Website analytics are vital to understanding how visitors interact with your content. And while Google Analytics dominates the market, it often raises privacy concerns and can be complicated for small projects.
If you’re looking for a simple, open-source, and privacy-friendly solution, Uncle There is a great alternative. It’s lightweight, easy to deploy, and doesn’t track personal data, making it compliant with modern privacy laws like GDPR.
In this article, you’ll learn what Ami is, why it’s a great Google Analytics alternative, and how to set it up on your server from scratch using Seola.
What we will cover:
Understanding Imami
Ami is an open source web analytics platform that is fast, easy and privacy-oriented.
It collects essential website data such as page views, referrals, and device information without storing personally identifiable details. Unlike Google Analytics, Ami does not use cookies or share data with third parties.
The project is actively maintained by the open source community and has become a highly trusted tool for developers and enterprises who want complete control over their analytics. It provides a clean dashboard that displays all key metrics in real-time and works across any website or application.
You can find the project on GitHub at Github.com/umami-software/umami and even give one a try. Live demo here.
Why choose Ami over Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is powerful but often overwhelming for simple websites. It is also tied to Google’s data collection ecosystem, which may conflict with privacy-oriented organizations.
Ami takes a different approach. It collects only the information you need to make decisions, such as traffic sources and popular pages, and it stores everything on your own infrastructure.
There are no third party cookies, user tracking or hidden integrations. You get full ownership of your data and peace of mind knowing it’s not leaving your server.
In addition, Ami is free under the MIT license, making it suitable for both personal projects and commercial deployments.
How to install Ami
Before you begin, make sure you have some basic tools and supplies ready.
Nod to you. JS version 18.18 or newer will be required to install the server. Emami also requires a database to store analytics data. It supports PostgreSQL (version 12.14 or higher), SQL (version 8.0 or higher), and Myriad B (version 10.5 or higher).
Step 1: Get the source code
The first step is to download the Ami source code from GitHub. Open your terminal and run:
git clone https://github.com/umami-software/umami.git
cd umami
pnpm install
The PNPM install command installs all necessary dependencies for the application. Make sure you have PNPM installed globally before running this command. You can install it by running npm install -g pnpm.
Step 2: Configure the database
Next, you need to create a database connection. Create a new .ENV file in the root directory of the Ami project. Inside this file, add the following line:
DATABASE_URL=connection-url
change connection-url along with your original database connection string. Here are two examples depending on your database type:
For PostgreSQL:
postgresql://username:password@localhost:5432/umami
For SQL:
mysql://username:password@localhost:3306/umami
This connection string allows Ami to connect to your database and automatically create the necessary tables during setup.
Step 3: Create the application
Once your configuration is complete, you can build the application by running:
pnpm run build
This step compiles the code and prepares it for production. It will also initialize your database with the required tables and create a default admin account.
You can login with username admin and password umami It’s a good idea to change this password immediately after first logging in after setup.
Step 4: Start the server
Now it’s time to start the application. Run the following command:
pnpm run start
By default, Ami will start You can open this address in your browser to access the analytics dashboard. If you want to make it publicly accessible, you’ll need to configure a reverse proxy using a web server like NGINX.
Step 5: Keeping Ami updated
Like any software, Ami receives regular updates that include new features, security patches, and performance improvements. Keeping your installation up to date is easy.
If you’re installing from source, go to your ami folder and run:
git pull
pnpm install
pnpm run build
This command updates the source code, installs new dependencies, and rebuilds the app. If you’re using Docker, you can update by pulling the latest images and restarting the containers:
docker compose pull
docker compose up — force-recreate -d
Regular updates ensure you have access to the latest analytics features and bug fixes.
Step 6: Adding Tracking to Your Website
After logging into the dashboard, you will see an option to add a new website. Once you create it, Ami will generate a small tracking script.
Copy the script tag and paste it
section of your website’s HTML pages.
This script is lightweight and won’t slow down your website. Once added, you’ll start seeing traffic data in your dashboard almost immediately.
You can track multiple websites from the same Ami installation, making it ideal for developers managing multiple projects.
Step 7: Exploring the Dashboard
The Ami dashboard is clean, modern and easy to understand. It shows metrics like page views, referrers, operating systems and devices. You can filter by date, view live visitors, and export data for reporting.
There are no complicated configuration options or hidden features – just the information you need to make informed decisions about your website traffic. Even on modest servers, everything runs fast.
Hosting Ami on the cloud using Seola
When you’re ready to proceed with testing, Ami gives you two options. You can host it yourself using your own infrastructure or use their managed cloud version umami.is.
Self-hosting gives you complete control and is generally preferred by technical teams who want to keep sensitive data in-house.
You can choose any cloud provider, such as AWS, Digitalisan, or others, to set up Emami. But I will use Siola.
Seoul is a PAAS provider designed for developers and dev teams to consistently ship features and updates in the most efficient manner. It offers application hosting, database, object storage, and static site hosting for your projects.
I’m using Siola for two reasons:
Each platform will charge you to create a cloud resource. Siola comes with a $50 credit for our use, so we won’t incur any costs for this instance.
Seoul has one Template for uncleso it simplifies the manual installation and setup for each resource you’ll need to install.
Login Click on Seela and Templates. You can see Emami as one of the templates.
Click on the “Ami” template. You will see the resources required to deliver the application such as PostgreSQL and Redis. Click on “Deploy Template”.
You can see that the resources are provisioned. Once the resources are provisioned, go to your app and click “View App”.
You will get cloud URL with login page. Use the default login credentials for username and username for password. You will see a blank dashboard.
You now have a production-grade Emami server running on the cloud. You can use it to set up your website’s analytics by clicking on “Settings” and then clicking on “Add Website”.
You can then click “Edit” to get the tracking code for your website.
Once you’ve added the tracking code for your website, you can start monitoring your traffic and other analytics in your new dashboard.
Privacy and Compliance
One of the best reasons to use Ami is its commitment to privacy. It does not use cookies, does not track individual users, and does not share data with any third-party services.
All information resides on your server. This makes it a great choice for websites that need to comply with privacy laws like GDPR, CCPA, or PECR.
Because you own the data, you can decide how long to keep it, how to analyze it, and who has access.
The result
Setting up your analytics system can seem complicated, but with Ami, it’s surprisingly easy. It gives you everything you need to understand your website traffic without compromising user privacy. You control the data, infrastructure and configuration.
By following these steps, you can deploy Emami on your own server in less than an hour and start monitoring your website visitors. Whether you run a personal blog, a SaaS platform, or a client project, Ami offers a transparent, fast, and privacy-friendly alternative to Google Analytics.
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