Can anyone recommend a good program for analyzing web stats? Let me tell you what I'm looking for first:
Simple setup. I just spent 30 minutes trying to get awstats working, and it was a royal pain in the rear. I've used Analog as well - and while Analog actually worked for me, it is still a pain to configure. (If someone can recommend a GUI editor for Analog config files, that would be ok.)
Caching. Basically, once it scans the log file for January 1, 2005, it should remember that it cached it.
Reverse DNS lookup.
Price: I'm looking for free, but I don't mind buying a program if it is worth the money. Although I'm not in the market for an "Enterprise" type solution. I mean something less than a hundred dollars or so.
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www.123loganalyzer.com
We use it where I work. It's FAST, real FAST (I have to routinly analyze 50 gig log file packages), can read zip files, cheap in price and the reports have a TON of information.
They have a trial version on their site. Check it out.
I've had some luck with two analyzers: Funnel Web (http://www.quest.com/funnel... and 123LogAnalyzer (http://www.log-analyzer.net/). I have to admit I like Funnel Web better as it has more options you can set (automatically downloading/uploading files, themes, media reporting, mapping, and archiving of logs to gzip and reports to zip. It even has a nice little feature that emails you when its finished (if you've set it up as a task). It may not be everything you want, but it's pretty easy to set up and worth the free download.
http://awstats.sourceforge.net
You need just PERL on system.
Tony/Wayne: I'll try 123 and Funnel Web. I remember trying Funnel _years_ ago, I didn't like it, but I'll definitely try it again.
Oguz - as I said, I tried awstats and found it to be a pain. I spent 30 minutes trying to get it to read my logs and just gave up.
Am I crazy - or is there no way to buy Funnel? In fact, I don't even see it listed on the All Products page.
Oh - its freeware. The link still says trial download, but maybe that's just old.
Sorry. I passed your try.
I can say that I am using AwStats on more than 30 servers for years without any problem.
we use this. our bosses are happy and we are happy.
http://www.smartertools.com...
its also used by crystaltech!
Our hosting provider also uses SmarterStats that Dave posted. It has some limitations but seems to do the job for the most part. I know you are doing things with Model-Glue / Fusebox / etc. Query string related stats are SmarterStats weak part. If you decided to go with SmarterStats, I would suggest implementing 1x1 images to track what events are running and filter out index.cfm from the stats. You can start off with what I have written at http://www.franciswscott.com, its not perfect but seems to work nicely with SmarterStats so far.
Check out Sawmill from flowerfire. It produces very nice very full reports pretty rapidly, and it can be had for as little as $100 for a single domain.
And if you're a good scripter, you can make that single domain license work for as many web sites as you want ;) Not that I'd recommend doing that, of course.
Hi Ray,
Surprised you struggled with AWStats, I use it on both Windows and Linux servers and it ticks all the boxes for me. Easy to set-up, free, detailed enough reports.
Go on, give it a bit more time!
Matt
2 things bugged me about awstats:
1) It can't parse a directory. You have to combine the logs. They have a nice tool for that - but that took some time as well.
2) Lastly - the log format. I use IIS. I had to tell AWStats my log format. I tried - and tried - and tried - but the app kept saying my logformat wasn't correct. Finally I just gave up.
Btw - I tried funnel and it seems ok. I like the output as well.
Ray -
Sorry to hear you were having issues with AWStats. I have used it before in the past an dofund it to be fairly robust (for a free prodct). I don't remember having a lot of difficulty getting it running, though.
From a purely user standpoint, I have also used Urhin. I thibk version 4 is what is used on the server for my personal (and client) sites. I like the interface, but not as much as I liked awstats.
You have right. Detecting IIS6 format is a bit complicated. But you can customize your parse method depending on your log format.
Here is a good explanation for AwStats & IIS6 installation.
http://briandesmond.com/blo...
Just a thought: http://www.deepmetrix.com - We use LiveSTATS.Net.
I use webalizer alot and have been happy with it.
You might also be happy with wusage. (I thought it was free, but appears to be free for 30 days, and $35 for a single site license)
http://www.mrunix.net/webal...
http://www.boutell.com/wusage/
Not to jump on the bandwagon, but I've used AWStats for a couple of years now and it works great.. took less than 5 minutes to config as well. It must be an AWStats on Windows thing.
http://www.weblogexpert.com/
As a Fuseboxer there are several factors which make this one stand out for me:
1) It can distinguish page requests by query string
2) You can configure the report's file extension, so by making it "index.cfm" it's easily integrated into an app rather than being a standalone URL.
3) Nice, clean, intuitive design: both the engine and the generated reports.
4) Plenty of config options, including scheduling, PDF output etc
5) It's not OS, but it's under $100 and is being actively developed: new version currently in beta.
Maybe not as powerful/flexible as some, but worth a look particularly if you want something that's simple for client's to use.
Ray-
I've used a number of log analysis tools, and recently have been using Summary (http://www.summary.net). It runs on multiple platforms, and it's available in multiple versions. It also has a free 30-day trail. I actually offload logs to a seperate box running a different OS.
I have used Web Log Suite in the past. Standard Edition is $55 and the Pro Edition is $95. Free 30 day trial of both products. http://www.exacttrend.com/w...
I have to agree with noname. LiveSTATS from DeepMetrix is awesome, I use it at work. I know you can get a freen demo on their Web site
www.deepmetrix.com