Log analysis for Linux

I've been running the business and developing our sites using Linux for a couple of months now, and there have been no Windows applications I've really missed or been unable to find an adequate replacement for. However until a couple of days ago I had just been too busy to do any web server log analysis to see what our site visitors were up to. Under Windows I had been using Web Log Storming, a powerful interactive web log analyzer that lets you quickly set filters and do drill-down analysis to find out exactly how people arrive at any goal, and what search keywords they were using. Linux seems to have nothing remotely equivalent.

Most of the advice given to people wanting to analyze web server usage under Linux seems to be to use software like Analog or AWStats. I'm familiar with both of these as they are installed as standard on any web hosting running cPanel, and in my opinion they are more or less useless. They are fine if you just want to see how many hits you are getting to a particular page, which is probably all many people are interested in. But anyone who understands that hits are a pretty meaningless indicator of the effectiveness of a site will be dissatisfied with any tool that just presents you with a static set of graphs or tables and doesn't let you look any deeper.

The most valuable feature of a good web log analyzer is the ability to show the paths taken by visitors when they come to the site. You can see which pages brought the people who ended up buying or downloading product X, and what pages or search engine queries referred them here. You can also see the people who arrived at the same pages and didn't buy or download a product, which helps identify the areas where it would be worthwhile spending time trying to make the site more effective.

I thought I had found the tool I was looking for when I came across Funnel Web Analyzer, which is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The Linux version doesn't have a graphical interface, you have to edit a configuration file, but that doesn't matter. I was even considering making a GUI for it. It only produces a fixed report, but it does include a report on paths taken through the site that helps you to see which are the most effective pages.

But then I found that the developers of Funnel Web aren't developing it any more, nor have they made the source code available for the community to continue maintaining it. It's abandonware. It still works pretty well, but if you find a problem there is no chance of a solution.

So if anyone knows of a good, interactive web stats analysis tool that works under Linux, please let me know.

« Restricted freedom | Home | Out of tune »