When I built Jottings, I made a deliberate choice: no creepy tracking. That meant finding an analytics tool that respects user privacy while still giving me actual insight into what's happening on the platform. I landed on Umami, and honestly, it's been a game-changer for understanding my audience without the baggage of invasive tracking.

But when you first open the Umami dashboard, it can feel sparse compared to Google Analytics. Where are all the dashboards? The funnels? The custom events? Don't worry—that's intentional. Umami strips away the noise and gives you clean, meaningful metrics instead.

Let me walk you through reading your Umami dashboard and understanding what the numbers actually mean.

The Main View: What You See First

When you log into Umami, you get a clean dashboard showing your website statistics. At the top, you'll see a date range selector and some quick stats:

• Pageviews: Total number of times your pages were viewed (including refreshes)
• Unique visitors: How many distinct people visited your site
• Bounce rate: Percentage of visitors who left without viewing another page
• Visit duration: Average time spent on your site per session

Here's the thing: these numbers are actual numbers, not best guesses. Umami doesn't use cookies (by default) or fingerprinting tricks. It just counts legitimate visits.

My first month running Umami, I was surprised how much lower my numbers were compared to Google Analytics. That's not a bad thing—it means I was finally seeing real traffic instead of inflated metrics from bots and tracking noise.

Breaking Down the Metrics

Pageviews vs. Unique Visitors

Pageviews are simple: every time someone loads a page, that's one pageview. If someone reads three posts in one session, that's three pageviews.

Unique visitors is trickier with privacy-first analytics. Umami identifies visitors using a hash generated from IP address and user agent. No personal data is collected—just enough to say "this looks like the same person who visited yesterday."

This means the unique visitor count is more conservative than Google Analytics but more honest. You're seeing people who actually visited, not inflated numbers from aggressive tracking.

Bounce Rate

A bounce happens when someone lands on your site and leaves without visiting another page. High bounce rate isn't always bad—it depends on your content and goals.

For a blog or microblog like Jottings, people might read one amazing post and leave satisfied. That's not a bounce in the traditional sense. It's success.

Pay more attention to engagement metrics than raw bounce rate. If visitors are staying on pages long enough to read, that matters more than whether they clicked to another page.

Diving Deeper: The Data Tables

Below the top metrics, Umami shows you detailed breakdowns:

Pages

This table shows which pages got the most views. For Jottings users, this might be your home page, specific blog posts, or tag pages.

Why this matters: It tells you what content resonates. If one post gets 5x the views of others, people are interested in that topic. Use that signal to write more about it.

Referrers

This shows where traffic came from—other websites, social media, search engines, direct visits.

Looking at my referrers, I can see which communities are sharing Jottings links, which social platforms drive traffic, and whether search is picking up our content.

The real gold here is seeing which external sites send you traffic. You'll spot opportunities for outreach, partnerships, and understanding your audience's communities.

Countries & Cities

Umami shows geographic data without tracking individuals. You'll see which countries and cities your visitors come from.

I used this to understand time zone distributions—helpful for scheduling community events or support hours.

Devices & Browsers

See whether your visitors are on desktop, tablet, or mobile. Also check which browsers people use.

For Jottings, this helps me prioritize which devices to optimize for. Most visitors are on mobile? That's a signal to focus mobile experience.

What Umami Doesn't Do (And Why That's Good)

Google Analytics tells you everything about every person: their entire journey across the internet, their interests, their behavior patterns. It's comprehensive tracking, and honestly, it's creepy.

Umami intentionally doesn't do:

• Individual user tracking: You can't follow one person's journey (privacy!)
• Cross-site tracking: No pixels tracking people across the web
• Personal data collection: No emails, names, demographic guessing
• Detailed funnel analysis: You won't see every micro-interaction
• Custom event funnels: Complex conversion tracking requires setup (intentionally)

This feels limiting at first. But here's what I realized: I don't actually need to know that much. I need to know what content works, where traffic comes from, and how people use the site. Umami gives me exactly that.

Reading Trends Over Time

The date selector at the top lets you compare different periods. I usually check:

• Weekly trends (is traffic growing or declining?)
• Month-over-month comparisons (how'd last month compare?)
• Post-launch metrics (what happened when we shipped a feature?)

Look for patterns, not individual spikes. One viral post is nice but doesn't mean much. If your average daily visitors is trending up, that's the real story.

My Interpretation Approach

When I check my Umami dashboard, here's what I actually care about:

1. Traffic trend: Is it stable, growing, or declining? If it's stable, I'm happy.
2. Top pages: What content brings in the most visitors?
3. Referrers: Which communities love Jottings?
4. Device breakdown: Where should I focus optimization?

I ignore:

• Bounce rate (too context-dependent)
• Exact visitor counts (they vary by tracker sensitivity)
• Drill-downs into individual sessions (not the point)

The Privacy Angle

Here's why I chose Umami for Jottings: I wanted to build something that respects my users' privacy. Not just in the platform, but in how I learn about the platform.

Umami lets me do that. I see trend data without surveillance. I understand my audience without invasive profiling.

When you're reading your dashboard, remember that you're seeing real insights from real people who aren't being tracked across the internet. That's worth something.

Getting Started

If you run a Jottings site or any website, I'd recommend giving Umami a shot. The free tier is generous, and the paid plans are cheap. Way cheaper than Google Analytics, and way less creepy.

Start with the basic metrics. Get comfortable reading trends. After a few weeks, you'll develop an intuition for what the numbers mean for your specific content.

The dashboard won't be as feature-rich as GA, but it'll be honest. And in a world of inflated metrics and surveillance, honest is refreshing.

Happy analyzing.

— Vishal