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ADR 0003 — Self-hosted Umami for analytics

ADR 0003 — Self-hosted Umami for analytics #

Status: Accepted · Date: 2024-01 (recorded retroactively 2026-04)

Context #

We wanted basic analytics: page views, referrers, country-level geographies, and conversion tracking on the contact form. Constraints:

  • GDPR-clean without a cookie consent banner (banners hurt UX and bias data)
  • No data sold to or shared with ad networks
  • Aligned with the open-source brand we sell to clients
  • Cheap or free at our traffic levels

Options considered: GA4, Plausible (cloud), Plausible (self-hosted), PostHog (cloud), Umami (self-hosted).

Decision #

Umami, self-hosted on the existing Coolify instance.

We rejected:

  • GA4. Requires a cookie banner under strict-reading EU rules; data flows into Google’s advertising stack. Both points are misaligned with the brand.
  • Plausible cloud. Good product, but a recurring subscription where we already run Coolify capacity at zero marginal cost.
  • Plausible self-hosted. Comparable to Umami but with a heavier footprint and slightly stricter licence stance for commercial self-hosting.
  • PostHog. Powerful but oversized for a five-page site; product-analytics framing is wrong shape.

We chose Umami because:

  • Open source, MIT
  • Cookieless tracking — no consent banner required
  • Feature parity with Plausible for our needs (referrers, geos, custom events)
  • Same Coolify host as the rest of our stack; zero marginal cost
  • Custom event API works cleanly for contact-form conversion tracking

Consequences #

  • ✅ Zero recurring cost
  • ✅ No cookie banner; the site loads exactly as designed for everyone
  • ✅ We own the data and can run our own queries
  • ✅ Demonstrates the “self-host where it makes sense” principle to anyone curious enough to inspect the page
  • ⚠️ Operational cost: backups, upgrades, monitoring of the Umami container are now on us
  • ⚠️ Feature roadmap is the Umami project’s, not ours. If they pivot or stagnate, we revisit.

Status #

Accepted, in production. Conversion events are wired to the contact form via the custom event API.