Minimalytics

Minimalytics is a standalone minimalist analytics tool built on SQLite. Designed for resource-constrained environments, it provides a lightweight solution for tracking and visualizing event data with a minimal footprint. Whether you're tracking internal services or need a simple analytics tool, Minimalytics delivers performance without the bloat.

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Features

• Track Events: Record and monitor analytics for various events.
• Web UI: Manage dashboards and visualize event data with interactive graphs.
• Scalable: Supports over a billion events per month with a minimal storage footprint (~20 MB).
• Lightweight: Built with efficiency in mind, ensuring low memory and storage usage.

Installation

Linux and macOS

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/nafey/minimalytics.git
   cd minimalytics
   

2. Build the project:

   go build -o build/minim .
   

3. Install the binary system-wide:

   sudo mv build/minim /usr/local/bin/
   

Docker

1. Build the image:

   docker build -t minimalytics .
   

2. Run the container:

   docker run -p 3333:3333 -v minim-data:/root/.minim minimalytics
   

   The volume mount persists the SQLite database across container restarts.

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Usage

Starting the Server

1. Check if the server is running:

   minim status
   

2. Start the server:

   minim server start
   

Recording Events

To record an event, send a POST request to the event API:

curl -X POST http://localhost:3333/api/event/ -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"event": "<EVENT_NAME>"}'

Replace <EVENT_NAME> with the name of the event you want to track.

Accessing the Web Dashboard

1. Open your browser and navigate to:

   http://localhost:3333/
   

2. Go to "First Dashboard" and click "Add Graph".

3. Select the appropriate properties and click "Done".

4. Your dashboard is now ready to display event data.

Disabling Web Access

To disable access to the web dashboard, run:

minim web disable

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Why Minimalytics?

This project was born out of the need for a lightweight analytics tool to track internal services on a resource-constrained VPS. Most SaaS analytics products either lack the scalability or exceed their free tier limits when tracking millions of events per month. Minimalytics addresses this gap by offering a minimalist, high-performance solution for resource-constrained environments.

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How It Works

• Event Aggregation: Minimalytics saves space by aggregating events, storing only aggregate features (e.g., total invocations per day) instead of individual events.
• SQLite Storage: Event data is stored in an SQLite file, initialized during the first run of minim.
• Server Hosting: The minim CLI starts a server that:
  • Hosts the API endpoint for event submission.
  • Serves the web UI (built using minimui and placed in the static folder).
• Web UI: Source for the Web UI is available at minimui.

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Future Features

• Support for sum, avg, min, and max on event values.
• Improved UI/UX.
• Multiple metrics in the same graph.
• Additional visualizations: Bar Chart, Pie Chart, etc.
• User ID-based analytics: Funnels, cohorts, and more.

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Unsupported Features

• Details on individual events.
• Hourly event resolution beyond 48 hours.
• Minute resolution beyond 60 minutes.

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you'd like to contribute, please:

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create a new branch for your feature or bugfix.
3. Submit a pull request.

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License

Minimalytics is licensed under the MIT License.

Enjoy using Minimalytics! For questions or feedback, feel free to open an issue on GitHub.