Should I self-host Umami Cloud?

What you lose

• Their infrastructure eating your traffic spikes
• Managed uptime on the tracker script origin

What you're paying Umami Cloud for

• privacy-friendly web analytics
• events & goals
• multi-site
• shareable dashboards

Ranked alternatives

1. Umami

Pageviews, referrers and custom events on a hostname you own, from one container and a PostgreSQL, with no monthly event meter.

umami-software/umami · ★ 38,146 · last commit 0d ago · MIT

2. Plausible CE

The same privacy-first analytics dashboard the vendor sells, on your own domain, with no pageview meter counting against you.

plausible/analytics · ★ 28,463 · last commit 0d ago · AGPL-3.0

Hardware

Runs comfortably on Raspberry Pi.

The tested compose file (our evidence, CI-booted)

# Umami — privacy-friendly web analytics, same software as Umami Cloud.
# Image is ghcr.io-hosted: boot-verified by the CI runner (Docker-Hub-only mirrors can't pull).
services:
  umami:
    image: ghcr.io/umami-software/umami:postgresql-latest
    container_name: umami
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      umami-db:
        condition: service_healthy
    environment:
      DATABASE_URL: postgresql://umami:umami@umami-db:5432/umami
      DATABASE_TYPE: postgresql
      APP_SECRET: 4c8e2b6f0a9d3c7e1b5f8a2d6c0e4b8f # throwaway test value
    ports:
      - "3004:3000"
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "node -e \"fetch('http://localhost:3000/api/heartbeat').then(r=>process.exit(r.ok?0:1)).catch(()=>process.exit(1))\""]
      interval: 5s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 36
      start_period: 30s

  umami-db:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: umami
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: umami
      POSTGRES_DB: umami
    volumes:
      - umami-pg:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U umami"]
      interval: 5s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 12

volumes:
  umami-pg:

Want a guided install instead? caniselfhostit.com/umami-cloud has AI-agent prompts that assume a bare machine — that's their half of the stool, and it's good.

Verification

# Timed setup log: Umami Cloud → umami

**Protocol:** v1 · **Verified by:** zernonia · **Date:** 2026-08-10
**Assistant:** claude-code · **Environment:** containerized runner, 2 vCPU class, Docker 29.3 / Compose v5.1

## Timeline

| Step | Time |
|---|---|
| Read upstream docs, draft compose with healthcheck | ~13 min |
| Boot in our verification environment blocked (ghcr.io-only images, model download, or the microVM's ipv6.disable=1 kernel) — **compose boot is certified by the CI runner** (`compose-check` gate, per-PR + weekly) | — |
| Endpoint-level workflow check (login/health/API serve) + re-run from clean volumes | ~13 min |
| **Total: ~40 min** | |

Boot and endpoint checks are machine-verified; `setup_min` is the wall-clock total for this
session including authoring, diagnosis and re-runs. Endpoint-level ≠ full human UI workflow —
dispute anything that doesn't reproduce (CONTRIBUTING.md).

## What broke

- Image is ghcr.io-hosted — Docker-Hub-only mirrors (ours, during verification) can't pull it; this pair's compose boot is verified by the CI runner

## Verdict-relevant notes

- Default login admin/umami — change it before the container meets the internet.

Verdict history

• 2026-08-10: unscored → YES — Initial verdict: Same software as the $20/mo cloud, two containers, no event caps. The rare analytics verdict where capability is 100% by construction.