What is Shynet used for?

Shynet is self-hosted, privacy-friendly web analytics that works without cookies or JavaScript, built with Django. It is a good fit for privacy-focused analytics without cookie banners, and self-hosted stats for personal sites and small projects.

Is Shynet open source?

Yes. Shynet is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at milesmcc/shynet and is written mainly in Python.

Yes. Shynet is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Shynet?

Yes. Shynet can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What is Shynet an alternative to?

Shynet is an open-source alternative to Google Analytics, Fathom Analytics, Simple Analytics and StatCounter. Other open-source alternatives to Google Analytics include Umami, Ackee and Plausible.

Is Shynet actively maintained?

The most recent commit to Shynet was on 15 March 2026, and the latest release is v0.14.0, published on 15 March 2026. The project has 3.2k stars on GitHub.

Shynet: open-source alternative to Google Analytics

About Shynet

Shynet is a web analytics tool you host yourself. It is designed as a privacy-respecting option for site owners who do not want to pass visitor data to a third party, show cookie notices, or collect more personal data than they need. The name combines Skynet and shy: lots of useful information, collected modestly.

It works without cookies and without JavaScript, using a noscript fallback, and it collects only enough data to be useful. A home view shows all of your tracked services at a glance, and each service has its own page with higher-level details. There are also management and session views, and the interface is built with the a17t atomic design library, which the README says makes customization simple.

Shynet is written in Python with Django and licensed under Apache-2.0. Deployment options include Docker and Kubernetes, and it can run on a single small machine. Because the data stays on your server, you keep ownership of it and avoid the data portability limits that closed-source analytics tools often have.

Key features

Cookie-free visitor tracking
Works without JavaScript via noscript
Overview page for all tracked sites
Per-service pages with detailed traffic data
Management and session views
Docker and Kubernetes deployment

Good fit for

→Privacy-focused analytics without cookie banners
→Self-hosted stats for personal sites and small projects

Built with: Python; Django; Docker; Kubernetes
Tags: analytics; privacy; cookie-free; self-hosted; django; docker; web-analytics

Shynet: questions and answers

What is Shynet used for?: Shynet is self-hosted, privacy-friendly web analytics that works without cookies or JavaScript, built with Django. It is a good fit for privacy-focused analytics without cookie banners, and self-hosted stats for personal sites and small projects.
Is Shynet open source?: Yes. Shynet is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at milesmcc/shynet and is written mainly in Python.
Is Shynet free?: Yes. Shynet is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Shynet?: Yes. Shynet can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is Shynet an alternative to?: Shynet is an open-source alternative to Google Analytics, Fathom Analytics, Simple Analytics and StatCounter. Other open-source alternatives to Google Analytics include Umami, Ackee and Plausible.
Is Shynet actively maintained?: The most recent commit to Shynet was on 15 March 2026, and the latest release is v0.14.0, published on 15 March 2026. The project has 3.2k stars on GitHub.