📊 Privacy-Respecting Analytics Guide

This guide covers analytics options that respect user privacy and comply with regulations like GDPR.

Philosophy

This template does not include analytics by default because:

• 🔒 Privacy first: Users should opt-in to tracking
• 🌍 GDPR compliance: Cookie consent is complex
• 🎯 Your choice: Different projects have different needs

---

Comparison of Options

Service	Type	Cookies	GDPR	Cost	Complexity
Plausible	SaaS/Self-host	❌ No	✅ Compliant	€9/mo or free (self-host)	Low
Umami	Self-hosted	❌ No	✅ Compliant	Free	Medium
Simple Analytics	SaaS	❌ No	✅ Compliant	$9/mo	Low
Goat Counter	SaaS/Self-host	❌ No	✅ Compliant	Free tier	Low
Fathom	SaaS	❌ No	✅ Compliant	$14/mo	Low
Google Analytics	SaaS	✅ Yes	⚠️ Requires consent	Free	Medium

---

Option 1: Plausible Analytics

Plausible is a lightweight, privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics.

Features

• ✅ No cookies, no consent banner needed
• ✅ GDPR, CCPA, PECR compliant
• ✅ Lightweight script (~1KB)
• ✅ Open source (self-hostable)

Setup (SaaS)

Step 1: Create Account

Sign up at plausible.io and add your site.

Step 2: Install Plugin

npm install docusaurus-plugin-plausible

Step 3: Configure

docusaurus.config.js

plugins: [
  [
    'docusaurus-plugin-plausible',
    {
      domain: 'your-docs-site.com',
    },
  ],
],

Setup (Self-Hosted)

Use the headTags approach:

docusaurus.config.js

headTags: [
  {
    tagName: 'script',
    attributes: {
      defer: 'true',
      'data-domain': 'your-docs-site.com',
      src: 'https://your-plausible-instance.com/js/script.js',
    },
  },
],

---

Option 2: Umami

Umami is a simple, fast, privacy-focused analytics solution.

Features

• ✅ 100% open source
• ✅ Self-hosted (full data ownership)
• ✅ No cookies
• ✅ GDPR compliant
• ✅ Real-time dashboard

Setup

Step 1: Deploy Umami

Deploy using Docker, Vercel, Railway, or other platforms. See Umami docs.

Step 2: Add Tracking Script

docusaurus.config.js

headTags: [
  {
    tagName: 'script',
    attributes: {
      async: 'true',
      defer: 'true',
      'data-website-id': 'YOUR_WEBSITE_ID',
      src: 'https://your-umami-instance.com/script.js',
    },
  },
],

Docker Compose Example

docker-compose.yml

version: '3'
services:
  umami:
    image: ghcr.io/umami-software/umami:postgresql-latest
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    environment:
      DATABASE_URL: postgresql://umami:umami@db:5432/umami
      DATABASE_TYPE: postgresql
      HASH_SALT: your-random-salt-here
    depends_on:
      - db

  db:
    image: postgres:15-alpine
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: umami
      POSTGRES_USER: umami
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: umami
    volumes:
      - umami-db:/var/lib/postgresql/data

volumes:
  umami-db:

---

Option 3: Simple Analytics

Simple Analytics is a privacy-first analytics service.

Features

• ✅ No cookies
• ✅ EU-based (Netherlands)
• ✅ GDPR compliant by design
• ✅ Public dashboards option

Setup

Step 1: Create Account

Sign up at simpleanalytics.com.

Step 2: Install Plugin

npm install @simpleanalytics/docusaurus-plugin

Step 3: Configure

docusaurus.config.js

plugins: [
  [
    '@simpleanalytics/docusaurus-plugin',
    {
      domain: 'your-docs-site.com',
    },
  ],
],

---

Option 4: Goat Counter

Goat Counter is a lightweight, open-source analytics.

Features

• ✅ No cookies
• ✅ GDPR compliant
• ✅ Free tier (100k pageviews/month)
• ✅ Self-hostable

Setup

docusaurus.config.js

headTags: [
  {
    tagName: 'script',
    attributes: {
      'data-goatcounter': 'https://YOUR_CODE.goatcounter.com/count',
      async: 'true',
      src: '//gc.zgo.at/count.js',
    },
  },
],

---

Option 5: Google Analytics (with Privacy Considerations)

If you must use Google Analytics, configure it for privacy:

Setup

npm install @docusaurus/plugin-google-gtag

docusaurus.config.js

plugins: [
  [
    '@docusaurus/plugin-google-gtag',
    {
      trackingID: 'G-XXXXXXXXXX',
      anonymizeIP: true, // Important for GDPR
    },
  ],
],

Cookie Consent Required

Google Analytics requires cookie consent in the EU. Consider:

• react-cookie-consent
• cookieconsent

warning

Google Analytics is blocked by many ad blockers and privacy browsers. Consider privacy-respecting alternatives for more accurate data.

---

Environment Variables

For security, use environment variables for analytics IDs:

docusaurus.config.js

headTags: [
  {
    tagName: 'script',
    attributes: {
      defer: 'true',
      'data-domain': process.env.ANALYTICS_DOMAIN,
      src: process.env.ANALYTICS_SCRIPT_URL,
    },
  },
],

.env

ANALYTICS_DOMAIN=your-docs-site.com
ANALYTICS_SCRIPT_URL=https://plausible.io/js/script.js

---

What to Track

Useful Metrics

Metric	Why It Matters
Page views	Popular content identification
Referrers	Where users come from
Search queries	What users are looking for
404 errors	Broken links to fix
Time on page	Content engagement

Don't Track

• Personal information
• Precise location (city is enough)
• Individual user journeys (aggregate only)

---

Recommendation

Use Case	Recommended
Simple, hosted	Plausible or Simple Analytics
Self-hosted, free	Umami or Goat Counter
Already using Google	Google Analytics with anonymization
Privacy-critical	Umami (self-hosted)

---

Testing Analytics

Development Mode

Most analytics skip localhost. To test:

1. Build and serve locally: npm run build && npm run serve
2. Use ngrok or similar for public URL
3. Check analytics dashboard

Debug Mode

Plausible example with debug:

{
  tagName: 'script',
  attributes: {
    defer: 'true',
    'data-domain': 'your-site.com',
    src: 'https://plausible.io/js/script.local.js', // Tracks localhost
  },
}

---

Resources

• Plausible Documentation
• Umami Documentation
• Simple Analytics Docs
• Goat Counter Docs
• GDPR and Analytics