Hi everyone,
I've always been curious about how many people actually visit my Toolforge tools - and I suspect I'm not alone. So I built Toolcounter ( https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/), a lightweight, privacy-friendly hit counter designed specifically for Toolforge-hosted tools.
*What it tracks*
📄 Page views - counted on every page load (including refreshes). Good for total traffic. 👤 Sessions (unique visit approximation) — uses sessionStorage in the visitor's browser. First open in a tab = 1 session. Refresh = not counted again. New tab = counted again. No cookies, no IP, no personal data stored.
Both counts appear separately on the dashboard with a per-day bar chart.
*Quick integration (replace YOUR_TOOL and PAGE)*
Option 1 - SVG badge (no JS, image only, shows page views): <img src=" https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/badge.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE" alt="Page views">
Option 2 - JS embed (shows both views + unique sessions): 👁 Views: <span id="tc-views"></span> 👤 Unique: <span id="tc-sessions"></span> <script src=" https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/embed.js.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE "></script>
An embed code generator is available on the homepage.
*Privacy* The database stores zero personal data, only anonymous counters per (tool, page) pair. No cookies are set. No IP addresses, User-Agent strings, or usernames are ever written to the database. Full privacy policy: https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/privacy.php
Source code is publicly available and open for audit.
Feedback and contributions are very welcome. Happy to answer questions here or on my talk page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Suyash.dwivedi
Cheers, Suyash Dwivedi https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/
On Wed, May 20, 2026 at 11:45 PM Suyash Dwivedi via Wikitech-l wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi everyone,
I've always been curious about how many people actually visit my Toolforge tools - and I suspect I'm not alone. So I built Toolcounter (https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/), a lightweight, privacy-friendly hit counter designed specifically for Toolforge-hosted tools.
What it tracks
📄 Page views - counted on every page load (including refreshes). Good for total traffic. 👤 Sessions (unique visit approximation) — uses sessionStorage in the visitor's browser. First open in a tab = 1 session. Refresh = not counted again. New tab = counted again. No cookies, no IP, no personal data stored.
Both counts appear separately on the dashboard with a per-day bar chart.
Quick integration (replace YOUR_TOOL and PAGE)
Option 1 - SVG badge (no JS, image only, shows page views):
<img src="https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/badge.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE" alt="Page views">
Option 2 - JS embed (shows both views + unique sessions): 👁 Views: <span id="tc-views"></span> 👤 Unique: <span id="tc-sessions"></span>
<script src="https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/embed.js.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE"></script>
An embed code generator is available on the homepage.
Privacy The database stores zero personal data, only anonymous counters per (tool, page) pair. No cookies are set. No IP addresses, User-Agent strings, or usernames are ever written to the database. Full privacy policy: https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/privacy.php
Source code is publicly available and open for audit.
Seeing many flowers bloom is great. There is also a system you can use at https://toolviews.toolforge.org/api/ which attempts to count 2xx status responses ("hits") for all tools by parsing the access logs generated at the Toolforge reverse proxy service. That system does not currently have a nice UI, but it does have data going back to at least 2019 and does not require inserting tracking tokens in your pages.
Bryan
@Bd808: Ooh, this is nice, I did not know about the existence of this service!
I wonder if there is an easy way for the tool view to tell if a view was from a bot?
Regards, Sohom Datta --- Open-source contributor @Wikimedia
On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 12:15 PM Bryan Davis via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Wed, May 20, 2026 at 11:45 PM Suyash Dwivedi via Wikitech-l wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi everyone,
I've always been curious about how many people actually visit my
Toolforge tools - and I suspect I'm not alone. So I built Toolcounter ( https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/), a lightweight, privacy-friendly hit counter designed specifically for Toolforge-hosted tools.
What it tracks
📄 Page views - counted on every page load (including refreshes). Good
for total traffic.
👤 Sessions (unique visit approximation) — uses sessionStorage in the
visitor's browser. First open in a tab = 1 session. Refresh = not counted again. New tab = counted again. No cookies, no IP, no personal data stored.
Both counts appear separately on the dashboard with a per-day bar chart.
Quick integration (replace YOUR_TOOL and PAGE)
Option 1 - SVG badge (no JS, image only, shows page views): <img src="
https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/badge.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE" alt="Page views">
Option 2 - JS embed (shows both views + unique sessions): 👁 Views: <span id="tc-views"></span> 👤 Unique: <span id="tc-sessions"></span>
<script src="
https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/embed.js.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE "></script>
An embed code generator is available on the homepage.
Privacy The database stores zero personal data, only anonymous counters per
(tool, page) pair. No cookies are set. No IP addresses, User-Agent strings, or usernames are ever written to the database. Full privacy policy: https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/privacy.php
Source code is publicly available and open for audit.
Seeing many flowers bloom is great. There is also a system you can use at https://toolviews.toolforge.org/api/ which attempts to count 2xx status responses ("hits") for all tools by parsing the access logs generated at the Toolforge reverse proxy service. That system does not currently have a nice UI, but it does have data going back to at least 2019 and does not require inserting tracking tokens in your pages.
Bryan
Bryan Davis Wikimedia Foundation Principal Software Engineer Boise, ID USA [[m:User:BDavis (WMF)]] irc: bd808 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
The toolviews API is cool. Have done a small attempt couple of months ago during a workshop for visulize the views based on this API at https://views.toolforge.org/tools/
Best Regards,
*Jinoy * Email: jinoytommanjaly@gmail.com
*Please don’t print this e-mail unless you really need to.Every 3000 sheets consume a tree. Conserve Trees for a better tomorrow!*
On Thu, 21 May 2026 at 22:11, Sohom Datta via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
@Bd808: Ooh, this is nice, I did not know about the existence of this service!
I wonder if there is an easy way for the tool view to tell if a view was from a bot?
Regards, Sohom Datta
Open-source contributor @Wikimedia
On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 12:15 PM Bryan Davis via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Wed, May 20, 2026 at 11:45 PM Suyash Dwivedi via Wikitech-l wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi everyone,
I've always been curious about how many people actually visit my
Toolforge tools - and I suspect I'm not alone. So I built Toolcounter ( https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/), a lightweight, privacy-friendly hit counter designed specifically for Toolforge-hosted tools.
What it tracks
📄 Page views - counted on every page load (including refreshes). Good
for total traffic.
👤 Sessions (unique visit approximation) — uses sessionStorage in the
visitor's browser. First open in a tab = 1 session. Refresh = not counted again. New tab = counted again. No cookies, no IP, no personal data stored.
Both counts appear separately on the dashboard with a per-day bar chart.
Quick integration (replace YOUR_TOOL and PAGE)
Option 1 - SVG badge (no JS, image only, shows page views): <img src="
https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/badge.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE" alt="Page views">
Option 2 - JS embed (shows both views + unique sessions): 👁 Views: <span id="tc-views"></span> 👤 Unique: <span id="tc-sessions"></span>
<script src="
https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/embed.js.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE "></script>
An embed code generator is available on the homepage.
Privacy The database stores zero personal data, only anonymous counters per
(tool, page) pair. No cookies are set. No IP addresses, User-Agent strings, or usernames are ever written to the database. Full privacy policy: https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/privacy.php
Source code is publicly available and open for audit.
Seeing many flowers bloom is great. There is also a system you can use at https://toolviews.toolforge.org/api/ which attempts to count 2xx status responses ("hits") for all tools by parsing the access logs generated at the Toolforge reverse proxy service. That system does not currently have a nice UI, but it does have data going back to at least 2019 and does not require inserting tracking tokens in your pages.
Bryan
Bryan Davis Wikimedia Foundation Principal Software Engineer Boise, ID USA [[m:User:BDavis (WMF)]] irc: bd808 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
Cool. Thank you for sharing this.
It’s pretty motivating to know that somebody out there is actually using my tools https://rtnf.substack.com/p/viewstoolforgeorgtools :)
On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 11:46 PM Jinoy Tom Jacob via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
The toolviews API is cool. Have done a small attempt couple of months ago during a workshop for visulize the views based on this API at https://views.toolforge.org/tools/
Best Regards,
*Jinoy * Email: jinoytommanjaly@gmail.com
*Please don’t print this e-mail unless you really need to.Every 3000 sheets consume a tree. Conserve Trees for a better tomorrow!*
On Thu, 21 May 2026 at 22:11, Sohom Datta via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
@Bd808: Ooh, this is nice, I did not know about the existence of this service!
I wonder if there is an easy way for the tool view to tell if a view was from a bot?
Regards, Sohom Datta
Open-source contributor @Wikimedia
On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 12:15 PM Bryan Davis via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Wed, May 20, 2026 at 11:45 PM Suyash Dwivedi via Wikitech-l wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi everyone,
I've always been curious about how many people actually visit my
Toolforge tools - and I suspect I'm not alone. So I built Toolcounter ( https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/), a lightweight, privacy-friendly hit counter designed specifically for Toolforge-hosted tools.
What it tracks
📄 Page views - counted on every page load (including refreshes). Good
for total traffic.
👤 Sessions (unique visit approximation) — uses sessionStorage in the
visitor's browser. First open in a tab = 1 session. Refresh = not counted again. New tab = counted again. No cookies, no IP, no personal data stored.
Both counts appear separately on the dashboard with a per-day bar
chart.
Quick integration (replace YOUR_TOOL and PAGE)
Option 1 - SVG badge (no JS, image only, shows page views): <img src="
https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/badge.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE" alt="Page views">
Option 2 - JS embed (shows both views + unique sessions): 👁 Views: <span id="tc-views"></span> 👤 Unique: <span id="tc-sessions"></span>
<script src="
https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/embed.js.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE "></script>
An embed code generator is available on the homepage.
Privacy The database stores zero personal data, only anonymous counters per
(tool, page) pair. No cookies are set. No IP addresses, User-Agent strings, or usernames are ever written to the database. Full privacy policy: https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/privacy.php
Source code is publicly available and open for audit.
Seeing many flowers bloom is great. There is also a system you can use at https://toolviews.toolforge.org/api/ which attempts to count 2xx status responses ("hits") for all tools by parsing the access logs generated at the Toolforge reverse proxy service. That system does not currently have a nice UI, but it does have data going back to at least 2019 and does not require inserting tracking tokens in your pages.
Bryan
Bryan Davis Wikimedia Foundation Principal Software Engineer Boise, ID USA [[m:User:BDavis (WMF)]] irc: bd808 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
viewstoolforgeorgtools
from the people who brought you expertsexchange.com (view stool for georg tools icymi)
😂
Having people use your stuff is amazing! That's probably why all those weirdo non-technical editors contribute in the first place 🤔
-Travis
On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 9:01 PM rtnF via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Cool. Thank you for sharing this.
It’s pretty motivating to know that somebody out there is actually using my tools https://rtnf.substack.com/p/viewstoolforgeorgtools :)
On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 11:46 PM Jinoy Tom Jacob via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
The toolviews API is cool. Have done a small attempt couple of months ago during a workshop for visulize the views based on this API at https://views.toolforge.org/tools/
Best Regards,
*Jinoy * Email: jinoytommanjaly@gmail.com
*Please don’t print this e-mail unless you really need to.Every 3000 sheets consume a tree. Conserve Trees for a better tomorrow!*
On Thu, 21 May 2026 at 22:11, Sohom Datta via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
@Bd808: Ooh, this is nice, I did not know about the existence of this service!
I wonder if there is an easy way for the tool view to tell if a view was from a bot?
Regards, Sohom Datta
Open-source contributor @Wikimedia
On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 12:15 PM Bryan Davis via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Wed, May 20, 2026 at 11:45 PM Suyash Dwivedi via Wikitech-l wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi everyone,
I've always been curious about how many people actually visit my
Toolforge tools - and I suspect I'm not alone. So I built Toolcounter ( https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/), a lightweight, privacy-friendly hit counter designed specifically for Toolforge-hosted tools.
What it tracks
📄 Page views - counted on every page load (including refreshes).
Good for total traffic.
👤 Sessions (unique visit approximation) — uses sessionStorage in the
visitor's browser. First open in a tab = 1 session. Refresh = not counted again. New tab = counted again. No cookies, no IP, no personal data stored.
Both counts appear separately on the dashboard with a per-day bar
chart.
Quick integration (replace YOUR_TOOL and PAGE)
Option 1 - SVG badge (no JS, image only, shows page views): <img src="
https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/badge.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE" alt="Page views">
Option 2 - JS embed (shows both views + unique sessions): 👁 Views: <span id="tc-views"></span> 👤 Unique: <span id="tc-sessions"></span>
<script src="
https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/embed.js.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE "></script>
An embed code generator is available on the homepage.
Privacy The database stores zero personal data, only anonymous counters per
(tool, page) pair. No cookies are set. No IP addresses, User-Agent strings, or usernames are ever written to the database. Full privacy policy: https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/privacy.php
Source code is publicly available and open for audit.
Seeing many flowers bloom is great. There is also a system you can use at https://toolviews.toolforge.org/api/ which attempts to count 2xx status responses ("hits") for all tools by parsing the access logs generated at the Toolforge reverse proxy service. That system does not currently have a nice UI, but it does have data going back to at least 2019 and does not require inserting tracking tokens in your pages.
Bryan
Bryan Davis Wikimedia Foundation Principal Software Engineer Boise, ID USA [[m:User:BDavis (WMF)]] irc: bd808 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
As a belated follow-up to this, I've created a new page draft where we can hopefully start to provide more accessible guidance about the available monitoring and analysis tools and best practices for tool developers: https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Toolforge/Monitor_and_analyze_tools (see task at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T433989).
Thanks for making and sharing awesome tools for tools :-)
On Fri, May 22, 2026 at 12:24 AM Travis Briggs via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
viewstoolforgeorgtools
from the people who brought you expertsexchange.com (view stool for georg tools icymi)
😂
Having people use your stuff is amazing! That's probably why all those weirdo non-technical editors contribute in the first place 🤔
-Travis
On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 9:01 PM rtnF via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Cool. Thank you for sharing this.
It’s pretty motivating to know that somebody out there is actually using my tools https://rtnf.substack.com/p/viewstoolforgeorgtools :)
On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 11:46 PM Jinoy Tom Jacob via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
The toolviews API is cool. Have done a small attempt couple of months ago during a workshop for visulize the views based on this API at https://views.toolforge.org/tools/
Best Regards,
*Jinoy * Email: jinoytommanjaly@gmail.com
*Please don’t print this e-mail unless you really need to.Every 3000 sheets consume a tree. Conserve Trees for a better tomorrow!*
On Thu, 21 May 2026 at 22:11, Sohom Datta via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
@Bd808: Ooh, this is nice, I did not know about the existence of this service!
I wonder if there is an easy way for the tool view to tell if a view was from a bot?
Regards, Sohom Datta
Open-source contributor @Wikimedia
On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 12:15 PM Bryan Davis via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Wed, May 20, 2026 at 11:45 PM Suyash Dwivedi via Wikitech-l wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi everyone,
I've always been curious about how many people actually visit my
Toolforge tools - and I suspect I'm not alone. So I built Toolcounter ( https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/), a lightweight, privacy-friendly hit counter designed specifically for Toolforge-hosted tools.
What it tracks
📄 Page views - counted on every page load (including refreshes).
Good for total traffic.
👤 Sessions (unique visit approximation) — uses sessionStorage in
the visitor's browser. First open in a tab = 1 session. Refresh = not counted again. New tab = counted again. No cookies, no IP, no personal data stored.
Both counts appear separately on the dashboard with a per-day bar
chart.
Quick integration (replace YOUR_TOOL and PAGE)
Option 1 - SVG badge (no JS, image only, shows page views): <img src="
https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/badge.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE" alt="Page views">
Option 2 - JS embed (shows both views + unique sessions): 👁 Views: <span id="tc-views"></span> 👤 Unique: <span id="tc-sessions"></span>
<script src="
https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/embed.js.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE "></script>
An embed code generator is available on the homepage.
Privacy The database stores zero personal data, only anonymous counters per
(tool, page) pair. No cookies are set. No IP addresses, User-Agent strings, or usernames are ever written to the database. Full privacy policy: https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/privacy.php
Source code is publicly available and open for audit.
Seeing many flowers bloom is great. There is also a system you can use at https://toolviews.toolforge.org/api/ which attempts to count 2xx status responses ("hits") for all tools by parsing the access logs generated at the Toolforge reverse proxy service. That system does not currently have a nice UI, but it does have data going back to at least 2019 and does not require inserting tracking tokens in your pages.
Bryan
Bryan Davis Wikimedia Foundation Principal Software Engineer Boise, ID USA [[m:User:BDavis (WMF)]] irc: bd808 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org