Why is Matomo recommended as an alternative to AWStats?

Matomo is recommended because it is a robust, actively maintained web analytics platform that aligns closely with AWStats’s values and use cases. In fact, the creator of AWStats has recommended Matomo as the successor for AWStats users. Here’s why Matomo is an excellent choice:

  • Open-Source & Free: Matomo is free software, released under the GNU General Public License v3 (GPL v3): just like AWStats was under GPL. This means you can self-host Matomo on your own server, and you have the freedom to modify and extend it. You won’t be locked into any vendor, and your data remains under your control (Matomo emphasises 100% data ownership for users).

  • Privacy & Data Ownership: Matomo is built with privacy in mind. No data is sent to third parties: you own all your analytics data. This is similar to AWStats (which ran on your server and kept data local). Matomo’s philosophy is to be a privacy-first analytics tool, which makes it a natural fit for AWStats users who chose AWStats to avoid sharing data with external services.

  • Log Analytics Support: Critically, Matomo fully supports log file analytics. You can use Matomo to parse your existing server logs to generate reports, meaning you can continue to collect analytics without using any page tagging or JavaScript, if you prefer. This approach is very much like how AWStats works. Matomo’s log importer recognises all common web server log formats (Apache, Nginx, IIS, etc.) and can easily ingest logs that were previously analysed by AWStats.

  • Advanced Features & Modern Interface: While Matomo can do everything AWStats did in terms of basic stats, it also offers a lot more. It has a modern web interface with interactive dashboards, real-time reporting, and the ability to dig into data (filter by date ranges, apply segments, etc.). Matomo provides features such as e-commerce tracking, goal conversion tracking, campaign analytics, heatmaps, session recordings, form analytics, and many others via plugins: capabilities far beyond AWStats’ static reports. Even for just log analysis, Matomo’s reports are more user-friendly and insightful (for example, you can click on an entry to see more details, or easily compare metrics over time). You can think of Matomo as “AWStats on steroids”, while still respecting the same principles of openness and privacy.

  • Active Community & Support: Matomo has an active community and a professional team continuously improving the software. Updates are released regularly, and there’s a forum and documentation for support. This ensures that by switching to Matomo, you won’t be stuck on an unmaintained tool: you’ll be using a platform that evolves with web technologies and is quick to patch issues.

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