For me it has been a long-standing issue - something I still find hard time figuring out.

Webalizer, AwStats, Urchin - which statistical software should I believe? It seems that on some of the web sites Webalizer provides a more meangful indicator or reality (even though Urchin is the most expensive product it seems, sometimes it shows completely absurd numbers in my opinion), while on a couple of others Urchin and AwStats come close to real performance...

It is a question that has been hanging in the air for me for years (no kidding).

So, developers of which of the above software packages should I believe?

Best,

Art, I have always though about this as well, but I find myself usng AwStats. I find that they have given me decent numbers and on top of that, they also have several different stats and figures which I find useful, like the bar graph, pie chart and the different countries that have viewed your site.

I used to think Webalizer was GREAT ... until I moved my sites to my new host and had both Webalizer & AWStats available.

I now find AWstats provides much more accurate data ... data that is in line with what I think it should be anyway. Like last month ... AWstats shows one of my sites had about 1800 visits ... Webalizer says I had over 7500 visits. I tend to believe AWstats is more accurate.

Peter

Awstats rocks, I hate Webalizer, so ugly and so hard to understand.

- Tomer

Urchin is the most accurate Art. Awstats is a close second.

The only drawbacks for Urchin is that it is a paid program and that it can be resource intensive but that's not a real issue in most cases.

Also, Urchin was recently purchased by Google so they must have found it to be pretty reliable.

Or at least a good investment for the money they must be having laying around.

Agreed. I love Google definitely but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best. hehe

I tend to use both Awstats and Webalizer. I'm one of those people who don't believe in paying for something when you can get it free and it does the job. They tend to have different numbers but generally I get an idea of where my site traffic stands at. I like that Awstat's details are a little better thought but sometime I question exactly how accurate it is when it comes to uniques. Either way I think they both give a reasonably accurate measure of how your site is doing (enough for you to judge, anyways).

We use both Webalizer and Awstats to try to come to an overall understanding. We rely more on the Awstats then webalizer though. All have their perks on what sections, they cover best.

I like awstats, it provides more info then webalizer

I like Awstats too.
Friendly UI and more information.

I would say that the one that displays the BEST results is the one you should choose, because they don't just make up traffic for your site. The ones that have lower results than the others are some that miss some of the traffic flow. I personaly prefer and like Awstats, as do most people.