Deploying Plausible Analytics - Self-Hosted Web Analytics Platform

Plausible Analytics is an open-source, self-hosted web analytics tool that tracks traffic without cookies or personal data collection, a privacy-first alternative to Google Analytics. This guide deploys Plausible Community Edition using Docker Compose, fronts it with Nginx, and secures it with a Let's Encrypt certificate. By the end, you'll have Plausible tracking a website's traffic securely at your domain. Configure the Environment 1. Clone the Community Edition repo: $ mkdir ~/plausible $ cd ~/plausible $ git clone https://github.com/plausible/community-edition.git $ cd community-edition 2. Generate a secret key: $ openssl rand -base64 64 | tr -d '\n' 3. Create the environment file: $ nano .env ADMIN_USER_EMAIL = admin@example.com ADMIN_USER_NAME = admin ADMIN_USER_PWD = ADMIN_PASSWORD BASE_URL = https://plausible.example.com SECRET_KEY_BASE = YOUR_SECRET_KEY_BASE DATABASE_URL = postgres://postgres:postgres@plausible_db:5432/plausible_db CLICKHOUSE_DATABASE_URL = http://plausible_events_db:8123/plausible_events_db Fill in your email, a strong admin password, your domain, and the secret key generated above. 4. Expose the app port via a Compose override (auto-merged with compose.yml ): $ nano compose.override.yaml services : plausible : ports : - 127.0.0.1:8000:8000 Deploy with Docker Compose $ docker compose up -d $ docker compose ps Confirm the app, Postgres, and ClickHouse (events DB) containers are all running. Front with Nginx and Let's Encrypt 1. Install Nginx: $ sudo apt update $ sudo apt install nginx -y 2. Create the virtual host: $ sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/plausible.conf server { listen 80 ; listen [::]:80 ; server_name plausible.example.com ; access_log /var/log/nginx/plausible.access.log ; error_log /var/log/nginx/plausible.error.log ; location / { proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000 ; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for ; proxy_http_version 1.1 ; proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade ; proxy_set_header Connection "Upgr