What are some advantages of using Analytics like Urchin?

Question

I'm interested in utilizing urchin.

What are some advantages of self hosted analytics software like urchin over Google analytics?

Answer 1

This page http://www.google.com/urchin/features.html has a comparison table. The features that it has that Analytics doesn't are:

• Runs on your servers
• Suitable for Intranets
• Process historical logs
• Robot & spider reports
• Status & Error code reports (404s, etc.)
• Individual Visitor History Drilldown

It's not cheap though: US$9995

Answer 2

Each have their own strengths and weaknesses. You need to decide which one's strengths would serve you best and while it's weaknesses do not hurt your ability get usable data.

Google Analytics

Pros:

• Free
• Integrated Adwords tracking
• Updates and new features are automatically included and available to you

Cons:

• Can't reach content behind a firewall
• You cannot self host it
• Google owns your data
• Can't process historical data (e.g. log files)

Urchin

Pros:

• Can host it on your own server
• Track content behind a firewall
• Can process historical data

Cons:

• Expensive
• Not all functionality is available immediately. Modules may need to be added and are an additional cost.
• You have to install it and maintain updates to it

There's more to it then this so you should definitely do more research on your own. The information is definitely out there. But this should give you an idea of how to compare the two to figure out which one best suits your needs.