Looking for real-time web server analytics package [closed]

Question

I am the programmer for the Education department at a county hospital. I would like to be able to see some real-time stats on an IIS6 web server that is only accessible in-house. I'm looking for something similar to what 1and1.com provides for their customers (if you're familiar with what they offer).

I have a Classic ASP/VBScript based Learning Management System that I would like to do some traffic analysis on, and the last package I tried (the site for it no longer exists) ran fine for a year, and then started massively slowing down the server.

In no particular order, I would like:

• I would like to track who visited what page as we have Basic Authentication turned on (optional)
• I would like to track what pages are most frequently visited
• I would like to be able to track a given individual's progress from page to page. This is something I sort-of did with the old tool and found it very helpful.
• I would like to see basic stats on the browsers: window size, color depth, type, etc. I know our IST department says we are all using IE6, and they say a few other stats that the last package showed to be a little less than correct. I want to know what I need to work with.
• I would like to not have to remote in to the server to run an .exe or any of the other fun, convoluted solutions I've seen floating around...

While I would prefer an ASP/VBScript solution so I can more easily fix it if needed, I would be willing to use a PHP or ASP.NET based solution if that's all I can get my hands on. I've stumbled across a couple of ASP.NET packages, and some of them look like they may be worthwhile.

Preemptively I would like to go ahead and say:

• No, I am not going ditch ASP/VBScript as I am the sole developer and I just don't have the time.
• Please no comments about IE6 either. Its pointless as there's nothing I've been able to do about it.
• No, I can't use Google Analytics. This is in-house so any and all options that I can't install on my server are out. This is non-negotiable.
• All Google Analytics-like programs are out too. Anything that requires hits back to some outside service is out.
• PERL is not installed, nor am I willing to install it. This is not up for discussion.

I'm sure there's some detail I've forgotten to add to the question, but I'll add it when I remember.

Bodega

Answer 1

Ended up going with SmarterStats as mentioned at:

IIS monitoring tool

Its free for one site (which is all I need to monitor), it tracks almost everything I need to track, and so far it runs quite nicely.

Thank you all for your answers.

Bodega

Answer 2

To the best o my knowledge, Splunk is one of the best players in that area. You can use it for free up to about 500MB of logs per day. OSSec has a slightly different focus (intrusion detection), but might also be useful for your (seemingly basic) purposes.

Scherman

Answer 3

Piwik "aims to be an open source alternative to Google Analytics."

It requires PHP and MySQL (to host it on your own server).

Guildroy

Looks promising, too bad it doesn't natively support SQL Server since I've already got that running on the web server... – Bodega

Answer 4

I use Woopra on a number of sites. It shows a wealth of real-time info and even let's you interact with your site users. Here is a full screen shot.

Fulfillment

Looks good, but it looks like it requires some traffic back to their site... unless I misunderstood. If its the former, then I can't use it as everything must sit behind the firewall w/o any outside connections. Otherwise I'd just use Google Analytics and be done with it. – Bodega

Woopra works just like Google - with a small Javascript snippet that you embed in your page. – Fulfillment

Answer 5

Try Feedjit. The paid widget is $10 a month and you get all the stats you've asked for and you can see users surfing from page to page. Live demo of Feedjit's own traffic here using the commercial option:

http://feedjit.com/pro/feedjitpub/

There is also a free widget.

Caridadcarie

Thanks for the suggestion, but as mentioned a few times in the question: This is in-house so any and all options that I can't install on my server are out. Don't worry, you weren't the only one that didn't read the question. – Bodega

Answer 6

This is the product I use to analyze my web logs... It's not 'real-time' per se, but it can be configured to run a service and produce reports at regular intervals...

http://www.nihuo.com/web-log-analyzer.html

Best of all, it's not drastically expensive :)

They have a sample report online here so you can see if it's what you're after.

Heckelphone

Answer 7

Look into VisiStat. Real time and Hosted. Live support and excellent customer service. Woopra has a list you need to be a part of to get. It is also a BETA application that might never be released. VisiStat is on it's 6th version and offered publicly.

Libelant

As per my posted requirements, the server is in-house and can't have any scripts that point to an outside service. I'd seen VisiStat mentioned in another question. – Bodega

Answer 8

I have recently stumbled over Chart Beat:

http://chartbeat.com/

a few big companies use them (mahalo etc)

It's not a free service (their site says $9.95 a month?)

Arica

Won't display in IE which is the only browser IS will allow installed on the computers. Also, I can't tell from their website if I have to send data back to them... if that's the case then it still doesn't meet the requirements. Having said all that, thanks for posting the link as I've noticed this question comes up in a lot of searches related to server analytics and it may be of use to someone else. – Bodega