Fifteen years ago, I realised that people (myself included) were increasingly integrating the internet into their everyday lives, and it was clear that it would only expand in the future. It was an exciting new world, but the amount of personal data shared online, level of tracking and lack of security was a growing concern. Google Analytics was just launched then and was already gaining huge traction – so data from millions of websites started flowing into Google’s database, creating what was then the biggest centralised database about people worldwide and their actions online.
So as a young engineering student, I decided we needed to build an open source and transparent solution that could help make the internet more secure and private while still providing organisations with powerful insights. I aimed to create a win-win solution for businesses and their digital consumers.
And in 2007, I started developing Matomo with the help from Scott Switzer and Jennifer Langdon (who offered me an internship and support).
All thanks to the Matomo Community
We have reached significant milestones and made major changes over the last 15 years, but we wouldn’t be where we are today without the Matomo Community.
So I would like to celebrate and thank the hundreds of volunteer developers who have donated their time to develop Matomo, the thousands of contributors who provided feedback to improve Matomo, the countless supportive forum members, our passionate team of 40 at Matomo, the numerous translators who have translated Matomo and the 1.5 million websites that choose Matomo as their analytics platform.
Matomo has been a community effort built on the shoulders of many, and we will continue to work for you.
So let’s look at some milestones we have achieved over the last 15 years.
Looking back on milestones in our timeline
2007
- Birth of Matomo
- First alpha version released
2008
- Release first public 0.1.0 version
2009
- 50,000 websites use Matomo
2010
- Matomo first stable 1.0.0 released
- Mobile app launched
2011
Released Ecommerce Analytics, Custom Variables, First Party Cookies
Released Privacy control features (first of many privacy features to come!)
2012
- Released Log Analytics feature
- 1 Million Downloads!
- 300,000 websites worldwide use Matomo
2013
- Matomo is now available in 50 languages!
- Matomo brand redesign
2016
- Released Roll-Up Reporting Premium Feature, Users Flow Premium Feature, White Label Premium Feature, A/B Testing Premium Feature, Media Analytics Premium Feature, Funnels Premium Feature and Activity Log Premium Feature
- On-Premise Premium Plugins now available on the Marketplace
2017
- Launched Matomo Cloud service
- Released Multi Channel Conversion Attribution Premium Feature, Custom Reports Premium Feature, Login Saml Premium Feature, WooCommerceAnalytics Premium Feature and Heatmap & Session Recording Premium Feature
2018
- Piwik renamed to Matomo
- New Matomo logo and Matomo.org website re-launch
- Launch of Matomo Tag Manager
- 10,000 stars on Github
- GDPR comes into effect, and Matomo released new product features and published several new guides
- 17 Matomo features videos published online
- Reached thousands of paying customers, making the project sustainable and financially independent
2019
- 700,000 websites worldwide use Matomo
- Google Analytics importer released
2020
- Matomo For WordPress goes live on the WP Marketplace!
- Released Paid Advertising Performance Premium feature
- 100 million On-Premise Plugins downloads on the marketplace (since the beginning)
2021
- 1,000,000 websites worldwide use Matomo
- including 30,000 active Matomo for WordPress installations
- Released SEO Web Vitals, Advertising Conversion Export and Tracking Spam Prevention feature
2022
- Released WP Statistics to Matomo importer
Our efforts continue
While we’ve seen incredible growth over the years, our work doesn’t stop there. In fact, we’re only just getting started.
Today over 55% of the internet continues to use privacy-threatening web analytics solutions, while 1.5% uses Matomo. So there are still great strides to be made to create a more private internet, and joining the Matomo Community is one way to support this movement.
There are many ways to get involved too, such as:
- Submitting feature requests
- Developing for Matomo
- Leaving Matomo a review on sites like Capterra, TrustRadius, G2 Crowd, alternativeTo, SaaSworthy, Siftery, Open Hub
- Translating Matomo
- Joining our Security Bug Bounty Programme
- Sharing Matomo with your peers
- Talking about Matomo on social platforms
So what comes next for Matomo?
The future of Matomo is approachable, powerful and flexible. We’re strengthening the customers’ voice, expanding our resources internally (we’re continuously hiring!) and conducting rigorous customer research to craft a tool that balances usability and functionality.
I look forward to the next 15 years and seeing what the future holds for Matomo and our community.
