How to Deploy Plausible Analytics CE: Privacy-First Website Analytics in 10 Minutes

Plausible Analytics gives you website traffic data without tracking your visitors across the internet. No cookies, no consent banners, no data sent to Google. The Community Edition (CE) is self-hosted and free. Here is how to deploy it.

Step 1: Clone the Repository

Plausible CE is distributed as a Git repository with Docker Compose files. Clone the stable v3.2.1 tag:

git clone -b v3.2.1 --single-branch https://github.com/plausible/community-edition plausible-ce
cd plausible-ce

Step 2: Configure Environment Variables

touch .env
echo "BASE_URL=https://stats.yourdomain.com" >> .env
echo "SECRET_KEY_BASE=$(openssl rand -base64 48)" >> .env

Set BASE_URL to your actual domain. The SECRET_KEY_BASE must be at least 64 bytes for encryption. Do not use a weak key.

Step 3: Expose to the Web

Plausible uses Caddy internally for automatic SSL. Expose ports 80 and 443:

echo "HTTP_PORT=80" >> .env
echo "HTTPS_PORT=443" >> .env
cat > compose.override.yml << EOF
services:
  plausible:
    ports:
      - 80:80
      - 443:443
EOF

Alternatively, run Plausible behind your existing reverse proxy. See the Plausible CE wiki for reverse proxy configuration.

Step 4: Start the Services

docker compose up -d

Plausible starts three containers: the Plausible server, a ClickHouse database for analytics data, and Caddy for SSL. Wait 30 seconds for ClickHouse to initialise.

Step 5: Create Admin Account

Open https://stats.yourdomain.com. Create the first user account. This is the admin account. After creation, you are taken to the dashboard.

Add the tracking script to your website. Plausible does not collect personal data, does not use cookies, and does not track users across sites. The script is 1KB. Page load impact is negligible. Your analytics dashboard shows page views, referrers, top pages, countries, devices, and bounce rates. Everything Google Analytics shows, without the privacy trade-off.

Resource Requirements

Plausible CE needs 2GB RAM minimum. ClickHouse is memory-hungry during query processing. For a site with under 10,000 daily pageviews, 2GB is sufficient. For higher traffic, upgrade to 4GB.

If configuring ClickHouse and Caddy is not your idea of a productive morning, VPS1 deploys Plausible CE for you. We handle the setup, SSL, and ongoing maintenance. You get privacy-first analytics without touching a terminal.