Matomo: web analytics on your own server
Matomo is an open-source alternative to Google Analytics that can run on your own server and without cookies. What it does, where its limits are and how I set it up.
Matomo, formerly Piwik, is open-source web analytics software. It shows how many visitors a website has, which pages they view and where they come from. Unlike Google Analytics, Matomo can run on your own server, so the data stays with you.
What Matomo does
- visitors, page views, time on site, referrers and devices
- goals and events, such as submitted forms or downloads
- e-commerce reports with revenue, carts and conversion rate
- custom dashboards and scheduled email reports
Some features such as heatmaps or session recordings are paid plugins and much more sensitive in terms of data protection than the basic features.
Data protection
Matomo is not GDPR-compliant by itself, but it can be set up in a privacy-friendly way: on your own server in the EU, with anonymised IP addresses and without cookies. Set up like this, pure audience measurement may not need a consent banner, depending on the legal assessment. Check this with your data protection adviser. This website uses Matomo exactly like that: self-hosted and without cookies.
Who it suits
Businesses that want reliable figures about their website without handing visitor data to third parties. If you rely heavily on Google Ads, you often cannot avoid Google's tools entirely. In that case Matomo is a complement, not a full replacement.
I set up Matomo on your server or with a hosting provider of your choice and integrate it into your website or shop. Write to me.