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What real-time log analyzer can you suggest for Apache access and error logs?

There is a list of web analytics software on WikiPedia, but it would be great to hear opinions from people with experience without having to try all of them.

Please don't suggest Google Analytics or any other hosted/JavaScript analytics suites, already using them, GA is not real-time and it is missing some data that the logs show. For example 404 errors, script errors, the full query-string of the referral, IP addresses, visitor path through the website, etc ...

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    can this be turned into community-wiki?
    – Evgeny Zislis
    Commented Nov 2, 2010 at 16:07
  • Real time log analysis is waay different than real time JS-based tracking. The former is difficult to implement and doesn't scale across multiple instances, and the latter is what Google Analytics uses. If you're looking for a solid Apache logs analyzer, check out Angelfish. analytics.angelfishstats.com
    – Andrew C
    Commented Mar 25, 2016 at 19:02
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    I disagree with the policy of banning all opinion based questions. In many cases an opinion is valuable information, especially if the writer has used more than one product. Rather than ban them, opinion based questions should be flagged as such, and answers held to a different standard.
    – Sherwood Botsford
    Commented Nov 25, 2016 at 14:19

7 Answers 7

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GoAccess is a free text/curses based log analyzer similar to "top".

GoAccess main scrollable dashboard

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    Nice... CentOS even has it in its default repo.
    – user40589
    Commented Oct 31, 2016 at 1:39
  • it would be great it you could share the centos repo!
    – Keerthana Prabhakaran
    Commented Jun 27, 2017 at 7:45
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AWStats is a good open source solution.

Also see http://www.awstats.org and https://github.com/eldy/awstats

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  • doesn't support nginx
    – Jürgen Paul
    Commented Aug 20, 2012 at 3:07
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    AWStats supports Apache log format, and nginx can easily output in Apache log format, so... it does support nginx indirectly.
    – Tim Tisdall
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 13:58
  • Tried this. It can tell you what pages were viewed, and it can tell you who visited and when, and if you need to find out which visitor or IP has been methodically working through your site loading page after page as if they're looking for a vulnerability... go fish, because Awstats won't tell you, near as I can figure out. Or, someone's been repeatedly visiting my site from Google.hk search results, want to know who or what they searched? Tough luck. Blech.
    – John Smith
    Commented Dec 4, 2023 at 6:11
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Matomo (former Piwik) is a good choice (better than awstats, in my opinion)

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    This is the right link for "Log Analyzer" feature of Piwik: piwik.org/log-analytics
    – NickT
    Commented Feb 5, 2013 at 8:28
  • Note: piwik requires that a javascript pixel be added to all your pages.
    – Jay Taylor
    Commented Feb 26, 2018 at 2:31
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    Not necessarily Jay, you can also make Piwik/Matomo crawl your logs. The official manual to do this can be found at matomo.org/docs/log-analytics-tool-how-to
    – Pete
    Commented Aug 24, 2018 at 8:57
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This might seem like a bit of overkill, but Splunk offers web log analyzing and much, much more.

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I was using Urchin before I switched to Google Analyics. The Urchin Project no longer exists.

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  • didn't know urchin could analyze logs -- but it can! this is great!
    – Evgeny Zislis
    Commented Nov 2, 2010 at 15:56
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    only downside is that it costs a fortune :/
    – Evgeny Zislis
    Commented Nov 2, 2010 at 15:58
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    Urchin has been discontinued.
    – Daniel C. Sobral
    Commented May 4, 2012 at 18:49
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    This is the new alternative to Urchin (open source!) piwik.org/log-analytics
    – NickT
    Commented Oct 23, 2013 at 2:21
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    @zylstra Because of course they did. :)
    – Benjamin Nolan
    Commented Mar 21, 2018 at 9:47
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If you're looking for an offline analyzer, I quite like Sawmill:

https://www.sawmill.co.uk

It analyses all sorts of logs, including apache. Has a free trial period.

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    You have to pay for this...
    – tread
    Commented Jan 5, 2017 at 7:42
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ChartBeat a very interesting service, it is actually much more than log analyst - more like a view of the buzz your blog creates, in real-time. Another tool that shows real-time Apache log streams I found, called A Live Log.

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