Amplitude
Product analytics platform for tracking user behavior and generating data-driven insights
Open Web Analytics
Self‑hosted web analytics platform keeping your data private
A privacy‑first analytics suite that tracks visitors, e‑commerce, heatmaps and session recordings, all hosted on your own server.
Overview
Overview
Open Web Analytics (OWA) is a self‑hosted analytics solution that gives you full control over the data collected from your websites or applications. It offers visitor and pageview tracking, e‑commerce transaction logging, configurable actions, and advanced visualizations such as heatmaps and DOM‑stream session recordings.
Deployment & Extensibility
OWA runs on a standard PHP stack and can serve an unlimited number of sites from a single instance. The first‑party JavaScript tracker integrates easily via a WordPress plugin or manual snippet, while the REST API enables programmatic administration and data access. Its modular architecture lets developers add custom functionality through plugins, making it adaptable to a wide range of reporting needs.
Who Benefits
Ideal for organizations that prioritize data sovereignty, developers comfortable with PHP, agencies managing multiple client sites, and teams that need a customizable analytics dashboard without recurring SaaS fees.
Highlights
Visitor, pageview, and e‑commerce transaction tracking
Unlimited sites on a single OWA instance
Heatmaps and DOM‑stream session recordings
Extensible framework with REST API and custom modules
Pros
- Full ownership of analytics data
- No vendor lock‑in or usage fees
- Rich visual reports including heatmaps
- Highly extensible via plugins and API
Considerations
- Requires self‑hosting and ongoing maintenance
- PHP‑centric setup may limit some environments
- User interface is less polished than commercial SaaS
- Real‑time analytics are less advanced than some competitors
Managed products teams compare with
When teams consider Open Web Analytics, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.
Looking for a hosted option? These are the services engineering teams benchmark against before choosing open source.
Fit guide
Great for
- Privacy‑focused businesses that keep data in‑house
- Developers comfortable managing a PHP stack
- Agencies needing multi‑site reporting from one server
- Teams that want to customize analytics dashboards
Not ideal when
- Non‑technical users seeking a plug‑and‑play SaaS solution
- Very high‑traffic sites without dedicated ops resources
- Organizations requiring out‑of‑the‑box real‑time dashboards
- Environments that cannot run PHP
How teams use it
E‑commerce transaction analysis
Track sales, conversion funnels, and revenue per product to optimize marketing spend.
Heatmap‑driven UI improvements
Visualize click and scroll patterns to refine page layouts and increase engagement.
Session replay for debugging
Record user sessions to identify usability issues and reproduce bugs.
Multi‑site reporting for agencies
Consolidate analytics from all client sites into a single dashboard for easy comparison.
Tech snapshot
PHP66%
JavaScript24%
Smarty5%
CSS5%
Hack1%
Makefile1%
Frequently asked questions
Where is the analytics data stored?
All data is stored in your own database on the server where OWA is installed.
What programming languages does OWA support?
The server runs on PHP, the tracker is JavaScript, and SDKs are available for WordPress and generic PHP applications.
Can OWA be integrated with existing CMS platforms?
Yes, OWA provides a WordPress plugin and a manual JavaScript snippet for any CMS.
Is there a hosted version of OWA?
No official hosted service is offered; you deploy and manage OWA yourself.
How can I access analytics data programmatically?
OWA includes a REST API for administration tasks and data retrieval.
Project at a glance
Stable- Stars
- 2,642
- Watchers
- 2,642
- Forks
- 483
LicenseGPL-2.0
Repo age13 years old
Last commit4 months ago
Self-hostingSupported
Primary languagePHP
Last synced yesterday