Platform Overview
What Countly Actually Is
Countly is an open-source product analytics and engagement platform designed for mobile, web, and desktop applications. Unlike typical web analytics tools, Countly was built from the ground up for multi-platform tracking with a focus on mobile-first experiences.
The platform provides real-time analytics, user segmentation, crash reporting, push notifications, and A/B testing capabilities all in one package. You can self-host Countly on your own infrastructure for complete data ownership, or use their cloud offering for managed hosting.
What distinguishes Countly is its extensibility through plugins and its privacy-focused architecture. Being open-source means you can audit the code, customize functionality, and ensure your analytics setup meets your specific compliance requirements.
Why Countly Matters
For organizations that need complete control over their analytics data, Countly offers what most SaaS-only tools cannot: the option to run everything on your own servers. This matters for healthcare, finance, government, and any industry with strict data residency requirements.
The unified platform approach also simplifies your tech stack. Instead of using separate tools for analytics, crash reporting, push notifications, and engagement, Countly consolidates these functions. This reduces integration complexity and provides a single view of user behavior.
Countly's real-time processing means you see user activity as it happens, not hours later. For product teams iterating quickly, this immediate feedback loop accelerates decision-making and helps catch issues early.
Who It's For
Countly serves mobile app developers, product teams, and organizations with privacy requirements. The platform scales from indie developers to enterprise deployments handling billions of events.
Mobile-first companies appreciate the native SDKs for iOS, Android, React Native, Flutter, and other mobile frameworks. Web teams use the JavaScript SDK for browser tracking. Desktop applications can integrate via SDKs for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Enterprise customers value the self-hosted option, LDAP/Active Directory integration, and compliance features. Smaller teams often start with the cloud version and migrate to self-hosted as needs evolve.
History & Evolution
Origins in Mobile Analytics
Countly launched in 2012 when mobile analytics was still maturing. The founders recognized that existing tools were built for web and adapted poorly to mobile contexts. They created Countly to be mobile-native from day one.
The decision to make Countly open-source was intentional. It built trust with developers who could inspect the code, fostered a community of contributors, and differentiated Countly from closed-source competitors.
Growing the Platform
Over the years, Countly expanded beyond core analytics. Push notifications were added to help apps re-engage users. Crash reporting provided visibility into application stability. User profiles enabled segmentation and behavioral analysis.
The plugin architecture allowed the platform to grow without becoming bloated. Core functionality remained lean while optional plugins added specialized features like A/B testing, surveys, and star ratings.
Enterprise Focus
As the platform matured, Countly invested in enterprise capabilities. Role-based access control, audit logging, and compliance certifications made Countly suitable for regulated industries.
The company maintains both Community (open-source) and Enterprise editions, ensuring the core platform remains free while sustainable revenue funds continued development.
Where Countly Stands Today
Today, Countly processes billions of data points for thousands of applications worldwide. The platform continues to evolve with recent additions including AI-powered insights, enhanced privacy controls, and improved developer experience.
The open-source community remains active, contributing plugins, reporting issues, and extending the platform for specialized use cases.
Key Features & Capabilities
Real-Time Analytics
Countly processes events in real-time, displaying user activity as it happens. Dashboards update live, and you can watch sessions unfold without waiting for batch processing.
Key metrics include active users, sessions, events, and custom analytics. The platform calculates retention, conversion funnels, and cohort analysis automatically.
Event Tracking
Track any user action with flexible event tracking. Events can include counts, sums, durations, and custom segmentation data. This powers everything from simple button click tracking to complex e-commerce analytics.
Events are organized hierarchically, making it easy to analyze at different levels of granularity. Segment by device, location, app version, or any custom property you define.
User Profiles
Build rich profiles for each user combining behavioral data with custom attributes. Track individual user journeys across sessions and devices.
Profiles support custom properties, allowing you to store anything relevant: subscription status, preferences, feature flags, or CRM data. Use these for segmentation and personalized experiences.
Crash Reporting
Integrated crash reporting captures application errors with full stack traces, device information, and reproduction steps. Crashes are grouped by root cause and prioritized by impact.
For mobile apps, this means one fewer SDK to integrate. Web applications benefit from JavaScript error tracking with the same unified interface.
Push Notifications
Send targeted push notifications based on user behavior and segments. Schedule messages, set up automated campaigns, and track delivery and engagement metrics.
Push support includes iOS (APNs), Android (FCM), and web push notifications. Rich notifications with images, action buttons, and deep links are supported.
A/B Testing
Run experiments to optimize user experience. Create variants, define audiences, and measure impact on any metric. Statistical significance is calculated automatically.
Test anything from UI changes to feature rollouts. Results integrate with other Countly data for comprehensive analysis.
Surveys and Feedback
Collect qualitative feedback through in-app surveys and star ratings. Target surveys based on user behavior or segments.
Responses are tied to user profiles, connecting feedback to behavioral data. This helps you understand not just what users say, but how they actually behave.
Deployment Options
Cloud (SaaS)
Countly Cloud provides managed hosting with:
- No infrastructure to manage
- Automatic updates and maintenance
- Global availability and redundancy
- Compliance certifications (GDPR, SOC 2)
Pricing is based on data points tracked and features required.
Self-Hosted (Community Edition)
The free, open-source version includes:
- Core analytics features
- Self-hosted on your infrastructure
- Complete data ownership
- Community support
Ideal for developers, small teams, and those wanting to evaluate the platform.
Self-Hosted (Enterprise Edition)
Adds enterprise features to self-hosted:
- Role-based access control
- LDAP/Active Directory integration
- Audit logging
- Premium plugins
- Dedicated support
For organizations with strict compliance requirements or large-scale deployments.
Getting Started
Ready to implement Countly? Start with our Setup and Implementation Guide for installation instructions.
For tracking custom events, see our Event Tracking documentation.
Explore available integrations in our Integrations Guide.