Product Analytics
Self-Hosted Product Analytics: The Insider's Guide
Last updateD on
January 7, 2025
Relying on third-party analytics puts your user data at risk. And as your business begins collecting more data, you also face bigger questions:
Where does that data go?
Who controls it?
How secure is it?
When it comes to hosting product analytics, companies typically choose between two common approaches: Common cloud-based analytics or self-hosted and private cloud analytics.
With self-hosted analytics and private cloud analytics, you stay in control - protecting privacy and keeping your data exactly where it belongs: in your hands. Businesses are looking at self-hosted solutions because of an increased focus on data privacy, rising cloud-based costs, and the need for greater independence from third-party vendors.
“When you work with product analytics, you deal with your users’ trust. Their data is valuable, and your top priority as a company should be to protect it,” - Onur Alp Soner, CEO at Countly.
With 86% of the US general public stating that data privacy is a growing concern, privacy and regulatory demands are higher than ever. Self-hosted analytics platforms help businesses like yours take control of their data and operations, which addresses these concerns and builds trust amongst users.
Self-hosted solutions can help your business comply with regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, PDPL, and COPPA while protecting sensitive information from the risks of third-party platforms. All of this means you’re put in control to overcome the growing challenges in data management and privacy concerns.
You have likely experienced the frustration of limited customization options, vendor lock-in, or using tools that simply don’t fit the way you work. When using a self-hosted solution, you can decide exactly where and how your data is stored while providing you the freedom to tailor the platform to your business’s specific needs.
Here are some reasons why investing in self-hosted analytics could be an invaluable decision for your business:
Since your data is one of the most important assets your business has, data ownership isn’t a “nice to have” in operations. Investing in self-hosted solutions means that your business gains complete control over its data. With self-hosted analytics, you’re no longer dependent on third-party providers to process, store, and access any sensitive data.
Not only does this improve security, but it also guarantees you better compliance with privacy regulations. For industries like healthcare, finance, and education, self-hosted analytics platforms become the go-to option for protecting your data and maintaining trust, especially when compliance with regulations like COPPA and HIPPA dictate business success.
“Your data should be yours. You shouldn’t have to depend on external vendors to process or access information that is core to your business. Self-hosted solutions ensure your data stays in your hands, where it belongs,” - Onur Alp Soner, CEO at Countly.
We hear about new data breaches almost daily. In December 2024, a massive data breach at SRP Federal Credit Union exposed more than 240,000 members’ sensitive information. Incidents like these showcase the increasing regulatory scrutiny and the importance of security and privacy for businesses like yours.
“Privacy is not an option, and it shouldn’t be the price we accept for just getting on the Internet,” - Gary Kovacs, Former CEO at Mozilla.
Self-hosted platforms provide strict privacy by eliminating unnecessary third-party access to data and reducing attack surfaces. This level of security helps maintain trust and protects them from costly data breaches or compliance failures, especially for companies that deal with sensitive customer information.
“By keeping everything in one secure platform, self-hosted solutions reduce risk and strengthen user trust,” - Onur Alp Soner, CEO at Countly.
With the way self-hosted platforms are designed, you’re not just promised privacy. You also gain great flexibility. These platforms give your business tailored dashboards, integration, and reporting capabilities that can be fully customized to your business’s specific needs.
“Every company has its own goals and workflows. With self-hosted solutions, you’re not locked into a one-size-fits-all approach. You can shape the platform to support your vision,” - Onur Alp Soner, CEO at Countly.
For instance, Countly lets you centralize analytics while adapting the software to fit niche use cases - from offline data collection to advanced user segmentation.
"Countly is designed to handle offline environments seamlessly. For example, our SDKs can queue data when there’s no internet connection and sync it as soon as the system reconnects, ensuring no data is lost," - Arturs Sosins, CTO at Countly.
Cost may be one of the reasons that might be holding you back from investing in self-hosting solutions. Even though cloud-based alternatives might seem more affordable upfront, these prices can quickly rise as your business grows. From add-on costs to subscription fees and vendor pricing changes, these expenses associated with cloud-based analytics can cause long-term financial strain.
Although self-hosted solutions require a hefty initial investment, they often provide the best cost predictability, especially if you have an enterprise with large-scale data requirements. When you decide to manage your own infrastructure, you avoid recurring fees and can easily control your company budget more efficiently.
Yes, your business can receive many great benefits from using self-hosted analytics, but that doesn’t mean all platforms are created equal. To get the most out of your analytics and take full control of your data, you want to pick a tool that offers the ability to scale and adapt to specific industry requirements.
Here are some of the leading platforms that can empower you to manage your analytics while maintaining complete data ownership:
As an all-in-one analytics platform, Countly gives businesses total control over their data. Built to prioritize privacy, Countly is the go-to option for industries where data ownership and compliance are non-negotiable, such as finance, healthcare, automotive, education, and telecommunications.
Countly’s privacy-first approach and flexibility make it an ideal choice for countless other sectors, giving you the flexibility and control you need to keep your data secure and compliant.
There are three main areas where you can use Countly for: data collection, data analysis, and actionable insights - giving you complete control over all types of analytics needs you may have.
Countly’s versatility is what sets it apart from its competitors. Whether tracking analytics for traditional web and mobile platforms, offline environments, or connected devices, Countly has the functionality to adapt to unique use cases.
“We’ve helped customers track analytics in environments that are often overlooked - from offline ship systems to connected cars and even desktop software. This flexibility is something many platforms simply can’t match,” - Arturs Sosins, CTO at Countly.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Positioned as a privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics, Matomo provides full data ownership. Using an open-source foundation, this tool is compliant with privacy regulations like CCPA and GDPR. Matomo supports traditional web and mobile environments and it is easy to use.
However, it lacks real-time insights offered by tools like Countly and it has limited scalability while no advanced analytics are offered. Offering limited customization, this self-hosted analytics platform is not enterprise-ready and might be a better fit for small-to-medium businesses.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Plausible takes a simple approach to self-hosting analytics. The platform is lightweight, easy to use, and EU data privacy-compliant. Although the tool offers full control of your business data, it is limited to basic analytics, has limited scalability, and doesn’t offer real-time insights.
Unlike Countly, Plausible doesn’t offer any user feedback tools, like crash analytics, NPS ratings, and surveys. Advanced analytics are also not available, which makes this tool not enterprise-ready and rather a better option for smaller businesses prioritizing simplicity through website environments.
If your team needs more advanced analytics capabilities we’d recommend taking a look at Counlty or Piwik PRO, which we will talk about in a bit.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Unlike most of the other self-hosted analytics solutions on this list, PostHog offers limited control over your business data. Additionally, the tool has limited compliance tools when looking at its self-hosted plan.
Real-time insights are limited for the self-hosted plan while more advanced features such as customization are available on PostHog’s cloud-hosted plan.
Its self-hosted version, just like Plausible, is also not enterprise-ready. Nonetheless, because the tool is free, it's an appealing option for teams with access to minimal resources or developers with small-scale needs.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Piwik PRO is a self-hosted analytics tool that offers full control of your business’s data with compliance support. The tool also complies with GDPR and HIPAA but only offers limited real-time insights.
Additionally, Piwik PRO is often criticized for its steep learning curve, which can make it difficult for teams to see immediate value or put it to use immediately.
At a much higher price point than the other four tools mentioned above, Piwik PRO focuses on visitor behavior tracking and supporting web and mobile environments. Since custom add-ons are available at an extra cost, Piwik PRO might be suitable for enterprises needing compliance tracking.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
As a business owner or manager, you need to consider a few key factors when choosing a self-hosted analytics platform. You also need to ensure that the tool you ultimately invest in fits your company's priorities, goals, and plans for growth.
Here’s what you should keep in mind:
If regulatory compliance and data privacy are top priorities for your business, a self-hosted analytics platform is something you should consider investing in. Whether in automotive, education, finance, or healthcare, you already understand how strict regulations like COPPA, HIPAA, and GDPR demand complete control over your user data.
When you start using a self-hosted solution, you have the power to store your data on private clouds or internal servers. This ensures you’re reducing the risks of leaks, breaches, or unauthorized access from using third-party services.
“In countries like Turkey, financial institutions and government organizations must store data on physical disks under their own premises due to compliance regulations. Countly ensures that they can still extract value from their data without compromising on these strict requirements,”- Arturs Sosins, CTO at Countly.
If data privacy is a top priority for your organization, self-hosting data analytics puts you in complete control.
A self-hosting analytics tool needs to have a comprehensive feature set to replace the need for multiple disconnected tools.
“Countly’s feature set is designed to replace entire stacks of disconnected tools. Whether it’s tracking events, running surveys, or delivering push notifications, everything is centralized and interconnected, which increases the value of the data,” - Arturs Sosins, CTO at Countly.
Countly not only collects your data in one place, but puts it into action with a rich suite of features. This includes:
The best way to extract value from your data without adding complexity is to invest in a tool with an all-in-one approach.
You also want to consider the tool’s flexibility. Without this flexibility, your chosen self-hosted analytics tool won’t be agile enough to cater to your industry’s specific needs. An example of how self-hosted platforms can adapt to niche cases is Countly’s ability to customize tracking for unique environments like desktop applications, cars, ships, and TVs.
“We’ve enabled customers to track everything from connected cars to offline shops and even TV applications. Many of our customers are surprised at the level of customization they can achieve with Countly,”- Arturs Sosins, CTO at Countly.
“Instead of businesses stitching together 10-15 tools, Countly centralizes everything they need for data analytics and action, simplifying workflows and improving efficiency,” - Onur Alp Soner, CEO at Countly.
Scalability is an important factor, especially for businesses expecting data growth. Because of these scalability needs, self-hosted solutions need to handle increasing volumes of data without performance degradation. Platforms like Countly address these needs by supporting integrations with optimized databases like SingleStore. This enables faster query processing and support for large-scale deployments.
“Previously, we were limited by relying on a single database for all queries. By partnering with database providers like SingleStore, we can now scale performance and support massive datasets, especially for enterprise customers,” - Arturs Sosins, CTO at Countly.
Whether your business operates on-premise or cloud-hosted environments, your chosen platform should scale seamlessly as your needs change.
Self-hosted solutions may have higher initial deployment costs but offer significant long-term value. That’s because these solutions help reduce dependence on third-party tools and, in turn, recurring subscription fees. Your business can also retain ownership of your data, reducing the hidden costs of data privacy breaches or regulatory fines.
Suitable for medium to large organizations, Countly Enterprise gives you all the features the tool has to offer while retaining full control of your data through its self-hosted functionality. With scalable pricing, self-hosted platforms like Countly offer cost-effective solutions without compromising functionality.
“Customers can choose what features they need, scale up as their business grows, or customize Countly further to fit their unique requirements,” - Arturs Sosins, CTO at Countly.
Supporting a range of data inputs, self-hosted platforms offer the capability to integrate with existing systems. Countly is a great example of this, offering a broad range of SDKs to integrate with desktop software, mobile apps, web apps, connected cars, and more.
Remember that the level of these integration capabilities is dependent on the specific tool. Before making a decision, you want to consider your integration needs to make sure you find the tool that provides the best solution to fit these needs.
"Integration is one of our core strengths. Whether customers are tracking user behavior on a website, a mobile app, or something unconventional like a ship or car system, Countly’s SDKs make it seamless," - Arturs Sosins, CTO at Countly.
This versatility enables your business to consolidate data from multiple endpoints and visualize it through a unified dashboard.
Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, getting started with Countly is a simple and flexible process. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown to start using Countly as your self-hosted analytics platform:
Now that you’ve chosen where to host Countly, you can install the platform. Although this might sound like a daunting task, Countly offers clear, step-by-step documentation to help you get everything up and running. During this process, you will:
Thankfully, Countly is known for top customer service. So, if you hit any snags, the team is always available to help.
“Countly’s database flexibility allows businesses to scale performance as their data grows. Our partnerships with optimized database solutions ensure that even enterprise customers can analyze massive datasets efficiently,” - Arturs Sosins, CTO at Countly.
From building for desktop, web, Android, iOS, or IoT, you can easily track data from different platforms with Countly. This is done by integrating the tool’s SDKs into your apps.
“We’ve designed our SDKs to work in diverse environments, whether it’s a connected car, a TV application, or even offline systems like ships. The process is seamless no matter what you’re tracking.” - Arturs Sosins, CTO at Countly
Now that you have Countly up and running, it’s time to configure your analytics. You can:
You may want to get more out of your data. If so, Countly lets you set up real-time triggers to act on insights. For example, you can launch an NPS survey after a transaction has taken place. Otherwise, you might want to send a push notification to an inactive user.
At this point, you’re already using Countly’s core functionalities, but the tool isn’t just about data tracking. You can also use it to act on what you’re learning from this data. Some of the features you can start using include:
You want to invest in a product analytics tool that grows with your business. That’s because your data will expand as your user base grows. Supporting advanced database integrations like SingleStore, Countly offers fast query performance and smooth data processing, even more enterprise-level deployments.
“We’ve expanded our database options so businesses can handle massive datasets without performance issues. It’s all about staying flexible as our customers grow.” - Arturs Sosins, CTO at Countly
Ready to take control of your data?
If privacy, customization, flexibility, and an all-in-one analytics platform sound like the right fit for your business, Countly has you covered. Maybe you’re only starting out or seeing your business begin to scale, Countly is built to grow with your business.
If you’re seeking to take control of your data, self-hosted product analytics remain a top choice. In this article, we looked at why platforms like Countly are redefining how organizations approach product analytics, providing a smart, future-ready solution for your business that prioritizes flexibility, control, and privacy. Here’s why:
When choosing Countly, your business can create smarter, data-driven strategies while maintaining the trust and privacy your users expect.
.svg)
