> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.staminads.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction

> Cookieless, privacy-first traffic quality analytics. Measure engagement with TimeScore.

Stop chasing conversions you can't track. Start measuring **engagement** you can trust.

Staminads is an open-source, self-hosted analytics platform that measures traffic quality through engagement — not conversions. No cookies, no consent banners, 100% of your traffic captured.

<Frame>
  <img style={{ borderRadius: '0.5rem' }} src="https://mintcdn.com/staminads/E6ClmUvRjKDS4bnY/images/dashboard.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=E6ClmUvRjKDS4bnY&q=85&s=c1fe64b310266f62e2d9c0d2e66676cc" alt="Staminads dashboard" width="2076" height="1490" data-path="images/dashboard.png" />
</Frame>

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Open Source" icon="github">
    AGPL-3.0 licensed. Your data, your rules.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Privacy-First" icon="shield-check">
    No cookies, no consent banners. GDPR compliant out of the box.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Self-Hosted" icon="server">
    Deploy on your own infrastructure. Free forever.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

<Warning>
  **What we don't measure:** Staminads doesn't provide "unique users" or "visitor counts." Accurate user counting requires cross-device identity reconciliation — knowing that the same person visited from their phone, laptop, and work computer. This is technically impossible without invasive tracking or logged-in user data. Other tools showing these numbers are displaying estimates at best. We don't do fake metrics — if we can't measure it accurately, we don't show it.
</Warning>

## Why Staminads?

### The Problem: Conversion Tracking is Broken

Web marketers have relied on conversion tracking (ROI, ROAS) for years. But due to technical and legal constraints, **this approach no longer works**:

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Technical Barriers" icon="ban">
    * Adblockers blocking tracking scripts
    * Limited cookie lifespans (7 days on Safari)
    * Cross-device journeys impossible to track
    * App webviews breaking attribution
  </Card>

  <Card title="Legal Constraints" icon="scale-balanced">
    * GDPR consent requirements
    * Cookie banner fatigue (users opt out)
    * Privacy regulations tightening globally
    * First-party data limitations
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

Your conversion data is incomplete. You're optimizing campaigns based on a fraction of reality.

### The Solution: Engagement-Based Analytics

Conversions don't happen in one visit. **Engagement does.**

A typical customer journey looks like this:

| Visit | Intent   | What You Can Measure          |
| ----- | -------- | ----------------------------- |
| 1     | Research | ✅ Engagement                  |
| 2     | Compare  | ✅ Engagement                  |
| 3     | Decide   | ✅ Engagement                  |
| 4     | Convert  | ❌ Often lost to tracking gaps |

The role of marketing isn't to convert — it's to **move the buying process forward**. Staminads measures what matters at every step: how engaged your visitors are.

## Core Concepts

### TimeScore

The **TimeScore** is the median time spent on your website for each traffic source, expressed in seconds.

Why median instead of average? Because medians are resistant to outliers — a single visitor leaving a tab open for hours won't skew your data.

<Note>
  TimeScore measures real engagement. A visitor who spends 4 minutes reading your pricing page is more valuable than one who bounces after 10 seconds — regardless of whether they convert today.
</Note>

## Key Features

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Traffic Categorization" icon="filter">
    Separate Google Ads from Google Organic. Group landing pages by product category. Create channel definitions that match your business.
  </Card>

  <Card title="AI Assistant" icon="sparkles">
    Ask questions in natural language. "Which traffic source has the best engagement this week?" Get insights without writing queries.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Deep Data Exploration" icon="magnifying-glass-chart">
    Drill down by any dimension — source, campaign, country, device, or custom dimensions. Filter and combine in real time.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Multi-Tenant & Team Ready" icon="users">
    Isolated workspaces for multiple sites or clients. Granular user roles: Admin, Editor, Viewer.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Built for Speed" icon="bolt">
    Powered by ClickHouse. Sub-50ms query latency. Handle billions of events without breaking a sweat.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Mobile Friendly" icon="mobile">
    Fully responsive dashboard. Check your analytics on any device.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Next Steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Installation" icon="server" iconType="duotone" href="installation">
    Deploy Staminads on Railway, PikaPods, or your own infrastructure with Docker.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Explore Report" icon="magnifying-glass-chart" iconType="duotone" href="explore-report">
    Deep dive into your data to find insights and optimize your traffic sources.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Traffic Categorization" icon="filter" iconType="duotone" href="traffic-categorization">
    Create filter rules to categorize traffic by channel, page type, or custom dimensions.
  </Card>

  <Card title="View on GitHub" icon="github" href="https://github.com/staminads/staminads">
    Star the repo, report issues, or contribute to the project.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>