Read 2026-10-04
plausible/analytics: technical due diligence, read from its repository
What Borehole read in plausible/analytics's code and history at 37e352c: its licence, security advisories, releases, review practice, tests, dependencies and operations. Every finding cites the file and line it rests on. The full report also covers the team and asks the questions the code cannot answer.
| Dimension | Rating |
|---|---|
| Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance | strong |
| Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity | strong |
| Product & Engineering Maturity | strong |
| Security & Reliability Posture | adequate |
| Observability & Operations | adequate |
| Fit with the Acquirer | not assessable |
What the repository says
- Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
LICENSE.md: Relicensed: MIT → AGPL-3.0 (2020-10-12)assets/js/dashboard/extra/COPYING.txt: Part of the code is under a separate licence: assets/js/dashboard/extra/, extra/
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance
strongpriv/repo/structure.sql is 2,739 lines, 36× this codebase's median file
adequateThe median source file here is 75 lines. 5 files exceed 1,000 lines, the largest being 2,739. Size is not a defect on its own — some problems genuinely live in one place — but these are where merge conflicts, review fatigue and single-owner knowledge concentrate, and they are the first thing that slows an inheriting engineer down.
priv/repo/structure.sql:1 — 2,739 lines (36× median) |
lib/plausible_web/components/generic.ex:1 — 1,349 lines (17× median) |
lib/plausible_web/live/sites.ex:1 — 1,159 lines (15× median) |
config/runtime.exs:1 — 1,142 lines (15× median) |
assets/js/dashboard/stats/graph/main-graph.tsx:1 — 1,020 lines (13× median) |
Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity
strongTests are retried until they pass
adequateThe suite is configured to retry failing tests (tracker/playwright.config.ts). A retry turns a flaky test green without saying why it failed, so a green build means the tests passed eventually. Ask how many retries a typical run needs, and which tests need them.
tracker/playwright.config.ts:16 — test retry |
Product & Engineering Maturity
strongReleases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
adequateThe newest release, v3.2.1, is not on the branch this survey read; the newest release on it is v3.1.0. The shipped product may differ from what this report describes. Survey the release branch too.
| tag v3.2.1 |
Security & Reliability Posture
adequate3 credential-shaped strings in the tree sit in tests, examples, documentation or local development settings
adequateStrings shaped like credentials appear only where fakes are usual: test fixtures, examples, documentation, placeholders and local stacks. They are almost always fakes. Ask someone to confirm that none of them works anywhere, because a real key in a development file is still a real key.
| 3 cited: Google OAuth client secret, where fakes are usual |
3 shell commands built from strings
adequate3 places run a command through a shell (`shell=True`, `os.system`, `exec` with a template) rather than passing arguments. Where any part comes from outside, it is command injection. Ask where each one's input comes from.
tracker/compiler/analyze-sizes.js:294 — command run through a shell |
tracker/compiler/analyze-sizes.js:295 — command run through a shell |
tracker/compiler/analyze-sizes.js:313 — command run through a shell |
14 locked dependencies have published vulnerabilities, 7 high or critical
adequate14 of 404 locked dependencies match 29 published advisories in OSV, 7 of them rated high or critical. A lockfile says which version is installed, not whether the flawed code is reachable from this product, so each needs a look. Most are fixed by an upgrade, and the advisory names the version. None of the high or critical ones is in what the product ships: only the build reaches them: a bundler, a code generator, a build plugin, or a lockfile in a tooling directory. This lockfile pins development tools alongside what ships and does not say which is which, so some of these may never reach a user.
mix.lock — hackney 1.25.0: EEF-CVE-2026-47071 (high), fixed in 4.0.1 |
assets/package-lock.json — brace-expansion 1.1.16: GHSA-6j4f-fj2g-mc7p (high), fixed in 1.1.19; reached only by the build |
assets/package-lock.json — braces 3.0.3: GHSA-vfj7-8cjw-p6xm (high); reached only by the build |
Relicensed: MIT → AGPL-3.0 (2020-10-12)
adequateThe root licence changed 1 time(s). The latest terms restrict what users, hosts or a buyer may do in ways the earlier ones did not. Code taken under the old terms stays under them, so both matter in diligence.
LICENSE.md — MIT from 2019-09-02 |
LICENSE.md — AGPL-3.0 from 2020-10-12 |
Part of the code is under a separate licence: assets/js/dashboard/extra/, extra/
adequateA directory named for a paid edition carries its own licence. That code is usually not open source even where the rest is; what the buyer may do with each part differs.
assets/js/dashboard/extra/COPYING.txt — licence: unrecognised |
extra/COPYING.txt — licence: unrecognised |
1 advisory against this project in the last 24 months, 1 high or critical
adequateThe newest was published on 2026-06-03. A project that publishes advisories is telling its users about its fixes, and the count and pace say how much security work it carries. Whether 1 of them are fixed in the code you ship could not be told from this history: its version is only known to be at least 3.1.0. Answer lives in: the release you run, set against each fixed version.
| 2026-06-03: GHSA-mhcv-h7gf-57cf (critical), fixed in 3.2.1: Unauthenticated remote code execution via /storybook endpoint |
Observability & Operations
adequateOne request cannot be followed through the logs
adequateNothing in the service carries a request or correlation id, and there is no tracing. When a customer reports a failure, the log lines that belong to their request cannot be picked out from everyone else's.
| no request id, correlation id or tracing found |
No error reporter is wired in
adequateNothing in the service initialises an error reporter (Sentry, Rollbar, Bugsnag, Honeybadger or an APM agent). An exception in production reaches a person only if someone is reading the logs, which usually means a customer reports it first.
| no error reporter initialised |
Fit with the Acquirer
not assessableNot rated: structurally not assessable from a repository.
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The full report on plausible/analytics: every dimension, the questions for the room, and the audit log.
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