Self-hosted WordPress analytics

Where the data lives

Tables in your WordPress database, named with your table prefix

Sent to RebelCode

None of your visitor data

Account needed

None for the free plugin

Kept for

2 years by default, or 90 days to forever, your choice

Where your numbers live

Vireo creates its own tables in your WordPress database, named after your table prefix, such as wp_va_site_stats and wp_va_post_stats. They hold daily totals: pageviews and visitors per page, referrer, country, device and hour, plus time on page, bounce rate, Core Web Vitals, events and missing pages.

Each view first lands in a buffer file in your uploads folder. Once a minute, WordPress’s scheduler folds the waiting views into the daily totals and deletes the file. Your dashboard, the CSV export and the REST API all read from those same tables on your own server.

Because they’re ordinary tables in your database, a backup of the database includes them.

What leaves your server

Visitor data stays on your site. Vireo only contacts an outside service when you choose to use it:

• WordPress.com, while you run a Jetpack Stats import
• Google Analytics, while you run a Google Analytics import
• Google Search Console, once a day and when you ask for the last 90 days, if you connect it
• Google PageSpeed Insights, when someone presses the test button and you’ve added an API key
• DB-IP, when you click the button to download the country database

None of them receives visitor data. Vireo also requests its own tracking address once an hour, to check it still works. Outside services has the details.

How long it’s kept

Daily totals are kept for as long as Settings, General, “Data retention” says: 90 days, 180 days, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, or Never purge. The default is 2 years, and a daily job deletes anything older. The records Vireo uses to tell visitors apart within a day are deleted after two days, whatever the setting.

If you stop using Vireo

What happens to your data depends on how far you go.

• Deactivate the plugin and your data stays in its tables. Vireo stops counting, and pages still in your cache that carry the tracker are ignored. Activate it again and it carries on from there.
• Export before you go. Settings, Import & export downloads site totals, pages, referrers, countries, devices, missing pages or events as CSV, for any date range, straight from your server to your browser.
• Delete the plugin and it removes its tables, settings and stored keys, including Pro’s data and connected sites’ data. There’s no option to keep them, so export first.
• Let a Vireo Pro license lapse and the free plugin keeps working with all your data. Pro’s features switch off, what Pro recorded stays in your database, and renewing switches them back on.

Coming from another tool? Vireo imports your history from Google Analytics 4 and eight others, so your charts don’t start again. What each source brings.

Your server does the counting

Self-hosted means your server handles each view, so Vireo keeps that work small: two small script files, a beacon to an endpoint that loads WordPress without your other plugins or theme, and database writes once a minute. What a pageview costs, measured.

Questions

Do I need an account to use Vireo?

The free plugin needs no account with anyone. Install it from WordPress.org and it starts counting. Vireo Pro checks its license with Freemius, which runs the store. What Freemius receives.

How much space do the tables take?

It depends on how many pages, referrers and days you have. Settings shows how much space the analytics tables use, next to the setting for how long they’re kept.

Does each site in a multisite network keep its own data?

Yes. Network activation sets up every site with its own tables, and network admins get one screen with every site’s totals. Multisite and MainWP.

Can I get at the numbers outside the dashboard?

Yes. Export any report to CSV, read it through Vireo’s read-only REST API, or connect an AI assistant that reads your numbers from your own site and can’t change anything.