AWStats Review, Pricing & Features

AWStats is a free, GPL-licensed log analyzer that turns web, FTP, and mail server logs into detailed traffic and visitor statistics.

Category
Analytics
Pricing
Free (open source), from Free
Verified
Not yet
Last updated
July 18, 2026
Founded
2000
Open SourceSelf-Hosted

Overview

AWStats is a free, open-source log file analyzer created by Laurent Destailleur and first released in 2000. It generates advanced graphical statistics from web, streaming, FTP, and mail server logs, running as either a CGI script or from the command line.

Key Features

AWStats reports on unique visitors, visit duration, traffic by day/hour and by domain/country, and the most-viewed and entry/exit pages, along with browser and OS detection covering 97+ browsers and 35+ operating systems.

It also detects robots and worm/attack traffic, tracks search engine referrals and keywords, reports HTTP errors, and supports GeoIP-based location reporting across multiple log formats including Apache NCSA/CLF, IIS W3C, and WebStar.

Who It's For

AWStats is distributed under the GNU General Public License and is used by sysadmins, webmasters, and hosting providers who want free, self-hosted log analytics without sending data to a third party. It requires a Perl 5 interpreter with CGI support and runs on Windows, Unix, and Linux.

Key Features

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Completely free and open source under the GPL
  • Self-hosted, so no traffic data is sent to a third party
  • Supports multiple server log formats out of the box
  • Lightweight, Perl-based tool that runs on modest hardware

Cons

  • The original author has stated no further versions will be personally released
  • Requires manual setup of Perl and CGI rather than a hosted dashboard
  • Interface is dated compared to modern analytics tools

Frequently Asked Questions

Is AWStats free?

Yes, AWStats is free and open source, distributed under the GNU General Public License, including for commercial use.

Is AWStats still maintained?

Version 8.0, released in 2025, was announced as the last version the original author will personally maintain; the project points users toward Matomo as an actively maintained alternative.

What log formats does AWStats support?

AWStats supports Apache NCSA/Combined Log Format, IIS W3C, and WebStar log formats, among others.

What are alternatives to AWStats?

The AWStats project itself recommends Matomo as an actively maintained alternative for ongoing web analytics.

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