Counter
Data
web analytics
SHOW HN2023
How HN took it
2 positive, 9 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 12 critical, out of 24 comments about the project. Thread score -0.25.
Privacy: 0 for, 6 againstIdea: 0 for, 2 againstExecution: 1 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Non-invasive and provides good basic analytics.
From 1 comment
I've been using Counter for a few of my small sites for a number of months now and I find it is non-invasive and does a good job of providing basic analytics. Thanks for making…
tech234a on HN
Tracking script is tiny and privacy-friendly.
From 2 comments
Hello I am the counter.dev maintainer. No! To see the complete tracking script in all glory check it out here: https://github.com/ihucos/counter.dev/blob/master/docs/script.js…
ihucos on HNI appreciate that the whole tracking script fits on my smartphone screen.
speedgoose on HN
Objections
Client-side JS analytics is undermined by ad blockers.
From 2 comments
Request logs are a source of truth for certain metrics. A tracker service may get you more metadata than the request line in the logs, but something like 25% of internet users…
8organicbits on HNI actually agree. And with more and more (Personal impression) users using blockers like uBlock origin the meaningfulness of data collected with JS gets eroded. But if there is…
ihucos on HN
Unique visitor counting without cookies or IDs is questioned.
From 2 comments
How the hell are you getting unique visitors without cookies or IP addresses? I call bullshit.
shermozle on HNI don't see how unique visitors and no identifier are both possible. One of them is not true.
worksonmine on HN
Demo page produces many 404s and excessive requests.
From 1 comment
The demo[0] outputs a lot of 404 errors (on the browser console). When you stay on the demo page the errors will increase infinitely(?). The page has some sort of lame (live)…
melx on HN
Requests
Docker-compose or self-hosting option.
From 2 comments
Looks cool. Any chance you would provide a docker-compose.yml file for self hosting? Right now it's not really simple to do so.
zapt02 on HNI would prefer to selfhost all my analytics. Any plans for that?
skymast on HN
WordPress plugin.
From 1 comment
Looks good, needs wordpress plugin for real proliferation
Giorgi on HN
Comparison with other tools like umami and GoAccess.
From 1 comment
It would be nice to see comparisons to other options in this space—e.g. I’m currently self hosting umami for analytics, and it does what I need it to (I think anyway—I’m a…
sophiabits on HN
Questions
How unique visitors are counted without cookies or IP addresses.
From 2 comments
How the hell are you getting unique visitors without cookies or IP addresses? I call bullshit.
shermozle on HNGuid stored in local storage?
e-clinton on HN
How it compares to GoAccess and self-hosted options.
From 1 comment
Looks interesting. I've been absolutely loving GoAccess. Never going back to Google Analytics. How does this compare?
breck on HN
Alternatives named
GoAccess
From 2 comments
Looks interesting. I've been absolutely loving GoAccess. Never going back to Google Analytics. How does this compare?
breck on HNI've been using GoAccess because of this exact line of thinking (logs over js pixel tracker). GoAccess comes with a really nice TUI, a built-in web server, and can export to csv…
leroy-is-here on HN
Plausible
From 1 comment
> but website stats is one of the biggest losses in modern web dev That seems a bit overly dramatic. If you look at your log files these days you'll see that a high percentage of…
dewey on HN
umami
From 1 comment
It would be nice to see comparisons to other options in this space—e.g. I’m currently self hosting umami for analytics, and it does what I need it to (I think anyway—I’m a…
sophiabits on HN