What Openstage counts, and what it keeps.
Openstage counts visits so builders can see who reads their work. It counts people in totals, never as profiles.
Updated November 3, 2026.
On a builder's website
A builder can add Openstage's script to their project's website to count its visits. On each page you view there, it sends Openstage the page's address and the project's code. When a page loads, it also sends the address of the page you came from. The request carries your IP address and browser name, as every request does. It sets no cookie and stores nothing in your browser.
Openstage adds the view to that day's totals for the project: page views, and visitors, a visitor being one IP address, or one IPv6 network, on one day. It counts each page by its path, without the query string, and replaces with an asterisk any part of the path that looks like an email address, and most that look like a long id or token. Once a day, it also counts the name of the site you came from, the ref or utm_source tag in the page's address, and your country as Cloudflare reports it. To count you once a day, it keeps a hash of your IP address made with a key that changes every day, and deletes it within two days. For an IPv6 address, it hashes only the first half, the part that names your network. It does not keep your IP address or your device.
Openstage does not count views from bots, from sites other than the project's own, or on a project's site while its counting is off or paused. The builder sees these totals, and the builder's stage and the project's page on Openstage can show the project's page views and visitors.
On Openstage's own pages
A visit to a builder's stage or a project's page records the time, the site you came from, your country as Cloudflare reports it, and a hash of your IP address with the date, not the address itself. The hash is made with a secret key, so without that key it cannot be turned back into the address. A click on a page's links records the link and the time. Bots and the builder's own visits are left out. Builders on Pro see these numbers.
Openstage's request log leaves out your IP address, on its own pages and for the script's page views.
Openstage's own site analytics run on Umami, which sets no cookie, and on Openstage's script, which counts this site as it counts a builder's website.
If you sign in, follow or pay
Signing in with GitHub gives Openstage your GitHub username, name, avatar and email, and a token to read your repositories' commits, which it stores encrypted. Deleting your account in Settings removes it for good after 30 days.
Following a builder or a project keeps your email. Nothing but the confirmation is sent until you confirm, and every email after it has a one-click unsubscribe.
Payments go through Stripe; Openstage never sees your card.
Questions
Write to tuxnotfound@cioga.eu.