I Built My Own Google Analytics (Because I Was Tired of Feeling Dumb)
One Late Night…
I stared at my Google Analytics dashboard and thought to myself:
“Why is this so complicated just to see three visitors?” Clicking around the maze that is the GA interface, I was shocked by two things:
First, how unnecessarily overcomplicated it all is (or maybe I’m just dumb — jury’s out).
Second, how much information is being tracked.
Sure, knowing how users got to your site and where they’re from is useful…
But seeing a full demographic breakdown — age, gender, interests?
Yeah, that’s starting to feel a little creepy. I was genuinely worried that if I drilled down any further, I’d find out what colour underwear my visitors were wearing.
(Spoiler: red is surprisingly popular.)
Featherstats Was Born
So I set out to build something simple. Something small. Something that didn’t require a degree in rocket telemetry to understand.
I wanted:
- A clean, clear dashboard
- No creepy cookie banners
- Stats that made sense
- And maybe… just maybe… a little joy
Featherstats is my take on a lightweight, privacy-first alternative to Google Analytics. It’s built for devs and small business owners who just want to know what’s happening on their sites — without needing to decipher the analytics equivalent of hieroglyphics.
How It Works (AKA: What I Cobbled Together)
If you’re curious about the guts of this thing, here’s the rundown:
- Frontend & API: Built with Next.js and hosted on Vercel, because I enjoy fast builds and minimal DevOps-induced crying.
- Tracking: A teeny little JavaScript snippet that sends pageviews and events to a serverless endpoint.
- Crunching the Data: Everything gets processed and sent to Tinybird — which, if you haven’t heard of it, is like ClickHouse on easy mode. Queries are fast, setup is painless, and I love it more than most of my family.
- Cache Layer: Redis handles all the stuff that doesn’t need to live forever.
- Database: I use Neon (Postgres in the cloud, serverless, magical) to store metadata, projects, API keys, etc.
- Emails: Resend powers the emails because I got tired of transactional email platforms that feel like setting up a small airline.
The dashboard? All that data gets pulled back in and shown in a clean UI, no fluff. No dark patterns. Just helpful stats like total visitors, top pages, traffic sources — stuff you actually care about.
But… Why Though?
Honestly? I just wanted to stop feeling overwhelmed every time I opened GA. Most analytics tools either:
- Make you feel dumb
- Try to track everything, including your soul (I’m looking at you Google)
- Or both
Featherstats is intentionally simple. It doesn’t care about who your visitors are — it just shows you what they’re doing. No cookies. No fingerprinting. No cross-site nonsense. Just good vibes and clear signals.
(Also, I didn’t want to add a cookie banner to my site. That might’ve been 70% of the motivation.)
It’s Still Early (But Working!)
Right now, Featherstats is live at featherstats.com. It’s an MVP — fully functional but with big plans in the works:
- Conversion and revenue tracking (because we love money 💸)
- Smarter insight generation
- Multi-site/project dashboards
- Maybe even Slack/email reports if I’m feeling spicy
You get 10,000 free pageviews per month. No credit card. No commitment. Just try it out and let me know if something breaks (it probably won’t — but if it does, I’d like to know before Reddit finds out).
Want to Try It?
If you’ve ever stared at your analytics dashboard and thought, “Huh?”, maybe Featherstats is for you.
I’m looking for beta testers and early feedback. If you’ve got a project or site, give it a try and let me know what you think. I’m happy to chat, answer questions, or even help set it up for you — DMs are open.
Let’s make analytics fun again. Or at least, not awful.
Final Thoughts
Was this the most logical project to take on? Probably not. Am I proud of it anyway? Absolutely.
And now, when I see three people visit my website, I know they’re real. And not being counted 14 different ways by a cookie-infused ad surveillance empire. 🥲
Like, Share, and Subscri — Actually Just Tell a Friend
If you enjoyed this post, feel free to share it with a fellow dev or indie hacker. Or just whisper “Featherstats” into the wind. Either works.
Thanks for reading ❤️
