I'm considering self-hosted Matomo as a privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics. The site might get around 10,000 page views a month.
Would a VPS with 2 CPUs, 1 GB of RAM and 30 GB of storage be practical, or could it run alongside a few sites on a shared server? I'm open to other inexpensive options too.
A 1 GB VPS can be workable for a few low-traffic sites, although that's below the 2 GB minimum you've found, so I wouldn't treat it as guaranteed. CPU demand at that scale may be fairly modest.
Watch the database more than the initial install size. Matomo can retain raw visit data for a long time, so check its retention settings and consider automatically deleting older raw logs. That makes 30 GB a more plausible starting point than keeping years of detail. Keep an eye on disk and memory usage as the data grows.
Putting it on the existing server could save the cost of another VPS, but the headroom matters more than the page-view count alone. The sites and Matomo would share memory and storage, so check what's available before adding another database and analytics workload.
If resources are already tight, a separate VPS gives you a clearer limit to monitor and keeps the analytics workload apart from the sites.
Take a look at Umami too. It's another option for modest traffic, though startup can need more RAM than normal operation. A 1 GB machine might be tight during that initial stage, even if the ongoing workload is light.
Plausible and Rybbit are also worth a look if you're not set on Matomo. Compare their self-hosting requirements, costs and privacy features against what you actually need rather than assuming they'll fit the same small server.
Answers are reviewed before publication.
!tidily+unpacked_4:
Thanks, database growth was the part I wasn't sure about. I'll check the retention settings before committing to a small VPS.