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Matomo

Matomo measures where visitors arrive from and what they do on your site. You can use Matomo Cloud or host the analytics yourself.

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Should you run Matomo yourself or use Cloud?

Matomo Cloud runs the service for you. The free On-Premise core runs on a server you manage, with PHP and a MySQL or MariaDB database. Self-hosting puts updates, access and backups on your side.

If you want to compare visits from a newsletter and from search, start with the Acquisition report. Matomo uses available referral and campaign information to classify traffic. A missing referrer can appear as direct traffic, so the label alone cannot tell you how someone heard about your site.

Can you verify a visit before enabling tracking on your live site?

Check one tagged visit on a disposable site. Follow the arrival and one expected action in Visits Log before relying on the totals in a report.

  1. Confirm the tracking route before opening the page
    Match the actual tracking URL and site ID to a separate Matomo test site. Check both the browser and any server-side or tag-manager integration. Verify the disposable page and its data cannot reach a live project or customer system. Keep replay and heatmaps off. If you cannot confirm those settings, sketch the expected visit on paper.
  2. Check one arrival and one action
    Open a test page with a fictional campaign label, then trigger one harmless event on that page. In the test site’s Visits Log, look for the expected page view and one event. If either appears twice, check whether two tags sent the same action.
  3. Compare raw activity with the report later
    Visits Log shows individual activity. A summary report may wait for Matomo to process the underlying records. This exercise checks tracking for one visit and leaves real visitor behavior unmeasured.

What can Matomo collect about someone?

A visit can contain pages, referral details and activity. Review settings for IP masking and user IDs before collecting. Leave names, email addresses and private details out of URLs, event labels and any user ID you send.

Session recordings and heatmaps collect browser interaction data separately. Before you enable them on a live site, exclude private pages and check what a recording shows using fictional data.

What changes the Cloud bill, and what can you export?

Cloud plans are sized by hits, which are tracked interactions. One visit can include several hits, such as page views, events and downloads. The free self-hosted core has no vendor hit quota, but the server and database still need capacity.

Cloud includes features such as funnels and replay with plan limits. On-Premise Community leaves those premium features out of the core. Export reports or retained individual visit records through Matomo’s reporting API. When you self-host, you can also back up the database. Keep a separate record of the goals and filters that shaped the reports.