This post is part of a small series about the use of Coolify.

In a first post I went back over the reasons for my migration to Coolify.

In a second post I explained how to run a Kotlin application on Coolify.

The third allowed me to talk about installing Postgresql and setting up backups on S3.

And now that we've got an application running on Coolify, you know what we're missing?

Understanding whether the application is working properly. To know what the business performance of our product is.

I'm simplifying, but that's what we call BI (business intelligence).

There are dedicated software for this, but you have to install them or use online services.

Of course, if you've installed your application on Google Cloud, you've got Looker.

If you've installed on AWS, you've got QuickSight. And any good PAAS worthy of the name should offer you an alternative.

Well, here's your chance to see the richness of a product like Coolify, which packs in a whole ecosystem of services.

Indeed, Coolify lets you add services from a predefined list of open source products that can be deployed with a single click.

We already installed Postgresql this way in the last post. But there are lots of other services too, to embed your own LLM, to push notifications, to manage your personal finances, to do marketing automation etc....

And the one we're most interested in for BI, is Metabase.

Metabase installation

I installed Metabase by first creating a separate project for my application: Analytics.

Why separate? Because I know I'll be using the same instance of Metabase for several applications, so I might as well separate them from the start.

Then, in just a few clicks, I installed Metabase as a new service.

There's one pitfall to avoid, and that's checking the "Connect to Predefined Network" box.

This option allows Metabase to see other applications on the same network. And this is obviously very important if you then want to connect to databases installed via Coolify without having to go back over the Internet.

This is a local connection, within the Coolify application network.

Once this is done, the application launches on a url you've defined, for example metabase.mycoolify.com.

Go to this URL and let yourself be guided through the installation process: creation of the admin user, connection to databases, etc.

Database connections are made through the local network, not the public urls.

Using Metabase

Here's my current dashboard:

You'll notice that I have two dashboards:

• RssFeedPulse, which corresponds to a SAAS I released mid-year.
• BlogTally, which should be out early next year.

You can build a dashboard from analyses.

An analysis can be made via a simple SQL query

Here you can see the number of new accounts per month on RssFeedPulse.

But there's also a guided view, for example here to see earnings in euros per month:

I'm going to move on a little quickly to the use of Metabase, as a tutorial would be too long and the official site already contains some very good guides.

Conclusion: the Coolify marketplace is one of the richest for a PAAS.

The bottom line is that Coolify lets you install a whole host of services without any fuss, and you end up with a PAAS offering one of the richest marketplaces on the market.

Not to mention that, in the final analysis, any application running on Docker can easily be added.

In short, I still have no regrets about my migration to Coolify. :)

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