: What are some advantages of using Analytics like Urchin? I'm interested in utilizing urchin. What are some advantages of self hosted analytics software like urchin over Google analytics?

@Sarah324

Each have their own strengths and weaknesses. You need to decide which one's strengths would serve you best and while it's weaknesses do not hurt your ability get usable data.

Google Analytics

Pros:


Free
Integrated Adwords tracking
Updates and new features are automatically included and available to you


Cons:


Can't reach content behind a firewall
You cannot self host it
Google owns your data
Can't process historical data (e.g. log files)


Urchin

Pros:


Can host it on your own server
Track content behind a firewall
Can process historical data


Cons:


Expensive
Not all functionality is available immediately. Modules may need to be added and are an additional cost.
You have to install it and maintain updates to it


There's more to it then this so you should definitely do more research on your own. The information is definitely out there. But this should give you an idea of how to compare the two to figure out which one best suits your needs.

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@Candy875

This page www.google.com/urchin/features.html has a comparison table. The features that it has that Analytics doesn't are:


Runs on your servers
Suitable for Intranets
Process historical logs
Robot & spider reports
Status & Error code reports (404s, etc.)
Individual Visitor History Drilldown


It's not cheap though: US95

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