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Old Stack Journal

Modern tools. Old-stack common sense.

OSJ WordPress Plugin

OSJ Dashboard Stats for Umami, with traffic chart and social source summary

OSJ Dashboard Stats for Umami is a WordPress admin plugin that brings your Umami analytics into the WordPress dashboard.

It’s for people who already use WordPress and either already use Umami, or want a cleaner way to connect Umami to a WordPress site without turning their admin area into a giant analytics product.

The idea is simple: keep Umami as the analytics system, keep WordPress as the publishing/admin system, and put the useful numbers where a WordPress site owner is already working.

What the plugin does

The plugin adds native WordPress dashboard widgets for quick Umami stats:

  • Today
  • Last 7 Days
  • This Month
  • All Time
  • Top Pages
  • Referrers
  • Social Traffic
  • Right Now

The panels are normal WordPress dashboard boxes, so you can drag, collapse, and hide them like other wp-admin widgets. They lazy-load after the dashboard appears, and normal stats are cached so WordPress doesn’t sit there waiting on Umami every time you refresh the admin dashboard.

That caching part matters. The first private version worked, but once I split the stats into separate draggable panels, the dashboard started waiting on too many API calls. This better version loads WordPress first, then asks for each panel through AJAX, with cached panel output sitting in WordPress transients.

Optional Umami tracking script

The plugin can also add the Umami tracking script to your public WordPress pages.

That feature is optional and off by default.

If you enable it, you can configure:

  • the Umami tracker script URL
  • the Website ID
  • whether the script loads in the head or footer
  • whether to exclude logged-in administrators
  • whether to exclude all logged-in users

For Umami Cloud, the common tracker script URL is:

https://cloud.umami.is/script.js

For self-hosted Umami, use the tracker script URL from your own Umami instance.

The plugin does not add public credits, badges, “powered by” links, or front-end OSJ links. It only adds the Umami script when you explicitly enable that setting.

What it doesn’t do

This is not a full analytics suite, and it’s not trying to replace Umami.

It doesn’t try to recreate every Umami report inside WordPress. It doesn’t promise traffic growth. It doesn’t inject public backlinks. It doesn’t send your analytics data to Old Stack Journal.

It’s a small admin utility: connect to Umami, optionally add the tracker script, and show useful stats in wp-admin.

Who it helps

This plugin is useful if you:

  • run a WordPress site
  • use Umami Cloud or self-hosted Umami
  • want quick traffic stats in wp-admin
  • want optional script insertion without editing theme files
  • prefer lightweight dashboard panels over a heavy analytics plugin
  • care about caching and not slowing down the admin dashboard

It’s especially useful for site owners who check WordPress often but don’t want to open a separate analytics tab just to see whether a post is getting read.

Who should skip it

Skip it if you don’t use Umami, want a Google Analytics replacement inside WordPress, or need deep reporting with funnels, ecommerce attribution, and complicated dashboards.

This plugin assumes Umami is the analytics tool. WordPress just gets a practical admin view.

Basic setup

For Umami Cloud, use:

API base URL: https://api.umami.is/v1
Auth method: API key header

Then add your API key and website ID under:

Settings → OSJ Dashboard Stats

If you want the plugin to add the tracking script too, enable:

Add the Umami tracking script to public pages

For self-hosted Umami, use your own API URL and tracker script URL.

Privacy note

The plugin connects only to the Umami API endpoint configured by the site administrator. If front-end tracking is enabled, visitor analytics data is sent to the configured Umami service.

The plugin does not send analytics data to Old Stack Journal, and it does not add public OSJ credits or backlinks.

Site owners are responsible for making sure their Umami setup, consent flow, and privacy policy fit their own site and local requirements.

Download

You can download the plugin here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/osj-dashboard-stats-for-umami/ or search for OSJ in the plugins directory in your dashboard.

Why I built it

I like Umami because it gives me the kind of site stats I actually check without making analytics feel like a second job.

But I still spend a lot of time inside WordPress. For Old Stack Journal, the useful question is often pretty plain: did anyone read the new post, where did they come from, and what pages are getting attention today?

That didn’t need a giant reporting screen. It needed a few cached dashboard panels and a way to stop the WordPress admin from hanging while the stats loaded.

That’s what this plugin is for.

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