BoUk

There are deffinitely different methods for implementing pageview counters. Considering some external service such as <a href="https://jetpack.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Jetpack</a> or <a href="https://analytics.google.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Google Analytics</a> is surely a good option, but there may be scenarios where you may want to handle this just by yourself and have everything more under control.
Since it’s very common to utilize some caching mechanism to improve your site’s performance, implementing counter directly on PHP level wouldn’t work reliably as counter would be barely incremeneted due to the caching. Better solution would be to use WordPress way of triggering AJAX requests and increment pageview counters anytime page is loaded, no matter if served from cache or not.
When we start to think on bigger scale though, we find tradional WP AJAX implementation quite resources heavy as well. This plugin uses slightly more complicated method to increase counters, but it’s very lightweight. In a nuthsell, counters are stored ‘outside’ of WordPress ecosystem into some fast storage such as Memcached or Redis. Then there’s implemented re-occuring cron task on WordPress level, which regularly checks for new counters and store its values as postmeta for each respective post.
Plugin utilizes <a href="https://www.phpfastcache.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">PhpFastCache library</a> which allows to store data into many types of back-ends. See their <a href="https://github.com/PHPSocialNetwork/phpfastcache/blob/master/docs/DRIVERS.md" rel="nofollow ugc">documentation</a> for more details. This feature allows you to choose any back-end depending on your hosting provider.
This plugin comes preconfigured with file-based storage, which should work on any hosting environment, but for higher traffic sites you may want to consider in-memory storage such as MemcacheD.
Whole principle and idea is described in following <a href="https://www.bouk.info/efficient-handling-of-ajax-requests-on-wordpress-platform/" rel="nofollow ugc">article</a> published on my blog.

PageViews Counter

Implement your own pageviews counter in efficient way, using different backend storages such as MemcacheD or Redis.

TinkerCoded

Tinker Stats for Rybbit integrates your self-hosted <a href="https://rybbit.io" rel="nofollow ugc">Rybbit Analytics</a> instance with WordPress. It manages your Rybbit tracking script on the frontend and surfaces content traffic stats directly in your admin; post list columns, editor publish box, and dashboard widget.
Tracking Script Management:
<ul>
<li>One-click setup — enter your connection details, click Test Connection, and the tracking script is ready to enable.</li>
<li>Built-in proxy — bypass ad blockers with one toggle. The plugin serves the tracking script and forwards events through your own domain. No webserver config needed.</li>
<li>Script injection — adds the Rybbit tracking script to your frontend via <code>wp_enqueue_script()</code> with configurable script URL, debounce, and session replay.</li>
<li>Role exclusion — exclude specific WordPress roles (e.g. administrators, editors) from being tracked.</li>
<li>User identification — optionally send logged-in user ID, display name, and role to Rybbit via <code>rybbit.identify()</code>.</li>
<li>Custom events — fire per-type events (<code>post_view</code>, <code>page_view</code>, <code>archive_view</code>, <code>search_view</code>, etc.) with WordPress metadata as event properties.</li>
<li>Error suppression — suppress cross-origin “Script error.” messages from the tracking script. This is related to a bit of a bug in Rybbit error reporting and merely cleans up session reports.</li>
</ul>
Admin Content Stats Display:
<ul>
<li>Post list column — see view counts for every post at a glance. Click any count to open a detailed chart.</li>
<li>Chart modal — daily breakdown with Year/Month/Week tabs and period navigation. Shows total count with percentage change vs previous period.</li>
<li>Dashboard widget — site-wide traffic chart, total count with trend indicator, and top 10 pages.</li>
<li>Publish box stat — current month view count right in the editor, clickable to open the chart modal.</li>
<li>Postmeta sync — hourly cron job saves view counts to post meta for use by themes, page builders, and other plugins.</li>
<li>Configurable metric — choose between Pageviews, Visits (sessions), or Users.</li>
</ul>
Security & Privacy:
<ul>
<li>Encrypted API key — your Rybbit API key is stored encrypted in the database.</li>
<li>Caching — configurable transient caching to minimize API calls to your Rybbit instance.</li>
<li>API resilience — automatic backoff on errors prevents cascading failures.</li>
<li>View permissions — restrict who can see stats in the admin.</li>
<li>Privacy-first — Rybbit is cookieless and GDPR-friendly. No data leaves your infrastructure.</li>
</ul>
This plugin is not an official Rybbit product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Rybbit. Rybbit trademarks, logos, and brand assets remain the property of their respective owner.
Requirements:
<ul>
<li>A running self-hosted <a href="https://rybbit.io" rel="nofollow ugc">Rybbit Analytics</a> instance (tested with v2.5.0)</li>
<li>A Rybbit API key (generated in Settings → Account → API Keys)</li>
<li>WordPress 6.3 or later</li>
</ul>
<h3>Multisite</h3>
The plugin works on WordPress Multisite networks (subdirectory, subdomain, and domain-mapped). The plugin can be activated per-subsite or network-wide; either works. Each subsite has its own Tinker Stats menu and runs its own postmeta sync.
How independently each subsite can be configured depends on Rybbit’s per-domain data model. Subdomain and domain-mapped subsites can each connect to their own Rybbit site. Subdirectory subsites must share the parent domain’s Rybbit configuration (Site ID, Tracking ID, URL, and API key), since Rybbit organizes data per registered domain or subdomain rather than by URL path. The URL patterns section below has the full breakdown.
<h4>Rybbit + Multisite URL patterns</h4>
Rybbit organizes data per registered domain or subdomain, which affects how multisite installs map to Rybbit sites:
<ul>
<li>Subdomain subsites (e.g. <code>sub.example.com</code>) — each can be added as its own Rybbit site for clean separation.</li>
<li>Domain-mapped subsites (e.g. <code>example2.com</code>) — each is added as its own Rybbit site, identical to single-site usage.</li>
<li>Subdirectory subsites (e.g. <code>example.com/sub</code>) — Rybbit doesn’t support path-based site separation, so all subdirectory subsites must be configured with the same Rybbit Site ID, Tracking ID, URL, and API key as the parent domain. In Rybbit’s dashboard, all subdirectory subsite traffic appears under the parent domain’s site; use Rybbit’s URL/path filters to view per-subsite breakdowns.</li>
</ul>
If you proxy the Rybbit script through a relative path (e.g. <code>/api/script.js</code>), make sure the proxy is configured on each subsite’s domain.

Tinker Stats for Rybbit

Rybbit Analytics integration — tracking script management, admin content stats, and postmeta sync for self-hosted Rybbit.

PageViews Counter vs Tinker Stats for Rybbit