LOG ANALYZERS - Product Reviews.

We have not evaluated every single log analyzer on the market. We offer our experience to help guide you and reduce the time you spend reviewing products for yourself. If you prefer to wade through a list and evaluate for yourself use this link. It offers a long list of available log analyzers for you to check out and evaluate. If you do, send us your evaluations we would be delighted to add them to our list.

Since our last reviews new products have arrived on the market and some have vanished completely. All good products are also upgraded so something that was totally confusing when we looked at it may have become a little better.

NOTE: Our webmaster is a seasoned professional who has been working in the computer industry for 35 years and with the internet since it's conception. If she considered a program ‘confusing’ or ‘difficult to use’ we suggest beginners don't even bother to look at them.

Prices are approximate and subject to change. Consider as guidelines only

Excellent program. This is the one we finally settled on for our own use.
It's easy to use, and easy to setup. It has a nice interface and gives more data that most uses would really need. It offers a nice range of options and is fully customizable to whatever you want to do with it. Allows you to filter out some addresses and track others in detail. Gives an overview of statistics and more detailed views of each category. Does all the analysis at one time so you don't have to run separate time consuming reports for all the data you need.
Allows you to save the reports in several formats and view them in a browser if you want to. This way you can always save them as an HTML file and email them to someone else if you want.
The report program runs very quickly, unless you are using the lookup option which is slow running with any program. Their website has an excellent detailed explanation of everything the program does and they offer a 30 trail of the full version so you can get the feel of it before you buy it.

The program now comes in several versions which allow you to glean a lot more data from your log files. The less expensive version is ideal for those who don't need an in depth study of their website, while the more expensive version (gold) gives a lot more information for those who need it. You can also upgrade from the earlier slimmer version to the gold without having to buy both if you find you need the more detailed view.
This product produces the most comprehensive easy to use information in the shortest amount of time for the least amount of money. If you want a stats program this is the one we suggest you try.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
If you like this product and decide to buy it. Use the promotion code VISUALENC and they will give you a 10% discount. Use this link for automatic discount when purchasing.

Confusing and difficult to understand. Not that difficult to use and the interface is fairly OK. There is little customization offered. You have to rerun and re-analyze it for every singe report which takes a lot of time to do. Can't see the query string you are using so you just have to hope that you entered what you want correctly since there is no way to check. Cant see the posted from pairs if using this kind of page data.
We did not like this much. However considering the price it's a pretty good product.
SUGGESTED

Has an extremely simple, - to simple interface, and the help is very confusing. It's not very flexible about what you can include or exclude although it does allow you to use a date range. Does not always work on files but gives no error code to say what the problem is.
OK BUT NOT OUR FIRST CHOICE

Does not process XLF Logs.
Difficult to initially configure this program.
Very confusing and difficult to configure. IT is supposed to download files from the server but did not work correctly. Looks as if it could be a great tool if you have several hours to play with it first. The ‘real’ versions that do all the useful stuff are expensive.
YOUR CHOICE

Easy setup. Not too difficult to use and help is fairly easy to follow. Can exclude certain file types and add filters. Can also pick things from specific domains and form the same log file.
Nice colorful interface easy to use and see what is what and add and delete log files.
Lookup process is slow (expected) but does a good job with the results. Reports are easy to follow. Offers general graphics and main stats for each page.
Disadvantage.
It puts the reports in the log file folder. We did not like this feature as it clutters our log file folder with a myriad of other files. (at least two dozen) There is no choice to save the data somewhere else.
This is the best product after Faststats but considering the disadvantages, (file placement and most of all price) why buy this when you get a better product cheaper?
POSSIBLE

This product is not that easy to use. You need to be able to edit the file to get it to run. IF you don't have knowledge of files and file structures it can be quite difficult and confusing to work with. The documentation is very limited so you are left guessing quite a bit. If you do know what you are doing it's fairly straightforward to use. However the reports are not very comprehensive and can be confusing to read.
Customization is very limited and you can do very little with this product. There are much better things on the market.
NOT RECOMMENDED.

Works with server and is not easy to understand unless you are a real ‘nerd’. Unless you want really fancy stuff there is not much point in even checking this product.
NOT RECOMMENDED Unless you really need the level of detail

Uses a browser interface. It takes a long to go from one screen to the next. There are very few options available. Stats when shown are not that comprehensive. It spends a lot of time showing you graphics hits which is silly who cares how often your logo was shown?
Not very helpful.
NOT RECOMMENDED.

We did not evaluate this produce since we could not afford it.