Why Self-Host?

SaaS analytics tools talk about privacy. Self-hosting makes privacy an architectural guarantee, not a marketing claim. Here's why running your own analytics matters.

The trust problem with SaaS analytics

Every SaaS analytics tool asks you to trust them. Trust that they don't collect personal data. Trust that they anonymize IPs. Trust that they won't sell your data. Trust that their infrastructure is secure. Trust that they'll still be around in five years.

But trust is not verification. When you send your visitors' data to a third-party server, you're taking their word for it. With self-hosted analytics, you don't need to trust anyone — because the data never leaves your infrastructure.

Data sovereignty

Your data, your servers, your rules. When you self-host:

• Data lives on your hardware or your cloud account
• No third party has access — not even the analytics vendor
• You control retention, backups, and deletion
• Physical control satisfies the strictest compliance requirements
• Data never crosses jurisdictional boundaries

This isn't just about privacy — it's about ownership. You own the database file. You can inspect it, query it, back it up, and delete it whenever you want.

Works behind firewalls

SaaS analytics can't track internal applications, intranets, or firewalled services. Tally runs on your network, so it can track anything — internal tools, staging environments, air-gapped systems, and private applications.

No vendor lock-in

With SaaS analytics, switching providers means losing your historical data or going through a painful export process. With Tally:

• Your data is in a standard SQLite file
• The full API and CSV export give you complete access
• No proprietary formats, no export limits, no "enterprise" data access tiers
• Stop using Tally tomorrow and your data is still yours in a readable format

Flat cost, no surprises

SaaS analytics charge per pageview. As your traffic grows, so does your bill. With self-hosted analytics:

• No monthly bill — run it on infrastructure you already have
• No per-pageview pricing — 100 pageviews or 10 million, same cost
• No feature gating — everything is included, no "enterprise" tiers
• No surprise overage charges

Tally runs comfortably on a $5/month VPS or a Raspberry Pi. The container image is ~50MB. A SQLite database handles millions of pageviews in a single file.

Compliance made simple

When data never leaves your server, compliance becomes straightforward:

• GDPR: No data processor agreements needed — you are the processor
• Cookie compliance: Tally doesn't set cookies (the tracker manages its own first-party session ID)
• Right to deletion: Delete a session directly from the SQLite database
• Data portability: Export everything via API or CSV
• Audit trail: Full access to logs, database, and server

Verify, don't trust

You can read every line of Tally's source code. The tracker is a single file ( ~300 lines ). The server is a straightforward Bun application. No obfuscated code, no bundled third-party trackers, no hidden data collection.

If a SaaS analytics company says "we don't collect personal data," you have to believe them. With Tally, you can verify it yourself.

When self-hosting isn't the answer

We're honest: self-hosting isn't for everyone. If you:

• Don't want to manage any infrastructure at all
• Need a fully managed service with SLAs
• Want zero-configuration analytics for a non-technical team

...then a SaaS analytics tool might be a better fit. But if you already run your own servers, or you care about data sovereignty, or you're tired of per-pageview pricing — welcome home.