Many times we get asked the question: What's the difference between SurfStats Log Analyzer and SurfStatsLive and which is the right web site statistics product to use?

In short, the main difference between the two products is that SurfStats Log Analyzer is a Windows based application that generates web site statistics reports on a client or server computer, whereas SurfStatsLive is a server based system with administrative features and web site statistics reports accessible through a web browser. Both process web server log files to generate reports. In addition SurfStatsLive can handle JavaScript tracking code.

In the diagram below the difference in operation between the two products are shown. Note that for SurfStats Log Analyzer the log parsing, profile database update and report generation are performed in one step. For SurfStatsLive the log parsing and profile database update are performed in one step and report generation is a separate step.

Which product should I use? That would depend on your situation. If you are a site host, ISP or organization that have a Windows 2000/2003 web server available the SurfStatsLive product is most likely the best solution. The main advantage with SurfStatsLive is that any user with a web browser (and the necessary credentials) can access the web site statistics reports by logging onto the service. If you are hosting your web site at a site host (which does not provide a statistics service, just log files) and you are the only party requiring access to the web site statistics SurfStats Log Analyzer is probably the best solution. If you need to analyze log files from proxy and streaming media servers, SurfStats Log Analyzer - Enterprise Edition is the only solution.

Please refer to the Differences page for more detail on the differences between the two products.