How to Install Plausible Analytics With One Click (2026)

Plausible Analytics is a privacy-first, open-source alternative to Google Analytics. It sets no cookies, collects no personal data, and the tracking script is under 1 KB. Plausible says it is 54x smaller than Google Analytics and saves each visitor around 135 KB of JavaScript.

In this guide, you’ll install Plausible Analytics on your own VPS using Coolify, a self-hosted PaaS. One predefined Docker Compose app stands up the whole stack: the analytics app, PostgreSQL for accounts, ClickHouse for events, plus SSL and a reverse proxy.

Plausible CE v3.2.1 (May 2026) is the current release. It is also a security fix worth taking (details in the update section), so pin that tag and not an older one.

What you get with self-hosted Plausible Analytics

What v3.x gives you on top of older releases: teams and permissions, scroll depth and engagement time (v3.0.0), the new configurable tracking script (v3.1.0), and “Limit to segment” on shared links (v3.2.0). Site segmentation itself shipped earlier, in the v2.1 line.

Self-hosted Plausible Analytics stack on Coolify: visitors hit your domain where Traefik terminates TLS, Plausible CE v3.2.1 stores accounts in PostgreSQL 16 and events in ClickHouse 24.12, both on persistent volumes

Prerequisites

Video walkthrough

The video shows the older Service-catalog flow in Coolify. Plausible now ships as a predefined Docker Compose app, so use the text steps below as the current path (they match the Coolify v4.3.x templates as of September 2026).

Step 1: Set up a VPS server

You need a VPS to host Plausible. Hetzner is the price-to-performance pick I’d default to; see the Hetzner Cloud review for details. DigitalOcean, Vultr, and Hostinger all work fine too. Numbers here: DigitalOcean vs Vultr vs Hetzner VPS comparison.

VPS prices jumped across the board in 2026. If you’re rethinking a rented box, see what changed and when a mini PC wins.

For Plausible alongside Coolify and a few other services, a 4 GB RAM / 2-core VPS is the right starting point. That class of box runs about €5-8/month on Hetzner.

Step 2: Install Coolify

SSH into your VPS as root and run:

curl -fsSL https://cdn.coollabs.io/coolify/install.sh | sudo bash

The script installs Docker Engine, the dependencies, and Coolify itself (currently the v4.x line, v4.3.23 as of September 2026). Open http://your-server-ip:8000 and create the admin account right away. This is a self-hosted PaaS you fully control; see our Coolify v5 review for what it looks like in daily use.

Verify: curl -I http://your-server-ip:8000 returns 200 or 302 and the dashboard loads. If the page hangs, check ss -tlnp | grep 8000 and docker ps to confirm Coolify started.

For the full setup including SSL and domain configuration, see the Coolify install guide.

Step 3: Point a domain to the server

Add an A record in your DNS pointing the Plausible hostname at the VPS IP. For example, analytics.yourdomain.com → your-server-ip.

If you use Cloudflare, leave the proxy disabled (gray cloud). Coolify’s Traefik reverse proxy handles SSL via Let’s Encrypt automatically.

Verify: dig +short analytics.yourdomain.com returns your server IP before you deploy. If it does not, wait out the TTL and try again. Certificate issuance fails on an unresolvable hostname, and Coolify will just show you a broken proxy target.

Step 4: Deploy Plausible Analytics with Coolify

This is where things changed in 2026. Plausible used to live in Coolify’s service-template catalog. It now ships as a predefined Docker Compose app (updated to v3.2.1 in September 2026), so the click path is different from older tutorials and videos. The template pulls three containers:

• plausible: ghcr.io/plausible/community-edition:v3.2.1, healthcheck on /api/health
• plausible-db: postgres:16-alpine, healthcheck on pg_isready
• plausible-events-db: clickhouse/clickhouse-server:24.12-alpine, healthcheck on :8123/ping, with a low-resources config inlined

4.1 Create a new Docker Compose resource

Predefined app (recommended)

In Coolify, go to New Resource → Docker Compose → Load from Predefined Apps. Search for “Plausible” (category: Analytics) and select it. Coolify fills in the compose file, the healthchecks, and the environment placeholders the app needs.

Screenshots predate the move to predefined Docker Compose apps, so some labels differ from the current UI. Follow the text steps above if the two disagree.

Paste the official compose file

This works on any Coolify version and keeps you independent of Coolify’s template list.

1. New Resource → Docker Compose (empty).
2. Paste the official compose.yml from the Plausible community-edition repo.
3. Set at least BASE_URL and SECRET_KEY_BASE in the environment settings:

BASE_URL=https://analytics.yourdomain.com
SECRET_KEY_BASE=<output of the command below>

openssl rand -base64 48

If you go this route, update the community-edition files yourself when Plausible releases fixes, not just the app image.

Do not look for Plausible under the old Service catalog. It is no longer listed there in current Coolify versions.

4.2 Configure the service

Set these in the service configuration:

• Name: anything recognizable, like plausible-analytics
• Image tag: v3.2.1 (the template default as of September 2026)
• URL (FQDN): https://analytics.yourdomain.com. This populates BASE_URL automatically via SERVICE_URL_PLAUSIBLE.

Coolify also generates the secrets for you: SECRET_KEY_BASE from SERVICE_BASE64_64_PLAUSIBLE and TOTP_VAULT_KEY from SERVICE_REALBASE64_32_TOTP. You do not need to invent them.

Save the configuration.

4.3 Environment variables

Required:

• BASE_URL: your Plausible URL, e.g. https://analytics.yourdomain.com. Set automatically if you filled in the FQDN above.
• SECRET_KEY_BASE: a 64+ character random string for session encryption. Coolify generates it; if you pasted the compose file yourself, use openssl rand -base64 48. Plausible CE also reads Docker secrets from /run/secrets/SECRET_KEY_BASE, which overrides the env var; see Docker Compose secrets for wiring those up.

Optional:

• TOTP_VAULT_KEY: encrypts two-factor authentication secrets. Plausible derives it from SECRET_KEY_BASE (PBKDF2) when it is unset, so you only set it if you want it independent. Coolify’s template sets it anyway.

Registration:

• DISABLE_REGISTRATION: defaults to invite_only, so only users you invite can create accounts. After your admin account exists, leave it there. Set true to lock it down completely.

SMTP (optional, for email reports and password resets):

MAILER_EMAIL=analytics@yourdomain.com
SMTP_HOST_ADDR=smtp.yourdomain.com
SMTP_HOST_PORT=587
SMTP_USER_NAME=analytics@yourdomain.com
SMTP_USER_PWD=your_smtp_password
SMTP_HOST_SSL_ENABLED=true

Without SMTP, Plausible works fine. You just get no email reports and no email-based password resets.

Google Search Console integration (optional):

GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID=your_client_id
GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET=your_client_secret

This lets Plausible import search query data from Google Search Console. You configure it in Plausible’s site settings after deployment.

City-level geolocation (optional):

IP_GEOLOCATION_DB=MaxMindCity
MAXMIND_LICENSE_KEY=your_maxmind_license
MAXMIND_EDITION=GeoLite2-City

Without a MaxMind license key you get country-level location at best. The GeoLite2 license is free; sign up at MaxMind and paste the key in.

For the full list of configuration options, see the Plausible CE Configuration wiki. If you are not using Coolify and want Plausible to handle its own certificates, set HTTP_PORT=80 and HTTPS_PORT=443 and it will issue and renew Let’s Encrypt certs itself.

Hit Deploy. The first run takes a few minutes while the images pull and db createdb && db migrate && run runs on boot.

4.4 Verify the deployment

Run these from the server or any machine that can reach the domain:

# 1. health endpoint should return healthy
curl -fsSL https://analytics.yourdomain.com/api/health

# 2. confirm you are running v3.2.1
docker ps --format '{{.Image}}' | grep plausible
# expect: ghcr.io/plausible/community-edition:v3.2.1

# 3. CVE check: /storybook must NOT return 200 on v3.2.1
curl -sSI https://analytics.yourdomain.com/storybook

Then open https://analytics.yourdomain.com in a browser. The registration page should appear. Create your admin account immediately: with DISABLE_REGISTRATION=invite_only, every later user needs an invite from you.

Step 5: Add your first site

In the Plausible dashboard, click Add a website and enter your site’s domain. Open Site Installation in the site settings. Plausible generates a unique snippet for that site:

<script defer data-domain="yourdomain.com"
  src="https://analytics.yourdomain.com/js/script.js">
</script>

Add it to the <head> of every page on your website. Custom events and revenue tracking are enabled by default in the new script. Because the script loads from your own domain rather than a third-party server, ad blockers are far less likely to block it than a cloud analytics host.

Verify: load your site in a browser, then refresh the Plausible dashboard. A pageview should show up within a minute. For local testing before DNS is live, add captureOnLocalhost: true to the init options below.

Tracking script options

Since the October 2025 script update (shipped in Plausible CE v3.1.0), optional features are toggles and plausible.init() options, not filename extensions. The per-site snippet from Site Installation already has your choices baked in. If you need to set them manually:

<script defer data-domain="yourdomain.com"
  src="https://analytics.yourdomain.com/js/script.js"></script>
<script>
  plausible.init({
    hashBasedRouting: true,
    fileDownloads: {
      fileExtensions: ["pdf", "xlsx", "docx", "zip"]
    },
    captureOnLocalhost: true,
    autoCapturePageviews: true
  })
</script>

The options you will use most:

• hashBasedRouting: true: for single-page apps with hash-based routes. Replaces the old script.hash.js.
• fileDownloads: { fileExtensions: [...] }: download tracking. Out of the box it watches common types (pdf, xlsx, docx, txt, csv, zip, 7z, rar, mp4, mp3 and friends); pass your own list to narrow or extend it.
• customProperties: {...}: attach static properties to every pageview.
• endpoint: "https://...": send events to a custom endpoint, for example when you proxy the script. Replaces the old data-api attribute.
• autoCapturePageviews: false: fire pageviews manually in an SPA.
• captureOnLocalhost: true: needed for any testing from localhost.

Form submission tracking is a toggle in Site Installation. Two things the new script dropped: data-exclude/data-include and multi-domain support in a single snippet. Full details in the script update guide.

Legacy script variants

The old extension scripts still work if you already run them: script.hash.js, script.outbound-links.js, script.file-downloads.js, script.tagged-events.js, and combined forms like script.tagged-events.outbound-links.file-downloads.js. Existing sites can stay on them. For new sites, use the per-site snippet above. It is the path Plausible is actively developing.

Data persistence and backups

Plausible stores data in two places:

• PostgreSQL: user accounts, site configuration, goals. Small dataset.
• ClickHouse: analytics events. This is the bulk of your data.

Both run in containers with persistent volumes managed by Coolify. A redeploy keeps your data.

A simple schedule that works: Coolify S3 backups for Postgres plus weekly VPS snapshots for the events volume. If you ever restore from a snapshot, restore both volumes from the same point in time.

One upgrade note: moving from Plausible v2.x to v3.x required a ClickHouse image bump (the template now uses 24.12). If you are upgrading a very old deployment, snapshot the volumes first.

Updating Plausible

The update flow itself is short: change the image tag in the Coolify service settings (for example from v3.2.0 to v3.2.1) and redeploy. Migrations run on startup via db createdb && db migrate && run.

Verify after updating: rerun the three checks from step 4.4. You want /api/health returning 200, the new image tag in docker ps, and /storybook not returning 200.

One v3.2.0 gotcha if you pasted the official compose file: ClickHouse low-memory settings only became effective in v3.2.0 (they were silently ignored before). Update the community-edition repo files, not just the app image.

Watch the Plausible CE releases for security patches. v3.2.1 is a security-only release; there is no reason to stay behind it.

Troubleshooting common failures

More Coolify tutorials

• Coolify install guide
• Deploy Uptime Kuma with one click on Coolify
• Coolify vs Dokploy vs Kamal 2

If Plausible is not the right fit for your stack, you can also install Umami Analytics on Docker.

Conclusion

Self-hosted Plausible on Coolify gets you privacy-first, cookie-free analytics with no pageview limits and no recurring bill. The one-click Docker Compose template handles the hard parts (ClickHouse, PostgreSQL, networking, SSL). You set the domain, deploy, run the health check, and start tracking.

A 4 GB VPS runs about €5-8/month and hosts Coolify plus several other services. Plausible Cloud starts at $9/month for one site at 10k pageviews. The script loads from your own domain, so ad blockers are far less likely to block it than a cloud host, and visitors never see a cookie consent banner. For stubborn filter lists, the proxy option exists.

Install Plausible Analytics once, verify it, and it runs.