W3Perl is a free

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

 logfile analyser, which can parse Web/FTP/Mail/CUPS or Squid files. Most major web logfile formats are supported (Web : CLF/ECLF/NECLF on Unix, IIS

Internet Information Services

Internet Information Services – formerly called Internet Information Server – is a web server application and set of feature extension modules created by Microsoft for use with Microsoft Windows. It is the most used web server after Apache HTTP Server. IIS 7.5 supports HTTP, HTTPS,...

/W3C on Microsoft ; Mail : Postfix/Sendmail/Exim), as well as split/compressed files. "Page tagging" and counter are also supported if you do not have logfiles access. The output is spread over HTML pages, with graphics and a sortable table. Stats can be run from a single command line or from a web browser.

Features

Essential features like hosts, pages, scripts, countries, filetype, traffic, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, referrer, user agent

User agent

In computing, a user agent is a client application implementing a network protocol used in communications within a client–server distributed computing system...

, and error are available along with other specific W3Perl stats like real-time and session stats.

Administration

W3Perl has an administration interface which allows building configuration files from a web interface. One can also manage configuration files, package updates, run scripts, and see stats output.

Cross-platform availability

Written in Perl

Perl

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...

, W3Perl can be installed on any operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 that supports Perl. As such, it can be installed on Unix, Windows or Macintosh. An installer is available for Windows, thanks to NSIS

Nullsoft Scriptable Install System

Nullsoft Scriptable Install System is a script-driven Windows installation system with minimal overhead backed by Nullsoft, the creators of Winamp...

.

Security considerations

Running the scripts from the administration interface should be restricted with login/password. Blocking referrer spam have been added in the latest version but as it is based on a blacklist, the file must be updated regularly. Real-time stats can only run once to prevent overloading the server.

Alternatives

There are several other free packages available:

• Analog
  Analog (program)
  Analog is a free web log analysis software program that runs under Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and most Unix-like operating systems. It was first released on June 21, 1995, by Stephen Turner as generic freeware; the license was changed to the GNU General Public License in November 2004...
  
  , written in C and so is really fast but it lacks some important features like session stats.
• AWStats
  AWStats
  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...
  
  , although it lacks some features present in W3Perl.
• Piwik
  Piwik
  Piwik is an open source web analytics system written by a team of international developers, and runs on a PHP/MySQL webserver. Piwik is used by over 250,000 websites and is translated in more than 45 languages....
  
  , a set of PHP scripts with a MySql
  MySQL
  MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...
  
   database.
• Webalizer
  Webalizer
  The Webalizer is a GPL application that generates web pages of analysis, from access and usage logs, i.e. it is web log analysis software. It is one of the most commonly used web server administration tools. It was initiated by Bradford L. Barrett in 1997. Statistics commonly reported by Webalizer...
  
  , offered by many ISP
  Internet service provider
  An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
  
  s as it is fast and simple.

See also

• Web analytics
  Web analytics
  Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage....
  
  
• Web log analysis software
  Web log analysis software
  Web log analysis software is a simple kind of Web analytics software that parses a log file from a web server, and based on the values contained in the log file, derives indicators about who, when, and how a web server is visited...
  
  
• Server log
  Server log
  A server log is a log file automatically created and maintained by a server of activity performed by it.A typical example is a web server log which maintains a history of page requests. The W3C maintains a standard format for web server log files, but other proprietary formats exist...
  
  
• Data logging

External links

• W3Perl official web site — includes documentation, news, software download and community support forums.
• Localization in Thai language