article originally published here :https://alsohelp.com/blog/rails-analytics-made-simple/

Analytics (i.e. stats about your visitors) is nowadays not cheap. Let's see why, and let's see how Rails could help.

0. Motivation

Google analytics is not anymore an option, at least in the EU. It's barely legal regarding GDPR, and we start to see companies being blamed for using it. Alternatives to Google Analytics are not free, and not cheap. Even open-source solutions are notthat easy to implement.

1. Advantages of a Rails-based analytics solution

The first advantage is that you don't need a consent banner. No cookies are sent to track the user, and the user can't say "no" to tracking. As long as it remains completely anonymous, this is not a problem. Application logs may also somehow "track" access to the app, but this is not usable for non-techies.

The second advantage is that it is completely free - apart from the hostingyou are already paying anyway.

The third advantage is that you will use your Rails skills - apart from installing a gem, no additional skills are required.

2. Active Analytics for Rails

Rails official plugins (known as "gems") often start with "Active-". You will encounter sometimes some gems outside the Rails world whose name also starts with "Active". That's the case today withActive Analytics, a gem fromBaseSecrete.

Their GitHub repo mention that you can know about :

• Sources: What are the pages and domains that bring some traffic.
• Page views: What are the pages that are the most viewed in your application ?
• Next/previous page: What are the entry and exit pages for a given page of your application.

3. Tutorial to add analytics to a fresh new Rails application

Prerequisites

First ensure you have all the classic already installed on your computer :

$> ruby-v  ruby 3.1.0p0 // you need at least version 3 here$> bundle-v  Bundler version 2.2.11$> npm-v  8.3.0 // you need at least version 7.1 here$> yarn-v  1.22.10$> psql--version  psql(PostgreSQL) 13.1 //let's use a production-ready database locally

Minimal Rails application

mkdirrailsanalytics&&cdrailsanalyticsecho"source 'https://rubygems.org'"> Gemfileecho"gem 'rails', '~> 7.0.0'">> Gemfile    bundleinstallbundleexecrails new.--force--minimal-d=postgresql    bundle update

Minimal controllers and views

# Create a default controllerecho"class HomeController < ApplicationController"> app/controllers/home_controller.rbecho"end">> app/controllers/home_controller.rb# Create another controllerecho"class OtherController < ApplicationController"> app/controllers/other_controller.rbecho"end">> app/controllers/other_controller.rb# Create routesecho"Rails.application.routes.draw do"> config/routes.rbecho'  get "home/index"'>> config/routes.rbecho'  get "other/index"'>> config/routes.rbecho'  root to: "home#index"'>> config/routes.rbecho'end'>> config/routes.rb# Create a default viewmkdirapp/views/homeecho'<h1>This is home</h1>'> app/views/home/index.html.erbecho'<div><%= link_to "go to analytics", "/analytics" %></div>'>> app/views/home/index.html.erbecho'<div><%= link_to "go to other page", other_index_path %></div>'>> app/views/home/index.html.erb# Create another viewmkdirapp/views/otherecho'<h1>This is another page</h1>'> app/views/other/index.html.erbecho'<div><%= link_to "go to home page", root_path %></div>'>> app/views/other/index.html.erb# Create database and schema.rb  bin/rails db:create  bin/rails db:migrate

Good ! Run

bin/rails s

And open your browser to see your app locally. You should see something like this :

Activate ActiveJob and ActionMailer

Open application.rb and uncomment line 6 and 10 as follow, this will be needed for active_analytics :

# inside config/application.rbrequire_relative"boot"require"rails"# Pick the frameworks you want:require"active_model/railtie"require"active_job/railtie"# <== !! Uncommentrequire"active_record/railtie"# require "active_storage/engine"require"action_controller/railtie"require"action_mailer/railtie"# <==  !! Uncomment# ... everything else remains the same

Add active_analytics

Open your Gemfile and add

gem'active_analytics'

Then stop your local web server, and run

bundleinstall

Install active_analytics

Now run :

bin/railsactive_analytics:install:migrationsbin/railsdb:migrate

Side note : We often usebin/rails instead of justrails, to ensure that the version used is the one of our project, not the globally-installed version of Rails.

Now insideapp/controllers/application_controller.rb, copy/paste the following code :

# inside app/controllers/application_controller.rbclassApplicationController<ActionController::Basebefore_action:record_page_viewdefrecord_page_viewActiveAnalytics.record_request(request)endend

Openconfig/routes.rb

# inside config/routes.rbRails.application.routes.drawdo# Add this linemountActiveAnalytics::Engine,at:"analytics"get"home/index"get"other/index"rootto:"home#index"end

Check that analytics for Rails is working, locally

Run

bin/rails s

And open your browser athttp://localhost:3000/analytics

You should see this :

Ok, no data (so far).

Now go to the homepage of your Rails app, and click on "go to other page". Then visithttp://localhost:3000/analytics once again.

Now some stats should appear.

Great ! You are able to see stats for a period range. Moreover, you can click on any url to see where the user was coming from.

4. View analytics in production

First steps, fast checking

Now it's time to push your code into production, let's say heroku.

heroku login  heroku create  bundle lock --add-platform x86_64-linux  heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:hobby-dev  heroku buildpacks:set heroku/rubygit add . && git commit -m 'ready for prod'  git push heroku main  heroku run rails db:migrate

Heroku gives you a weird URL, like "https://sleepy-sands-87676.herokuapp.com/" (yours will be different). Go to this weird URL and make the same steps as before, on your local browser : go to the home page, then click on "go to the other page", then check analytics again. Everything works so far... but what if a bot visits the application ?

Is analytics for Rails able to tackle bots ?

Now go tohttps://www.webpagetest.org/, and enter the heroku URL of your webapp. Click on "Start test!" (or equivalent). Wait for the test to finish, then visit the /analytics URL of your Heroku website.

You should see that the number of visits has increased, as if "WebPageTest" has just sent a bot, not a real visitor.

Add this to your Gemfile :

gem'crawler_detect'

Then run

bundleinstall

Then change your main controller like this :

# inside app/controllers/application_controller.rbclassApplicationController<ActionController::Basebefore_action:record_page_viewdefrecord_page_view# This condition should skip bots.unlessrequest.is_crawler?ActiveAnalytics.record_request(request)endendend

Change yourconfig/application.rb like this :

# ...moduleRailsanalyticsclassApplication<Rails::Application# Add this lineconfig.middleware.useRack::CrawlerDetect# ...

Then run in your console

git add . && git commit -m 'detect crawlers'git push heroku main

Now make the WebPageTest check again.

Analytics numbers didn't change ?

You won ! 🎉

Not covered in this tutorial

Of course the/analytics URL is very likely to be a protected route - unless you build things in public. How to protect a route is not covered here, but maybe you want to giveRodauth a try.