What Web Analyzer Do You Use?

[soniCron]

I've recently installed phpMyVisites (http://www.phpmyvisites.net/) (yes, that's spelled correctly ;)) on my webserver, and I have to admit that I'm very pleased with with the quality of report that it gives. The reports are well laid out, clean, and visually pleasing. I don't feel like I'm being overloaded with too much information when looking at the data, which is usually presented graphically.

In addition to phpMyVisites, I use StatViz (http://statviz.sourceforge.net/) in tandem with Graphviz (http://graphviz.org/) for analysis of traffic flow. The graphs it creates about the way people traverse the site are invaluable. Knowledge of my site's flow pattern has helped me reduce bottlenecks quite significantly in the past.

I'm wondering what, if any, web analyzer other developers are using for their own sites?

[Davaris]

I use WebLog Expert Lite and I've also been using the trial version of Web Log Storming.

I like WebLog Expert Lite Lite because its free and is quick and easy to use. The only problem is it doesn't show the customer paths through your site.

I only like Web Log Storming because it shows the customer paths. Otherwise it shows too much information and there's no way I'm going to pay $130 just to get path info. I think its worth $20 but $130? No way!

It would be good if people could give the price of the products they mention.


I have a question about StatViz. Why can't they just use the zip format? What is tgz???

[soniCron]

I have a question about StatViz. Why can't they just use the zip format? What is tgz???
TGZ is a Unix format: a tape archive (TAR) that has been Gzipped (GZ). Most decent zip programs should open it, however. WinRAR does, at least.

The method to use StatViz is kind of crude, but once you get a hang of it, it's worth the trouble.

If you're just looking for a simple method to track visitor flow, try out TraceWatch (http://www.tracewatch.com/). The statistics are yucky (too many numbers), but the Path Analysis is really neat! If you want to get detailed, you can even look at individuals' navigational paths. I'm about to install it on my own site for those features.

[Mark Currie]

I've been using http://awstats.sourceforge.net/

I'm pretty happen with it, but I haven't figured out how to see the path visitors take.

[Mike Boeh]

I use sawmill (http://www.sawmill.net/)

It's very nice for paths, and it makes tracking downloads very easy, because you can measure and sort a file by unique users or bytes...


For light real-time viewing, I also use CNStats (http://www.cnstats.com/en/).. It's really cool :)

[svero]

I use the registered version of weblog expert. It's great. My only beef with it is that I cant set it up to run on my linux server automatically. Its a win only app.

- S

[Didier]

ClickTracks Analyzer and FastStats Analyzer
The first one gives a good overview of how visitors navigate through your site.

[ggambett]

what, if any, web analyzer other developers are using for their own sites?
I don't use anything regularly. I was a stat junkie at the beginning but I was able to overcome it :) Lately I've been playing with Visitors (http://www.hping.org/visitors) which is terribly simple, open source and actually well written, so you can hack new reports in almost no time.

I have a question about StatViz. Why can't they just use the zip format? What is tgz???
A zip file does two things - compress data, and put several files into an archive. As you can see, the two activities are orthogonal. The UNIX philosophy says that each tool should do one thing, and do it well. So you have tar (originally Tape ARchive) which takes several files and puts them into a single file (preserving attributes, timestamps, permissions, etc) and a completely separate program gzip which takes a file and compresses it.

So when you want to get several files together and compress them, you first tar them (stuff.tar) and then compress the resulting tar file (stuff.tar.gz).