AWStats

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AWStats is a free web analytics reporting tool, suitable for analyzing data from Internet services such as web, streaming media, mail and ftp servers. AWstats parses and analyzes server log files, producing html reports. Data is visually presented within reports by tables and bar graphs. Static reports can be created through a command line interface. On-demand reporting is supported through a web browser CGI program.

AWStats supports most major web server log file formats including Apache (NCSA combined/XLF/ELF log format or common/CLF log format), WebStar, Internet Information Services (IIS) (W3C log format) and many other common Internet formats. Developers can contribute to the AWStats project through SourceForge.

1 Cross-platform availability
2 Licensing
3 Support
4 Security considerations
5 Alternatives
6 See also
7 External links
8 References

[edit] Cross-platform availability

Written in Perl, AWStats can be deployed on almost any operating system. It is a very popular server administration tool, included in most Linux distributions. AWStats can be installed on a workstation, such as MS Windows, for local use in situations where log files can be downloaded from a remote server.

[edit] Licensing

AWStats is licensed under the GNU GPL.

[edit] Support

Proper web log analysis tool configuration and report interpretation requires a bit of technical and business knowledge. AWStats support resources include documentation, and user community forums

[edit] Security considerations

The on-demand CGI program has been the object of security exploits, as is the case of many CGI programs. Organizations wishing to provide public access to their web analytics reports should consider generating static html reports. The on-demand facility can still be used by restricting its use to internal users. Precautions should be taken against referrer spam. Referrer spam filtering functionality was added in version 6.5.

[edit] Alternatives

There are two primary open source alternatives to AWStats.

Analog offers a wealth of reporting options for a technical audience. It does not support the concept of a visitor, usually desired for business analysis.
Webalizer is offered by many ISPs as it is fast and simple. It has a smaller functionality set compared to AWStats. Development and support appears to have stopped in 2002. This leads to issues such as Firefox browsers being counted as Netscape.

The AWStats project provides a detailed comparison chart.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

AWStats official web site includes documentation, news, software download and community support forums.
Antezeta AWStats Resource Center includes custom reports (Extra Sections) and functionality extensions.
InternetOfficer AWStats Library with AWStats Referrers add-on, aws2xls utility and many Extra Sections.
Analyzing Web Logs with AWStats Part 1 and Part 2 are step-by-step AWStats guides to install, configure and interpret reports. Includes Linux and Windows examples.
Installing AWStats at 1and1 is a step-by-step tutorial guiding through installation and configuration. Targeted at users of 1and1's promotional "Professional Package Preview".
Install AWStats at DreamHost - instructions to setup AWStats on the DreamHost servers.
Installing AWStats for multiple domains
A quick AWstats guide - Custom AWStats installation in the user's home directory, configuration tips and creation of static HTML reports with extra sections.