

Keen IO builds your custom analytics infrastructure so you don’t have to - mwetzler
http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/01/keen-io-builds-your-custom-analytics-infrastructure-so-you-dont-have-to/

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fomojola
Excellent interface: the docs are a little opaque in places but all in all one
of the best implementations I've worked with. Their use of scoped keys
([https://keen.io/docs/security/](https://keen.io/docs/security/)) to allow
client-side data access is pretty awesome: very surprised that I haven't seen
more usage of the technique in other data providers. The ability to provide
client dashboards that directly access Keen's servers from within our web app
without needing to proxy the data through us is simply awesome.

~~~
mwetzler
Wow, thanks for the kind words! I'm blushing over here. I wrote a big portion
of our docs and would love to know which parts could be fleshed out more (I
can think of a few areas but I'm curious what you think).

~~~
fomojola
You're welcome: Keen's been great to work with. Mostly just organization: as
far as I can tell you've recently started maintaining some of the docs at the
Github repo, but much of the original writeups were on
[https://keen.io/docs/clients/javascript/reference/](https://keen.io/docs/clients/javascript/reference/).
It makes it a little confusing jumping around and linking back and forth when
you trying to figure out how to do a new thing. For my money (not much of it,
but its what I have) Stripe's API doc reference
([https://stripe.com/docs/api](https://stripe.com/docs/api)) which wraps both
the concepts and the code samples into a nice little ball are still the gold
standard.

~~~
mwetzler
Ah yes, we are in an awkward zone with some docs on our site in Sphinx and
others on Github. We love that developers can PR our docs on Github, and we
agree that Stripe's docs are the BEST. At some point we will tackle a doc
revamp that puts us in that direction. The personalized code samples & easy
library switching features of Stripe docs are a dream.

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gtaylor
Can anyone who has used or is using these guys share some feedback on your
experiences? Also, if anyone knows of any other services that allow you send
event data like this for later querying/analysis, I'd love to hear about them.
Keen IO seems to be exactly what we're looking for, conceptually.

~~~
eli
On some level Mixpanel is a competitor. You can send it events and
query/extract them later. Mixpanel is geared towards app/web analytics and
marketing-type purposes. Mixpanel gives you some tools for building queries
and reports and lets you export to Excel. Keen is geared towards developers.
You can build charts that you can embed in other webpages (which is very cool)
but building the queries kinda needs API access.

If you're creating a custom analytics tool that integrates tightly with your
system, Keen might be a better choice. Especially if you're going to e.g. let
your customers view and analyze their own data (but not see anyone else's),
Keen is a no brainer. It's got a better API and much better API security
model.

If you're looking for something more akin to a Google Analytics replacement
but event-based instead of pageview-based, Mixpanel or similar might be
better.

Keen and Mixpanel both had great support, by the way. I'd encourage you to
reach out to one or both if you're curious about how to integrate with it.

~~~
gtaylor
We looked at Mixpanel, but Keen seems to be more in line with what we need.

Thanks for the response, this is helpful.

~~~
mwetzler
Eli's description is spot-on! I work at Keen IO and I'd be happy to talk
through your integration and help determine if we're a good fit. Data modeling
sessions are my speciality and I'd be happy to do one over the phone or in
person if you're in SF!

~~~
gault8121
I'm building an metrics dashboard for Quill.org, a platform for writing
activities. How can I reach you?

~~~
mwetzler
Sounds cool (and right up our alley)! Reach me at michelle at keen.io!

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bagels
From their TOS: [https://keen.io/tos](https://keen.io/tos)

You grant us a... fully paid license to use the Content... for purposes of
providing the Services... to other users of the Services

They want a license to give my data away to other customers?

~~~
dkador
(Disclaimer: founder of Keen IO here.)

That's a bit misleading, I think. The full paragraph:

You are solely responsible for any content and other material that you submit,
publish, transmit, or display on, through, or with our Services (“Content”).
You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free and fully paid license
to use the Content, as necessary, for purposes of providing the Services to
you and other users of the Services. All rights in and to the Content not
expressly granted to us in this Agreement are reserved by you.

Anyways, legal mumbo jumbo aside (we obviously could make this clearer), we
absolutely don't sell or give your data to anybody but you. That's one of the
major differences between us and some other analytics companies. Your data is
yours and we won't monetize it.

~~~
bagels
Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't trying to mislead anyone, I just wanted
to know what license keen claims on the data we'd be providing.

~~~
dkador
Makes total sense. This is an important point for many of our customers so I
appreciate you calling it out. Thanks!

