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Open-Source Social Media Analytics Tools (2027): 10 Free Tools for Social Listening, Monitoring and Analytics You Can Self-Host

Open-Source Social Media Analytics Tools: Free Ways to Measure, Monitor and Listen on Social Media

Paid social media analytics suites charge per profile or per seat, and your data stays on their servers. If you want to see what your posts really bring in, follow conversations about your market or keep research data on your own machine, open-source tools can do most of that job for free. No single open-source app copies a commercial analytics suite, so this guide sorts the tools by job: listening and research, analytics for your own accounts, social traffic on your website, trackable links and dashboards. We checked every tool on its GitHub repository and official website on 3 November 2026: the licence, the latest release and what it measures. Tools that are abandoned or not open source are listed separately.
Quick answer: for open-source social listening and monitoring, use 4CAT with the Zeeschuimer browser extension. For analytics on your own accounts, use Postiz, the open-source scheduler with per-post analytics. To see which networks and campaigns send visitors to your site, use Matomo or Umami, and tag links with Shlink. Then combine everything in Apache Superset or Metabase. Need competitor benchmarks on a free plan instead? See our free Fanpage Karma alternatives.
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Open-Source Social Media Analytics Tools Compared

ToolWhat it doesLicenceHow you run itLatest activity
4CATSocial listening and research datasetsMPL-2.0Self-host with Dockerv1.57, October 2026
ZeeschuimerCollects posts you see on TikTok, Instagram, X, ThreadsMPL-2.0Firefox extensionv1.14.3, September 2026
FacepagerPublic data from APIs into CSVMITDesktop app4.7.0, November 2025
PostizPer-channel and per-post analyticsAGPL-3.0Cloud or self-hostv2.25.3, October 2026
Mixpost LiteBasic analytics for 3 networksMITSelf-host2.6.0, March 2026
MatomoSocial networks channel and campaignsGPL-3.0Self-host free or Cloud5.14.2, October 2026
UmamiUTM campaign reportMITSelf-host or free Hobby cloudv3.4.1, October 2026
Open Web AnalyticsWebsite traffic, heatmapsGPL-2.0PHP self-host1.14.6, November 2026
ShlinkClick stats for your short linksMITDocker or PHPv5.1.8, October 2026
Superset / MetabaseDashboards over your social dataApache-2.0 / AGPLSelf-hostOctober 2026
Sources: each project's GitHub repository (licence, releases, commits) and official website, checked 3 November 2026. Self-hosting is free, but you pay for the server and your own time.

Social Listening and Monitoring: Open-Source Research Tools

1. 4CAT: open-source social listening and analysis

4CAT (Capture and Analysis Toolkit) is the most complete open-source tool for monitoring what people say on social platforms. You create a dataset from a platform and a set of search parameters, then download it as CSV or JSON or run 4CAT's analysis processors on it, from simple frequency charts to word embedding models and network graphs, all in a web interface without programming. Its own data sources cover 4chan, Bluesky, Telegram, Tumblr and TikTok (from a list of post URLs), and data from Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, X, Pinterest and more comes in through the Zeeschuimer extension below or as CSV uploads. The 4CAT repository is licensed under MPL-2.0, version 1.57 came out in October 2026, and you install it with Docker. It was built for researchers and journalists, and the team says there is no public 4CAT server, so plan to run your own.

2. Zeeschuimer: collect the posts you see while you browse

Zeeschuimer is a browser extension from the same team that records the items a platform shows you while you scroll: TikTok posts and comments, Instagram posts and reels, Threads, X, Pinterest, RedNote, Weibo and others. You can then export what you saw, in the order you saw it, as JSON or CSV, or send it to your 4CAT server for analysis. It works in Firefox-based browsers, never uploads data automatically and is licensed under MPL-2.0; version 1.14.3 came out in September 2026. For a founder this is a simple way to save a sample of competitor posts or hashtag results and study them later. Collect only public content and follow each platform's terms.

3. Facepager: pull public data from APIs into a spreadsheet

Facepager is an MIT-licensed desktop app that fetches publicly available data from APIs and websites, stores it in a SQLite database and exports it to CSV. It handles rate limits, pagination and data extraction for you and ships with presets, including Mastodon and Reddit. Its README warns that support for the official Facebook, Twitter and YouTube APIs is limited: you need to register for your own API access for those networks. Version 4.7.0 came out in November 2025 and the code was updated in May 2026.

Analytics for Your Own Social Media Accounts

4. Postiz: per-post analytics inside an open-source scheduler

Postiz is best known as an open-source social media scheduler, but it also shows per-channel and per-post analytics, pulled from each network's official insights API, for 30+ channels including LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Threads, Pinterest, Reddit, Bluesky and Mastodon. Postiz notes that smaller networks give less detail. The Postiz repository is AGPL-3.0, and version 2.25.3 came out on 24 October 2026. Self-hosting runs on Docker with Postgres and Redis, and for analytics you register your own app credentials with analytics permissions on each network. If you prefer not to host it, Postiz Cloud plans start at $29 a month with a 7-day trial (postiz.com, November 2026). We compare its scheduling features in our open-source Buffer alternatives.

5. Mixpost Lite: basic analytics for Facebook Pages, Mastodon and X

Mixpost is a self-hosted social media manager. Its free, open-source Lite edition (MIT on GitHub, version 2.6.0 from March 2026) publishes to Facebook Pages, Mastodon and X and includes basic analytics, a calendar and a media library. According to the Mixpost pricing page, the Pro licence adds advanced analytics and more networks for a one-time $299 (excluding VAT), but Pro is a commercial licence, not open source. Choose Lite if you only need simple stats for a few accounts on your own server.
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Social Traffic and Campaign Analytics on Your Website

6. Matomo: see which networks and campaigns send visitors

Matomo is the best-known open-source web analytics platform. It does not read likes or followers, but it answers the question that matters for a startup: which social networks and campaigns bring visitors, sign-ups and sales. Matomo's referrers guide lists Social Networks as its own channel, traffic from platforms such as Facebook, X, Instagram or LinkedIn, under Acquisition > All Channels, and links with campaign parameters are credited to the named campaign. The code is GPL-3.0, the latest stable version 5.14.2 came out on 22 October 2026, and the On-Premise edition is free; Matomo Cloud is paid, with a free trial.

7. Umami: simple UTM campaign reports

Umami is a lightweight, MIT-licensed web analytics tool. Its UTM report shows views broken down by utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term and utm_content with no extra setup, so tagging your bio links and posts tells you exactly which ones work. You can self-host it for free; on Umami's pricing page the Hobby cloud plan costs $0 for up to 100,000 events a month, one website and six months of data, and Pro costs $20 a month. Version 3.4.1 came out on 23 October 2026.

8. Open Web Analytics: website analytics with heatmaps

Open Web Analytics (OWA) is a GPL-2.0 alternative to commercial web analytics. According to its GitHub README, it tracks visitors, pageviews and e-commerce transactions, generates heatmaps and session recordings, geolocates visitors and has a REST API and a WordPress plugin. Release 1.14.6 came out on 1 November 2026. It suits a founder with a PHP or WordPress site who wants to see how social visitors behave on the page. For more tools of this kind, see our open-source Google Analytics alternatives.

Links and Dashboards

9. Shlink: trackable short links for bios and posts

Shlink is a self-hosted URL shortener that serves short links on your own domain. Every time someone clicks a short link, Shlink collects anonymised visit statistics and geolocates the visitor, so you can see which post, bio link or campaign gets clicks without a paid link-in-bio tool. It has a REST API, a command-line interface and a web app for managing several Shlink servers, and runs from a Docker image or a PHP download. The Shlink repository is MIT-licensed, and version 5.1.8 came out on 21 October 2026.

10. Apache Superset or Metabase: one dashboard for all your social data

Once you export data from Postiz, 4CAT, your analytics tool and the networks' own CSV downloads, a BI tool turns it into one dashboard. Apache Superset is Apache-2.0 licensed (stable version 6.1.0 from May 2026, with 7.0 release candidates in October 2026), and Metabase is AGPL outside its enterprise folder, with a free Open Source edition and version 0.65.2 from 30 October 2026. Both need your data in a database first, so they fit a founder or analyst who is comfortable with a little SQL. We compare more options in our open-source Metabase alternatives.

Removed From the Old List: Abandoned, Changed or Not Open Source

The 2025 version of this article was titled as a list of SocialStat Pro alternatives. We found no product with that exact name on an official website: the closest is Socialstats, a closed-source analytics app for creators and brands on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook. Several tools on the old list also no longer belong here:
  • Socioboard: the GPL-3.0 Socioboard 5.0 repository now receives only dependency and security updates, and in September 2026 it was tagged as its final state before version 6.0. The 6.0 repository was pushed once, in March 2026, and its licence file (AGPL-3.0) and README badge (MIT) disagree, so we cannot recommend it yet.
  • Apphera: the linked open-source social media monitoring repository has not changed since 2013.
  • Anyword and Sotrender: commercial SaaS products (AI copywriting and social media analytics), not open source.
  • jMetrik: software for psychometric test analysis, not a social media tool.
  • OpenReplay: still open source and active, but it records website sessions rather than social media data; it is covered in our Google Analytics alternatives.
  • Social Analyzer: an AGPL-3.0 tool that finds a person's profiles across many websites. It is an investigation tool, not marketing analytics, so it is not on the list.

Which Open-Source Social Media Analytics Tool Should You Choose?

  • You want to monitor what people say about your market: Zeeschuimer to collect posts and 4CAT to analyse them.
  • You want stats for your own accounts: Postiz, or Mixpost Lite if you only post to Facebook Pages, Mastodon and X.
  • You want to know which network brings customers: Matomo or Umami with UTM-tagged links.
  • You want click counts on bio and post links: Shlink.
  • You need data from an API for a report: Facepager.
  • You want one dashboard for everything: Apache Superset or Metabase.
  • You do not want to host anything: a free plan of a commercial tool is easier; see our Social Status alternatives for analytics suites.

How Founders Use Open-Source Social Media Analytics

Early-stage founders rarely need a full analytics suite. A practical setup is to tag every link you share with UTM parameters or a Shlink short link, measure the visits in Matomo or Umami, and check once a week which posts brought sign-ups, not only likes. When you plan content, our open-source ViralFindr alternatives help you find posts that already perform, and the free Hootsuite alternatives cover scheduling on a free plan. If you are choosing a paid tool, compare Hootsuite vs CoSchedule and Sprout Social vs Later.
Social media is only one channel. Set a realistic spend with the F/MS Marketing Budget Calculator, and turn what your audience asks about into articles with the F/MS AI SEO Tool so customers also find you in Google and AI assistants.
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FAQ About Open-Source Social Media Analytics Tools

What is the best open-source social media analytics tool?

It depends on the job. For listening and research, 4CAT with Zeeschuimer; for your own accounts, Postiz; for social traffic on your website, Matomo or Umami.

Is there an open-source social media monitoring tool?

Yes. 4CAT collects and analyses posts from platforms such as Bluesky, Telegram and Tumblr, and imports TikTok, Instagram, X, Threads and LinkedIn data captured with the Zeeschuimer browser extension. Both are MPL-2.0.

Can I self-host social media analytics?

Yes. 4CAT, Postiz, Mixpost Lite, Matomo, Umami, Open Web Analytics, Shlink, Superset and Metabase can all run on your own server, so your data stays with you.

Does Postiz have analytics?

Yes. Postiz shows per-channel and per-post analytics from each network's official insights API. On a self-hosted install you need your own app credentials with analytics permissions.

Can Matomo track social media traffic?

Yes. Matomo reports Social Networks as its own channel under Acquisition, and links with campaign parameters are credited to the named campaign.

What is SocialStat Pro?

We found no product called SocialStat Pro on an official website. The closest name is Socialstats, a closed-source analytics app for creators and brands.

Is there an open-source alternative to SNS Insider?

SNS Insider is a market research and consulting firm that sells reports, not a software tool. To research your own market on social media, you can run 4CAT and Zeeschuimer yourself.

Is Socioboard still maintained?

Not actively. Its 5.0 code gets only dependency updates and was tagged as final in September 2026, and the new 6.0 repository has been updated only once, in March 2026.

Are open-source social media analytics tools really free?

The software is free, but you pay for a server and your own time to set it up. Some projects also sell cloud plans, such as Postiz Cloud or Umami Pro.

Where can I get a backlink by writing about my startup?

You can publish a guest post in one of the Fe/male Switch startup blogs, which rank in Google and in AI tools. Get a quality backlink.

About the Author

Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as MeanCEO, is an experienced startup founder with an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 5 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely.
2026-11-03 04:49 Top Alternatives