Plausible Analytics

Plausible is a lightweight, open-source analytics tool. It has no cookies, collects no personal data, and is fully GDPR / CCPA compliant — meaning you do not need a cookie consent banner for analytics alone.

1. Cloud setup

Sign up at plausible.io and add your domain. Plausible will give you a script snippet — you just need the domain name, not the full snippet.

2. Add the script to `Layout.astro`

Open src/layouts/Layout.astro and add the Plausible script in the <head>:

<head>
  <!-- ... existing tags ... -->

  <!-- Plausible Analytics — no cookies, GDPR compliant -->
  {import.meta.env.PUBLIC_PLAUSIBLE_DOMAIN && (
    <script
      is:inline
      defer
      data-domain={import.meta.env.PUBLIC_PLAUSIBLE_DOMAIN}
      src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"
    />
  )}
</head>

The is:inline directive ensures the script renders exactly as written (no Astro bundling). The conditional {import.meta.env.PUBLIC_PLAUSIBLE_DOMAIN && ...} means the script is omitted in development — tracking only fires in production.

3. Set the environment variable

# .env.local (development — omit to skip tracking locally)
# PUBLIC_PLAUSIBLE_DOMAIN=yourdomain.com

# Production: set in Vercel / Netlify / Cloudflare dashboard
PUBLIC_PLAUSIBLE_DOMAIN=yourdomain.com

Variables prefixed with PUBLIC_ are safe to expose in the browser.

4. Track custom events

Plausible supports custom events for tracking button clicks, form submissions, and other interactions.

<Button
  href="/contact"
  onclick="plausible('CTA Click', {props: {button: 'Hero Primary'}})"
>
  Book a consultation
</Button>

Or in a client-side script:

// anywhere in a <script> block
function trackCTA(label: string) {
  if (typeof window.plausible === "function") {
    window.plausible("CTA Click", { props: { button: label } });
  }
}

Custom events appear in Plausible under Goals — you need to create the goal in the dashboard first (Plausible → your site → Goals → + Goal → Custom event).

5. Self-hosting (optional)

If you prefer to host Plausible yourself:

# docker-compose.yml
version: "3.3"
services:
  plausible_db:
    image: postgres:15
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: plausible_db
      POSTGRES_USER: postgres
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: postgres

  plausible_events_db:
    image: clickhouse/clickhouse-server:23.3

  plausible:
    image: ghcr.io/plausible/community-edition:v2
    ports:
      - "8000:8000"
    environment:
      BASE_URL: https://analytics.yourdomain.com
      SECRET_KEY_BASE: <generate with openssl rand -hex 64>
    depends_on:
      - plausible_db
      - plausible_events_db

Then update the script src in Layout.astro:

src="https://analytics.yourdomain.com/js/script.js"

6. Outbound link tracking

To track clicks on external links, swap the standard script for the outbound-links extension:

src="https://plausible.io/js/script.outbound-links.js"

No other changes needed — Plausible will automatically record outbound link clicks as Outbound Link: Click events.

Privacy notes

Plausible does not use cookies or fingerprinting.
No personal data (IP address, user agent) is stored.
All measurements are aggregated — you see page views and events, not individuals.
This means you can run Plausible without a cookie consent banner in most jurisdictions (EU, UK, US).
If you use other tracking tools alongside Plausible that do set cookies (e.g. Meta Pixel, Google Ads), the cookie consent banner in this template handles those separately.