Deploy and Host Managed Matomo Service with one click on Railway

Matomo is a free, open-source web analytics platform available on GitHub, offering privacy-focused website analytics as an alternative to Google Analytics. With Matomo, users gain full control over their data and analytics setup, supported by a robust developer community on the Matomo GitHub repository.

About Hosting Matomo on Railway (Self Hosting Matomo on Railway)

You can self host Matomo to keep all your analytics data and configurations entirely under your control, with zero third-party involvement. With Matomo web analytics, you benefit from advanced, privacy-focused tracking for your website or application, tailored to your unique requirements. The Matomo deploy process is streamlined on modern cloud platforms such as Railway, making it easy to set up, scale, and manage your analytics solution while preserving privacy and security at every step.

Why Deploy Managed Matomo Service on Railway

Deploying a managed Matomo service on Railway gives you effortless setup, automated scaling, and simplified maintenance for matomo web analytics, letting you focus on insights without worrying about infrastructure management.

Railway vs DigitalOcean

While DigitalOcean requires manual server setup, regular maintenance, and managing backups to self host matomo, Railway enables instant matomo deploy with zero sysadmin burden and built-in scaling for your matomo web analytics.

Railway vs Linode

Linode involves hands-on security patching and detailed storage configuration for matomo web analytics, but Railway automates updates, runs matomo in secure, managed containers, and offers an intuitive interface so you can self host matomo easily.

Railway vs Vultr

With Vultr, you must handle disk management, custom environment setup, and constant performance tuning to self host matomo, whereas Railway automates these tasks and makes matomo deploy as simple as a few clicks.

Railway vs AWS Lightsail

AWS Lightsail brings extra complexity with networking, manual scaling requirements, and OS admin for self hosting matomo, but Railway removes these obstacles, providing fast, seamless matomo web analytics deployments and automated scaling.

Common Use Cases

Here are some common use cases for Matomo:

1. Website Traffic Analysis: Track and analyze visitor numbers, page views, session duration, bounce rates, and geographic distribution using matomo web analytics.
2. Conversion Tracking: Monitor goal completions, ecommerce transactions, and marketing campaign performance to optimize conversions and ROI.
3. User Journey Mapping: Visualize and understand the browsing paths users take through your website for improved UX and content strategy.
4. Custom Event and Action Tracking: Measure specific user interactions such as downloads, video plays, button clicks, or form submissions tailored to your business needs.

Dependencies for Matomo (Analytics) hosted on Railway

To host Matomo on Railway, you typically need a supported SQL database (like MySQL or MariaDB), PHP runtime, and a web server such as Nginx or Apache.

Deployment Dependencies for Managed Matomo Service

A managed Matomo service requires a compatible SQL database, PHP environment, web server, and secure storage, all provisioned and maintained automatically by the managed platform.

Implementation Details for Matomo (Privacy First Analytics Dashboard)

To deploy Matomo, you'll need to set environment variables such as:

• MATOMO_DATABASE_HOST
• MATOMO_DATABASE_USERNAME
• MATOMO_DATABASE_PASSWORD
• MATOMO_DATABASE_DBNAME

to connect with your MariaDB instance, which serves as the backend database for storing analytics data securely.

How does Matomo look against other web analytics platform (Alternatives to Google Analytics)

Matomo vs Google Analytics

Matomo is self-hosted, giving you full control and privacy over your analytics data, while Google Analytics is cloud-based with advanced features but stores all data on Google servers. Matomo is ideal for privacy-focused users, whereas Google Analytics excels in seamless integrations and automated insights.

Matomo vs Plausible Analytics

Matomo offers a comprehensive, self-hosted web analytics platform with advanced event tracking, customizable dashboards, and strong privacy controls.

Matomo vs Fathom Analytics

Matomo provides robust, detailed analytics with extensive customization options and plugins, giving full control to those who self host matomo. Fathom Analytics delivers a streamlined, privacy-first solution with a super-simple dashboard, prioritizing ease-of-use and compliance over advanced reporting.

Matomo vs Ackee

Matomo supports a wide range of features, goal tracking, A/B testing, heatmaps, ecommerce tracking, making it suitable for organizations needing enterprise-level analytics. Ackee is open source and lightweight, designed for minimal, privacy-respecting pageview and event tracking, with a much smaller feature set.

Matomo vs Open Web Analytics (OWA)

Both are open-source and can be self-hosted. Matomo stands out with a larger plugin ecosystem, ongoing development, and a wider user base, while OWA provides core web analytics functions but with fewer updates, integrations, and community resources compared to matomo deploy.

How to use Matomo?

To use Matomo, start by deploying it on your chosen server or cloud platform, setting up a compatible database (like MariaDB), and configuring necessary environment variables. After installation, access the Matomo dashboard in your browser, add your website or app as a "site," and integrate the provided tracking code or SDK into your site to begin collecting analytics data in real time.

How to self host Matomo on other VPS?

Clone the Repository

Download Matomo from GitHub using matomo-org/matomo.

Install Dependencies

Navigate to the project folder and ensure your VPS has PHP, MariaDB (or MySQL), and a web server (Nginx or Apache) installed.

Configure Environment Variables

Set up database credentials and environment variables such as:

• MATOMO_DATABASE_HOST
• MATOMO_DATABASE_USERNAME
• MATOMO_DATABASE_PASSWORD
• MATOMO_DATABASE_DBNAME

for your MariaDB instance.

Start the Matomo Application

Configure your web server to serve the Matomo directory, then run the web-based setup by visiting your server’s public URL in a browser.

Access the Matomo Dashboard

Complete the installation wizard in your browser, add your site, and start tracking analytics via the Matomo web dashboard.

With Railway, you can self host in a single click. Deploy Now!

Features of Matomo

• Privacy-first web analytics with full data ownership and no third-party tracking.
• Comprehensive visitor insights including real-time data, user journeys, and behavioral tracking.
• Customizable dashboards and reports tailored to your specific metrics and KPIs.
• Rich plugin ecosystem for heatmaps, A/B testing, SEO, and advanced reporting.

Official Pricing of Matomo Cloud service

Matomo offers both cloud and on-premise plans, with all options providing full data ownership and privacy compliance.
Matomo’s cloud plan starts at INR 1,690 per month for 50,000 hits, offering features like customizable dashboards, event and ecommerce tracking, GDPR compliance, campaign, funnel, and goal reporting. [Updated Sep’25]

Self hosting Matomo vs Matomo Paid Plans

Self hosting Matomo is free and gives you complete control over your analytics data, with no monthly fees or data limits, while Matomo paid cloud plans offer managed hosting, automatic updates, and premium support for a monthly subscription.

Monthly cost of Self hosting Matomo on Railway

Self hosting Matomo on Railway generally costs $5–$10 USD per month for the base app instance, plus extra for a managed MariaDB database and increased storage needs. It remains cost-effective compared to most paid analytics services.

FAQs

What is Matomo Analytics?

Matomo Analytics is a privacy-focused, open-source web analytics platform that gives you full control over your data and is available on GitHub.

How do I self host Matomo Analytics?

You can self-host Matomo by deploying it on your own server or using cloud platforms like Railway; this allows you to manage your analytics setup with complete data ownership.

What are the key features of Matomo web analytics?

Matomo web analytics offers customizable dashboards, real-time insights, conversion and event tracking, privacy compliance, and a rich plugin ecosystem.

How do I deploy Matomo on Railway?

Deploying Matomo on Railway is simple, just select the managed Matomo service, set your environment variables, and Railway handles automated scaling and maintenance.

What are the dependencies for Matomo hosting?

For Matomo hosting, you need a supported SQL database (like MariaDB), a PHP runtime, and a compatible web server such as Nginx or Apache.

What are the common use cases for self hosted Matomo?

Self-hosted Matomo is used for website traffic analysis, conversion tracking, user journey analytics, privacy compliance, and measuring custom user actions.

How does Matomo deployment on Railway compare to other VPS providers?

Railway automates server management, updates, and scaling for Matomo deployment, whereas other VPS solutions require manual setup, security patching, and backups.