AWStats

AWStats
Original author(s) Laurent Destailleur
Initial release May 2, 2000
Stable release 7.3 / January 29, 2014
Written in Perl
Operating system Cross-platform
Type Web analytics
License GNU General Public License
Website awstats.sourceforge.net

AWStats is an open source 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, and on-demand reporting is supported through a Web browser CGI program.[1]

AWStats supports most major web server log file formats including Apache (NCSA combined/XLF/ELF log format or Common Log Format (CLF)), WebStar, IIS (W3C log format), and many other common web server log formats. Developers can contribute to the AWStats project through SourceForge.net.[1]

Cross-platform availability

Written in Perl, AWStats can be deployed on almost any operating system. It is a server administration tool, with packages available for 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.[1]

Licensing

AWStats is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).[2]

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.[3][4]

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.[5]

Alternatives

Three open source packages are considered the primary alternatives to AWStats:

A number of other open source alternatives to AWStats are available, although not always with same level of functionality, including:

The AWStats project provides a detailed comparison chart.[6]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Awstats: static generated reports of web logs" (HTML). CALOMEL. 2012-03-21. Archived from the original on 2012-03-21. Retrieved 2015-02-12.
  2. "AWStats License / Copyright" (HTML). AWStats. 2012-03-21. Archived from the original on 2002-09-21. Retrieved 2015-02-12.
  3. "AWStats logfile analyzer 7.4 Documentation" (HTML). AWStats. Retrieved 2015-02-12.
  4. "AWStats (forum)" (HTML). Source Forge. Retrieved 2015-02-12.
  5. "SkipReferrersBlackList: Version: 6.5+" (HTML). AWStats. Retrieved 2015-02-12.
  6. "Log analyzers Comparisons" (HTML). AWStats. Retrieved 2015-02-12.

See also

External links