Fathom Analytics - Simple, trustworthy website analytics (finally)

@lovevalgeisler We'll soon have a hosted version that's just a copy+paste (probably also a simple WP plugin to add the code) - you can be a beta tester if you'd like, when we're ready.

@lovevalgeisler Hahaha, this is me! Can't wait for the hosted version too @pjrvs :)

@missrachilli soon :)

@pjrvs count me in.

@lovevalgeisler @pjrvs Can I also help?

@abadesi Hey! The idea started when I questioned my "product development stack" which I wrote about here: https://pjrvs.com/transparent/ Basically, as Tristan Harris said in a NYT piece, if we aren't paying for the product, we are the product. That really resonated as I had never questioned what I was trading for free software. So I started looking for open-source and alternatives to GA, and came up short. Some options were too expensive for me, a tiny bootstrapped business. Some open source options (like Piwik) were too complicated for my needs, and their UI wasn't great (I'm a designer, haha, so that's important). I decided to build my own, but I wanted to see if there was traction around the idea first, so I spent a day working on a screenshot and tweeted it here: https://twitter.com/pjrvs/status... Within hours it had lots of retweets and favourites, and hundreds of folks signing up for the mailing list. So it seemed I wasn't the only one wanting a simple, easy, open-source alternative to GA. I spoke with my friend @Danny (from MC4WP fame + a solid developer) and we decided to build it together. So version 1 is the open-source version you'll find on github today. Next, we're working on adding more features (roadmap is coming soon) and offering a hosted, paid option for folks that don't want to manage/update the code or server configs. It'll be a simple cut+paste of javascript into WordPress or any other CMS. Thanks for the hunt! It was a nice surprise in my inbox this morning :)

@dannyvankooten @pjrvs I am glad that Fathom was my first hunt. I was looking for a privacy-first solution for a while and I was hyped at the seconds I have seen it in my Github trendings flow. And you two are sharing a great open mind with a great back story. I hope the track.js file to be shared as an npm module someday soon. If you are looking for testers I am up and ready !

Thanks so much Swizz :) Great first hunt, I think. Feel free to test it now, the code is available on our Github repo.

@pjrvs You are on a really good track. I would love to contribute but I am not a go developer. I am more on the JS/Frontend side. Maybe once you will be looking at pushing the tracking client further.

@markosaric Thanks Marko! I agree, 109430493 pages in GA and I'm like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ just gimme the 2 things I was looking for :P

@markosaric Totally agree, overkill ;-)

@beedesignllc Thanks Brandon!

@beedesignllc Hey Brandon, we've just shipped our hosted offering: https://www.producthunt.com/post... Would love to hear your thoughts on it!

@cristiannebunu Hey Cristian. That's good to hear, because it is actually already keeping track of that data! Just not showing it anywhere, yet. :-)

@s2imon Thanks Simon. (Although the looks are mostly @pjrvs's doing!)

@dannyvankooten absolutely aware, though @pjrvs doesn't know who the 🌀🌀🌀 I am, so I've kept the praise among us ;)

@s2imon @dannyvankooten it's a 50/50 awesome split ;)

@dmitrizzle Hey! Basically what we're doing is we store only daily aggregates on the server and store everything that we need to assemble these daily aggregates on the client. Whenever a new pageview comes in, it includes details about whether that pageview is coming from a new visitor, a new session, etc. Every minute we update the daily aggregates by looping through all pageviews (stored in a table optimized for writes) and then immediately getting rid of these pageview rows. This means that for a site with 100 pages, we only have to store 36.5K rows per year, containing the daily aggregated stats. Additional benefit is that not storing any visitor-specifics on the server happens to be the most privacy friendly solution too. Let me know if you'd love to chat more about this stuff, I'd love to learn from your experience running something similar.

@dannyvankooten Sounds good man, for sure, if you're on Twitter feel free to DM or @ @dmitrizzle

@biraj while we are releasing a roadmap soon, we are open to other features if enough of the user-base wants them.

@_jasonsilberman thanks jason!

@agilek Hah, no, not yet. We're starting with what we think is most important and working from there, although we plan to keep this simple and frankly, quite opinionated. What are you missing?

@dannyvankooten A few (not prioritised) ideas: - referrers by channel (organic, email, social,...) - grouping referrers by domain (+ option to drill down to specific pages) - traffic quality + channel (to be able to tell well performing channels from shitty ones) - keywords (don't know if it's possible for you, but I'd like to know what people search for) - data from internal search (to know what are people interested in on my site) - data on content (how people consume, what they like/dislike) - visitors data (stats on new/returning, sessions in time, origin, devices...) - top entry pages (to be able to optimize main landing pages) - be able to define conversions / funnels (on a very basic level) What I need are actionable and easy to understand metrics. I know most of the things in list above are in GA but they are buried in the app or you need to have a skill to set it up / interpret it / use it – basically it's too complicated for BFUs.

@agilek thanks for sharing mike. we'll be prioritizing features based on what the bulk of are our users are requesting.

@evivz it already is a "real" product, you can use the demo on our site or install it from our github repo :)

@heliostatic Hey Ben, Paul and I both loved Mint back in the day! And yes, we definitely plan to remain open-source and hope to make it a sustainable effort by asking for donations and providing a paid hosted version. Much like Ghost, for example.

@dannyvankooten Sounds like a great plan. Simple, hosted analytics is an underserved space.

@smd hop on the list and we'll let you know when it's ready :)

@pjrvs Thanks a bunch—I'm on there. :D

@smd Hey Steve, it's here! https://www.producthunt.com/post...

@dannyvankooten Thanks! Before I part with any cash—might you be up for sharing why I ought to run with Fathom versus Clicky? I'm using them as an alternative to Google Analytics. Right now, I'm only the difference I see between Clicky and Fathom is the pleasing UI in the latter. 😄

@dannyvankooten @avclark thank you sir :)

@dannyvankooten @marcjohns thanks marc!

@stevenkryger thanks steven, i appreciate that!

@seanmarshdesign YAS.

@kazzkiq thanks! and you should have built it when you thought of it. would have saved us some dev cycles 😂