First-party traffic analytics with no cookies, no JavaScript and no third party
No ratings yet# Gemfile
gem "active_analytics"
# config/routes.rb
mount ActiveAnalytics::Engine, at: "/analytics"Active Analytics vs Ahoy
Active Analytics and Ahoy both sit in analytics, but they solve different parts of it.
Thin comparison — they do not replace the same product. Kept readable, left out of search.
Ahoy
Better knownFirst-party visit and event tracking, stored in your own tables
No ratings yet# Gemfile
gem "ahoy_matey"What Active Analytics does
Traffic analytics recorded server-side, in your own database, with a dashboard you mount. Page views, entry and exit pages Traffic sources: which domains and pages send you people A dashboard engine, mounted wherever you like No cookies, no JavaScript, no consent banner Because it records on the server, ad blockers and tracking-protection extensions cannot remove your numbers. Because it sets no cookies and collects no personal data, there is no consent banner to show. Those two facts together usually make the traffic figures more accurate than the hosted product they…
Read the full Active Analytics listing →
Why you might pick it
- It also replaces Google Analytics, Plausible, and Matomo.
What Ahoy does
Ahoy tracks visits and events into your own database. No third party sees your users' behaviour, and the data is joinable against everything else in your schema. A visits table with source, referrer, device and location An events table you write to from Ruby or JavaScript Association helpers, so a visit belongs to a user Works with Turbo "Which acquisition source produces customers who stay past month three" is a SQL join when the analytics data is in your database, and a data-export project when it is not.
Why you might pick it
- It also replaces Mixpanel, Amplitude, and PostHog.
- It has substantially more adoption — 4,200 stars against 514.
Side by side
Rows where the two differ are marked.
| Active Analytics | Ahoy | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Analytics | Analytics |
| Replaces (differs) | Google Analytics, Matomo, Plausible | Amplitude, Mixpanel, PostHog |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| GitHub stars (differs) | 514 | 4200 |
| Gem (differs) | active_analytics | ahoy_matey |
| Mounts at (differs) | /analytics | — |
| Member rating | — | — |
Questions
- What is the difference between Active Analytics and Ahoy?
- Active Analytics and Ahoy both sit in analytics, but they solve different parts of it.
- Can I mount both Active Analytics and Ahoy in the same Rails app?
- Technically yes — engines mount at different paths — but they overlap, so running both usually means two sets of tables doing one job. Pick one.