Deploying Matomo Analytics - An Open-Source Google Analytics Alternative

Matomo is an open-source web analytics platform that keeps full ownership of visitor data on infrastructure you control, a privacy-first alternative to Google Analytics. This guide deploys Matomo using Docker Compose with a MariaDB backend, Nginx as the entry point, and Certbot issuing the TLS certificate before the stack goes live. By the end, you'll have Matomo tracking a website with a signed HTTPS certificate at your domain. Prepare Docker $ sudo usermod -aG docker $USER $ newgrp docker Set Up the Project 1. Create the project directory: $ mkdir matomo && cd matomo 2. Open the firewall: $ sudo ufw allow 80/tcp $ sudo ufw allow 443/tcp 3. Create the environment file: $ nano .env MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD = your_strong_mysql_root_password MYSQL_PASSWORD = your_strong_mysql_matomo_password Use passwords of at least 16 characters. 4. Create the Nginx config: $ mkdir nginx $ nano nginx/matomo.conf server { listen 80 ; server_name matomo.example.com ; location /.well-known/acme-challenge/ { root /var/www/certbot ; } location / { return 301 https:// $host$request_uri ; } } server { listen 443 ssl http2 ; server_name matomo.example.com ; ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/matomo.example.com/fullchain.pem ; ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/matomo.example.com/privkey.pem ; location / { proxy_pass http://app:80 ; proxy_set_header Host $host ; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr ; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for ; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme ; } } Replace every matomo.example.com occurrence with your domain — it appears in both server blocks and the certificate paths. Deploy with Docker Compose $ nano docker-compose.yaml services : db : image : mariadb:11.4 command : --max-allowed-packet=64MB restart : always volumes : - matomo-db-data:/var/lib/mysql environment : - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=${MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD} - MYSQL_DATABASE=matomo - MYSQL_USER=matomo - MYSQL_PASSWORD=${MYSQL_PASSWORD} networks : - matomo-net app : image