I was asked recently if it was possible to track statistics (easily) to find out where visitors are from, what browser they use, how long they hung around a site, etc.  At first, I didn’t know the answer, but came across a blog article touting something called Open Web Analytics (OWA).  That sounded good, so I looked into it – and even went so far as to install it.  However, I had absolutely no luck in getting it to run on my Windows server.  I looked around Google for about 30 minutes, but couldn’t find any answers.  Their website wasn’t much help – their wiki was pretty much empty and they had no forums (and I can’t begin to explain how I loathe mailing list support).  Apparently it’s developed for a Linux installation.

Anyway, after another Google session, I found something called Piwik.  Funny name, serious analytics.  Their mission is to create an open source Google Analytics replacement.  I’m not so much concerned with the GA replacement part as I am with the fact that I can host it on my own server – my own database where I can control (and be assured no one is giving up my data).  Now, I’m not saying that Piwik is quite at the level of GA yet, but they are sure on their way.  So much on their way, that I’ve already implemented Piwik on my sites and blogs (they have a WordPress plugin!) to get a good feel for it.  So far, I’m fairly impressed.

Give it a try.  Installation takes about five minutes (and reminds me a lot of installing WordPress), and configuration is as easy as typing in the site’s URL that is to be tracked, and pasting the JavaScript snippet on to your pages.  And, if you’re savvy, they have an open API that can be used to get to your data.

I’ll try to remember to write more later as Piwik gathers more data for me to dig through.