Serve plausible.js from CDN

[Tragio]

Prerequisites

• [ x ] I have searched open and closed issues to make sure that the feature has not yet been requested.

Feature request

Will be really nice to have the ability to serve plausible.js and other required scripts from a CDN. Count.ly already does this. You can use your domain or the CDN. There are two options available: using Cloudflare (CDNjs) or JSDelivr (both of which are highly available CDNs).

How would you like it to work
Would be nice to have the option as Count.ly has, to use my domain or CDN.

https://support.count.ly/hc/en-us/articles/360037441932-Web-analytics-JavaScript-#setting-up-recommended-asynchronous-usage

Really thank you for the amazing work!

[ghost]

What would be good about this? 🙂

[Tragio]

@prcmt well you have some benefits. For example: It's served from a CDN, so you should have fast loading times for the script since is closer to the visitor; You're not overloading the main server with requests, since you're loading from outside the server.

[ghost]

I'd argue that CDNs are generally incompatable with user privacy. I don't think it would be right for a privacy conscious service like Plausible to make use of them. (And I'd argue that everyone should stop using them in general!)

When you use a CDN, you're inserting an extra third party into the communication between you and your users. A third party that has the ability to inject JavaScript into your pages and is almost certainly slurping up end user data, like IP addresses and fingerprinting data points. Note that both CDNjs's and JSDelivr's privacy policies admit to collecting personal data from end users (although they try to pretend otherwise). David Revoy has an article that briefly goes over this danger.

The benefits of using a CDN are not as obvious as they seem from a performance perspective either, athough that's a rather larger topic. In this particular case though, remember that Plausible's JavaScript snippet is only 1090 bytes. It's tiny. It's safe to assume that the added overhead of a DNS lookup, a new HTTP connection and TLS negotiation probably outweigh any benefits. See also, Please stop using CDNs for external JavaScript libraries.

[Tragio]

I'd argue that CDNs are generally incompatable with user privacy. I don't think it would be right for a privacy conscious service like Plausible to make use of them. (And I'd argue that everyone should stop using them in general!)

When you use a CDN, you're inserting an extra third party into the communication between you and your users. A third party that has the ability to inject JavaScript into your pages and is almost certainly slurping up end user data, like IP addresses and fingerprinting data points. Note that both CDNjs's and JSDelivr's privacy policies admit to collecting personal data from end users (although they try to pretend otherwise). David Revoy has an article that briefly goes over this danger.

The benefits of using a CDN are not as obvious as they seem from a performance perspective either, athough that's a rather larger topic. In this particular case though, remember that Plausible's JavaScript snippet is only 1090 bytes. It's tiny. It's safe to assume that the added overhead of a DNS lookup, a new HTTP connection and TLS negotiation probably outweigh any benefits. See also, Please stop using CDNs for external JavaScript libraries.

@prcmt really good points there. Thank you! I totally understand your points, still you have a lot of websites using Vercel, Netlify and others, which are based on CDN's. So for users using that I don't see a problem for also using a CDN for this. However, if the community comes to the conclusion that is not viable then we can also make the use of preconnect for faster loading times due to SSL handshakes and so on.

[ghost]

Do you have reason to think that Plausible has an issue with performance? After all, it has no user facing components. So does it really matter how many milliseconds it takes to load? Especially as it's being async'd and defer'd. 😄

[Tragio]

Do you have reason to think that Plausible has an issue with performance? After all, it has no user facing components. So does it really matter how many milliseconds it takes to load? Especially as it's being async'd and defer'd. 😄

I was thinking in agencies that are using for multiple users with millions of users, a single file can make difference to a server.

[binyamin]

@metmarkosaric You should be able to use cdnjs, since you have over 800 stars on GitHub. See the docs on adding a library.

[ghost]

I was thinking in agencies that are using for multiple users with millions of users, a single file can make difference to a server.

Plausible is serving the file, not you. Think of them as your CDN. 😅

[Tragio]

I was thinking in agencies that are using for multiple users with millions of users, a single file can make difference to a server.

Plausible is serving the file, not you. Think of them as your CDN. 😅

I thought that for self-hosting it was the server sending the file, not Plausible. 🤔 Anyway, this is easily fixable using CF Workers with better loading times and avoiding handshakes.

[ghost]

I thought that for self-hosting it was the server sending the file, not Plausible.

Sorry! Yes, of course. I wasn't thinking about self-hosting.

[abhranil26]

This would a great feature addition if not implemented already.