 3The Stats API is only on Business and above (600 requests an hour); scheduled raw event exports are an Enterprise feature.
2 · Cancel Plausible
- 1Log in, open your account name at the top right, then Account Settings.
- 2In the Subscription section click Cancel plan.
- You keep the dashboard until the end of the paid period. After that the dashboard locks, but site settings stay open and you can still run the full CSV export.
- A month after the lock, collection stops and anything the script still sends is dropped. Plausible may delete sites and stats after the paid period and emails first; deleted data cannot be recovered.
- The full site export leaves out data imported from Google Analytics; the dashboard export can include it.
- Remove the script tag from your sites once you have switched, so visitors don't load a script that reports nowhere.
The escape hatch
Don't feel like building it? These are already free.
Plausible Community EditionOpen sourceThe same product under AGPL, run on your own Postgres and ClickHouse. Funnels, revenue goals and SSO are cloud-only, and releases come twice a year.★ 29k · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗UmamiOpen sourceMIT-licensed, cookie-free analytics with campaigns, events and revenue views; self-hosted or in its cloud.★ 39k · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗GoatCounterOpen sourceVery light counter: one binary, SQLite or Postgres, and no tracking of personal data.★ 6.1k · active Sep 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗
WebVisit ↗UmamiOpen sourceMIT-licensed, cookie-free analytics with campaigns, events and revenue views; self-hosted or in its cloud.★ 39k · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗GoatCounterOpen sourceVery light counter: one binary, SQLite or Postgres, and no tracking of personal data.★ 6.1k · active Sep 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗
The numbers
Plausible pricing
| Plan | Monthly | Annual, per month | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Community Edition (self-hosted) | $0 | $0 | AGPL software you run yourself on Postgres and ClickHouse (2 GB of RAM recommended). No funnels, ecommerce revenue goals, SSO or sites API; releases come twice a year. |
| Starter (up to 10k pageviews and events) | $9 | $7.50 | 1 site, 3 years of data retention, goals, custom events, saved segments, Google Analytics import. |
| Growth (up to 10k pageviews and events) | $14 | $11.67 | Up to 3 sites and 3 team members, shared links and embedded dashboards. |
| Business (up to 10k pageviews and events) | $19 | $15.83 | Up to 10 sites and 10 team members, 5 years of retention, custom properties, funnels, ecommerce revenue, Stats API at 600 requests an hour. |
| Enterprise | custom | — | More than 10 sites and members, SSO, sites API, scheduled raw event exports, managed proxy. |
- Free tier
- No free hosted tier; the trial runs 30 days with no card.
- Billing
- Monthly or yearly, billed per team. The tier follows combined pageviews and custom events across all sites in the team, and the price climbs with that total (the page shows a slider up to 10M+). Plan changes are prorated.
- Hidden costs
- Outbound-link clicks, file downloads, form submissions and 404 pages count as events next to pageviews. Two months over your tier gets an upgrade request; if you ignore it for a week the dashboards lock while collection continues. The Stats API starts at Business.
- Source
- plausible.io
Also on the list
Related apps
No free plan. A 30-day trial without a card; the Community Edition is free to self-host.
Yes. An AI coding agent such as Claude Code, Codex or Cursor can build a usable personal version in one session with the prompt on this page, running on your own machine.
About $9 a month on the Starter, up to 10k pageviews and events a month plan, $108 a year (checked 2026-10-14).
Funnels, custom properties and revenue attribution; Search Console keywords inside the dashboard; Teammates with their own logins, shared links and embedded dashboards; A bot and data-centre filter that someone keeps current; Fast queries once traffic grows past what one SQLite file handles comfortably. If any of those matter to you, keep paying.
Yes: Plausible Community Edition (open source), Umami (open source), GoatCounter (open source).