If you need API traffic (mobile apps, integrations, etc.) to count as topic views, I’ve published a small plugin that does exactly that:
api-topic-views
https://github.com/gorfist/api-topic-views
It hooks into TopicsController#show and counts eligible API/User API requests as topic views, with options for custom headers, rate limiting, crawler filtering, and user-aware tracking.
It’s still new and not fully battle-tested yet, but it should work well for most self-hosted setups. Feedback or PRs are very welcome!