How Open Analytics Handles Privacy and Realtime Tracking

Open Analytics (analytics.gitopen.dev) describes itself as "simple, fast, and privacy-friendly" website analytics, and its realtime tracking works by showing visitors while they are still on your site — current pages, traffic sources, and an interactive visitor map — rather than only historical reports. Privacy-friendliness here is a positioning claim from the site itself; the page evidence does not detail specific compliance certifications, data retention rules, or a cookie policy, so treat "privacy-friendly" as a stated design goal rather than a verified guarantee until you check the product's own documentation.

What "realtime" actually means here

The site frames its core difference as timing: "Most analytics tools tell you what happened yesterday. Open Analytics helps you understand what is happening right now."

Concretely, the page says you can:

• Watch visitors arrive live from around the world
• See who is visiting right now, what pages they are viewing, where they came from, and how they move through your website
• Use an interactive visitor map
• See live visitor context such as a page and country — the page gives the example: "silent yak is live on /pricing from United States" — Live visitor · Google Search

That last example shows the realtime view combining three things at once: an active session, the page being viewed, and the source (Google Search). This is what makes it useful for spotting traffic as it lands instead of reviewing it the next day.

How the tracking is set up

Realtime data depends on the script being installed correctly. The site describes a three-step flow:

1. Create a project — Sign in with Google or GitHub, then create a website in the dashboard. Each project gets a site key, and the page notes there is "no separate analytics database to provision."
2. Add the script — Copy one script tag into your HTML or Next.js layout.
3. Events flow — The page states events POST to your Open Analytics server and land in your PostgreSQL database.

The practical implication: because events go to your own server and PostgreSQL database, the data path is under your control rather than only sitting in a third-party analytics account. That is the mechanism behind the privacy-friendly framing — but the page does not specify what is stripped, hashed, or anonymized before storage, so verify that in the product docs if it matters for your use case.

What you can track beyond realtime

Realtime is one part of a broader set. The page lists:

The public dashboard point is worth noting for privacy: viewers see analytics without needing an account, so decide deliberately what a shared dashboard exposes before publishing it.

Who it is aimed at

The page positions the product "for founders, not analysts" — focused on visitors, conversions, traffic sources, campaigns, and SEO performance rather than "dozens of reports you'll never use." If your need is deep custom reporting or warehouse-level analysis, that framing suggests it is not the target use case.

Access and trial conditions

Per the page:

• Startup plan — free for 1 year, up to 100 projects; the page also says "Startup plan free to apply"
• Paid plans — 14-day free trial
• A live demo is available ("View live demo")

The page does not list prices or payment platforms, so do not assume paid-tier costs or billing details from this description alone.

Practical checks before committing

Because the privacy claim is central but lightly specified, confirm these directly in the product before relying on it:

• What visitor data is stored, and in what form
• Whether cookies or local storage are used, and whether a consent banner is needed in your jurisdiction
• Retention and deletion controls for the PostgreSQL data you host
• What a public dashboard reveals to unauthenticated viewers

If those answers match your requirements, the realtime view plus self-hosted event storage is the combination that distinguishes it from conventional historical-report analytics.