Quantely Activity vs Stream – Activity Log & Audit Trail

Lightweight, privacy-conscious pageview and event logging plugin that runs inside your own website. Quantely Activity is built to capture activity reliably under imperfect conditions through server-side recording and optional client-side signals, while supporting filtering for bots, unwanted pages, IP sources and selectable WordPress logged-in roles. Quantely Activity can be used for: Monitoring site behavior Reviewing traffic patterns Security and bot analysis Feeding downstream analytics layers Quantely Activity is turn-key: install it, and pageviews and events should begin appearing shortly after. Raw activity data is retained for a configurable short period, helping keep the plugin lightweight and privacy-conscious. What Quantely Activity is Quantely Activity is a capture and monitoring layer. It is designed to record activity on your site in a structured and reliable way, with a strong focus on signal capture and data integrity. Unlike many analytics tools, it does not focus on marketing analytics, attribution modelling, or behavioral profiling. It also does not rely solely on browser JavaScript. A server-side baseline helps ensure pageviews are still captured when scripts or beacons fail. Hybrid capture engine The plugin combines server-side pageview capture with optional browser-side signals. Typical flow: Browser request ↓ Server pageview baseline ↓ Browser attach (Beacon) – engagement pings – interaction events ↓ Correlation via pageview identifiers ↓ Bot classification and exclusions ↓ Deduplication and storage This architecture helps keep capture reliable under real-world conditions where browser-only tracking can miss signals. Event correlation and deduplication Quantely Activity links browser-side signals back to the pageview where they occurred. Engagement pings, clicks, form submissions, and similar events can be correlated to their originating pageview. Built-in deduplication helps avoid duplicate records when similar signals are captured from both browser and server-side sources. This keeps the activity stream more accurate and easier to interpret. Fully on-site All captured activity is stored in your own WordPress database. Quantely Activity does not send captured activity data to external services. IP addresses are never stored in plain form, and the plugin does not perform cross-site tracking. Privacy-aware design The plugin is designed with privacy-conscious principles in mind: No plain IP addresses stored Short configurable retention window Optional honoring of GPC / DNT signals No external tracking services Data remains on your own site This gives site owners visibility into activity while keeping capture local and controlled. Hooks Quantely Activity exposes a small developer API for integrations and downstream processing. qmon_hit_before_insert — Filter a normalized hit array before it is stored. qmon_hit_recorded — Action fired after a hit has been stored. This is the main integration point for forwarding or persisting captured records. qmon_event_normalize — Filter a normalized event payload before it is finalized. qmon_event_db_dedupe_window_sec — Filter the database deduplication window for events. qmon_bot_verdict — Filter the bot-classification verdict before it is finalized.

Stream is a complete activity log and audit trail for your WordPress site: see what changed, who changed it, and when. From plugin activations to post edits, login attempts to new user creation, every user and system action is recorded in an audit log built for debugging, security monitoring, and compliance. Every logged action is displayed in an activity stream and organized for easy filtering by User, Role, Context, Action or IP address. Admins can highlight entries in the activity log—such as suspicious user activity—to investigate what’s happening in real time. Stream also lets you configure email alerts and webhooks for integrations like Slack and IFTTT, so your team knows the moment something goes wrong. Stream keeps its own logs healthy too: records are automatically purged on the retention schedule you choose, with batched deletion and orphaned-data cleanup that stay reliable even on very large sites. Stream is also AI-ready: its abilities are exposed through the WordPress Abilities API and MCP Adapter, so AI assistants and other tools can securely query your site’s activity records. For advanced users, Stream supports a network view of all activity records on your Multisite, exclude rules to ignore certain kinds of user activity, and a WP-CLI command for querying records. Stream is free and fully open source — development happens in the open on GitHub, maintained by XWP. With Stream’s powerful activity logging, you’ll have the information you need to responsibly manage your WordPress sites. Built-In Tracking Integrations For Popular Plugins: Advanced Custom Fields bbPress BuddyPress Easy Digital Downloads Gravity Forms Jetpack Two Factor User Switching WooCommerce Yoast SEO Built-In Tracking For Core Actions: Posts Pages Custom Post Types Users Themes Plugins Tags Categories Custom Taxonomies Settings Custom Backgrounds Custom Headers Menus Media Library Widgets Comments Theme Editor WordPress Core Updates Other Noteworthy Features: Multisite view of all activity records on a network Limit who can view user activity records by user role Set exclude rules to ignore certain kinds of user activity Live updates of user activity records in the Stream Export your Activity Stream as a CSV or JSON file WP-CLI command for querying records Configuration Most of the plugin configuration is available under the “Stream” → “Settings” page in the WordPress dashboard. Request IP Address The plugin expects the $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] variable to contain the verified IP address of the current request. On hosting environments with PHP processing behind reverse proxies or CDNs the actual client IP is passed to PHP through request HTTP headers such as X-Forwarded-For and True-Client-IP which can’t be trusted without an additional layer of validation. Update your server configuration to set the $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] variable to the verified client IP address. As a workaround, you can use the wp_stream_client_ip_address filter to adapt the IP address: add_filter( 'wp_stream_client_ip_address', function( $client_ip ) { // Trust the first IP in the X-Forwarded-For header. // ⚠️ Note: This is inherently insecure and can easily be spoofed! if ( ! empty( $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'] ) ) { $forwarded_ips = explode( ',' $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'] ); if ( filter_var( $forwarded_ips[0], FILTER_VALIDATE_IP ) ) { return $forwarded_ips[0]; } } return $client_ip; } ); ⚠️ WARNING: The above is an insecure workaround that you should only use when you fully understand what this implies. Relying on any variable with the HTTP_* prefix is prone to spoofing and cannot be trusted! Known Issues We have temporarily disabled the data removal feature through plugin uninstallation, starting with version 3.9.3. We identified a few edge cases that did not behave as expected and we decided that a temporary removal is preferable at this time for such an impactful and irreversible operation. Our team is actively working on refining this feature to ensure it performs optimally and securely. We plan to reintroduce it in a future update with enhanced safeguards. Contribute There are several ways you can get involved to help make Stream better: Report Bugs: If you find a bug, error or other problem, please report it! You can do this by creating a new topic in the plugin forum. Once a developer can verify the bug by reproducing it, they will create an official bug report in GitHub where the bug will be worked on. Translate into Your Language: Use the official plugin translation tool to translate Stream into your language. Suggest New Features: Have an awesome idea? Please share it! Simply create a new topic in the plugin forum to express your thoughts on why the feature should be included and get a discussion going around your idea. Issue Pull Requests: If you’re a developer, the easiest way to get involved is to help out on issues already reported in GitHub. Be sure to check out the contributing guide for developers. Thank you for wanting to make Stream better for everyone! View contributors here.