Web Stats Analytics Software / Log Analyzers Review – Google Analytics, Fusestats, Stat Counter, and Phpmyvisites
Google Analytics - In April of 2005, Google purchased a software company named Urchin Software Corporation. Urchin provided web analytics software that was reportedly used by millions of customers including 20% of all Fortune 500 companies. Google added new features to the software and eventually allowed anyone to use it for free.
GA is free and feature rich. It is arguably the best analytics offerings on the market. However, I've decided to discontinue using it for reasons I mentioned in a previous post. If you don't mind sharing all your site stats with Google, then you should look no further than Google Analytics. But before you do, I'd recommend reading Free Log Analysis Website Stats Software and Google Analytics - Why they may not be free.
Fusestats - I signed up for a free trial with Fusestats. If everything worked out, I planned on upgrading to a paid version to track most of my 42 sites.
The Fusestat interface is quite impressive. There are plenty of charts, graphs, and heatmaps that show what part of the page your visitors are clicking. It would have been great to have gotten a few more of these features to actually work!
More times than not, I'd get an error page when I would try to access my stats. When I would get access, a lot of the features just didn't work. I didn't get the heat maps to work one single time. And even though the software is supposed to be able to track multiple domains inside of one interface, I never got that to work either. When I would click "Real Time Stats" I would see a summary of all the sites that I had Fusestat code installed on. However, when I tried to click detailed reports, only one of these multiple sites had detailed reports available.
I wrote a support request a few days ago, and never got a response back. The documentation also leaves something to be desired.
I've read that Fusestats is actually in Beta. I didn't see any evidence of this on the site, but suspect this is probably the case. Once all these features are working and the bugs are worked out, I'd put this Fusestats Analytics Software beside of Google any day.
Statcounter - I signed up for a trial with Statcounter the other day. It contains every feature you will need to determine where you traffic is coming from and who is visiting your site. The free version only allows you to view stats on a maximum 500 page views, but there are paid versions that can handle any size site.
Statcounter works fine and lives up to everything it promises to be. Personally, I just didn't like the interface. The best I can tell, it only allows viewing on 20 records at a time. I was looking at reports on keyword traffic for one of my larger sites. This site gets traffic from over 1,000 keywords. There was no option for me to view 100, 250, or 500 records at a time. I could only view 20 at a time.
Phpmyvisites - I'm in love! This software is open source, so you can't beat the free price. It also hosts on your own site! Now you don't have to worry about sharing your stats with Google or some other company offering a "free" version of web stats software.
In addition to the privacy advantages and the free price, this software is feature rich. It isn't on the same lines as Google Analytics, but it provides more than enough info for the average webmaster.
Phpmyvisites offers their own version of heat maps called Click Heat. They also provide excellent support. I wrote a support request and had an answer within a few hours. There is also a forum with a lot of active members helping one another.
Phpmyvisites contains the two features that I considered necessary in Analytic software.
1. There is multiple domain support from one interface. No more logging in and out of 42 control panels to track my domains. Now I can log in once and see a summary of all my sites and easily drill down for more detailed info should I want.
2. It is hosted on my own machine. I don't have to worry about who is looking at my stats, or what they are doing with them.
I consider Phpmyvisites the best web stats program on the market. The "Free" price is just icing on the cake. Of course I know real people have spent real time putting this thing together. I plan to make a donation to support the work.
Check out Phpmyvisites today! I promise you will not be disappointed.
Good Luck,
Brent Crouch
Tags: fusestats, google-analytics, log-analysis, phpmyvisites, statcounter, traffic-analyzer, webiste-statistics, website-stats-software
Thanks for your recommendation.
Have you tested any log file analyzer and compare it with online web stats service? I use google analytic and Nihuo Web Log Analyzer both. Nihuo is a very good data mining tools, many interesting data can be dug out from log files with it.
Hi Brent!
I see you”ve fallen in love with Phpmyvisite.
Have you checked out Logaholic Web Analytics? (you can download the trial here: http://www.logaholic.com/wp/trial-download/)
It does all the things you mentioned above, plus an A/B split testing tool (PHP and URL), a sales funnel report and trends analysis so you can actually find out what influences the changes in your site’s traffic. Logaholic is customized for all uses: there is a Self Hosted, Desktop, Live, and Service Provider edition.
As for the support, if you have any questions just check out our website http://www.logaholic.com or email us at: sales@logaholic.com ( we are also online for a live chat with our visitors).