Overview

GoatCounter is an open source web analytics platform available as a free donation-supported hosted service or self-hosted app. It aims to offer easy to use and meaningful privacy-friendly web analytics as an alternative to Google Analytics or Matomo. More about why it was made here.

Configuration

There are two environment variables that require manual updates (the default values for the rest are sufficient):

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SITE_USER_PASSWORD=password

The site user email and password are both required to setup the goatcounter inital user. The email used need not exist, it will simply be used as the username for the goatcounter user - no activation email will be sent for this user. Additional users can be added in-app after signing in as this initial user.

Deploy

Service

In order to successfully build and deploy the service, the Build Command and Start Command in the services' General settings need to be updated. The value for the Build Command should be set to:

go build ./cmd/goatcounter

The value for the Start Command should be set to:

./goatcounter db create site -vhost ${HOST_DOMAIN} -user.email ${SITE_USER_EMAIL} -user.password ${SITE_USER_PASSWORD} -db ${DATABASE} -createdb && ./goatcounter serve -db ${DATABASE} -listen 0.0.0.0:${PORT} -tls http

Note: The Start Command above is only valid for the first time the service is deployed - it will create the database entries for the site and initial user. After the service has successfully deployed for the first time. This Start Command will need to be updated to remove the ./goatcounter db create site command. So for subsequent deploys to be successful, it should be updated ot the following:

./goatcounter serve -db ${DATABASE} -listen 0.0.0.0:${PORT} -tls http

Failing to do so will result in the following deployment error:

goatcounter: there is already a site for the host ""

Website

Sending metrics to your new goatcounter requires adding a `