Changing stat trackers

12 Jul

Posted by silkenhut in Blog Updates |

I have changed my stat tracker from FireStats to Automattic Stats. This was done after careful consideration of the pros and cons of the change.

Here are the reasons why I changed stat trackers.

Size Issues - Since on a paid hosting, space is limited so the less space that it occupies without sacrificing much functionality, the better.

FireStats - 3,719,168 bytes
Automattic Stats - 16,384 bytes

Features - Although firestats offers much more stat tracking features than Automattic stats, I don’t need them all. These features are all i need; which pages received most views, what keywords people used to reach my site and which websites linked to my site.

Server Load - This is just for practicality. Firestats uses my resources (like the database) to compute but Autommatic stats does not. Here is an excerpt from Automattic Stats.
Finally, because all of the processing and collection runs on our servers and not yours, it doesn’t cause any additional load on your hosting account.

So there, I have pointed out my reasons for switching stat trackers. ^_^

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10 Responses

SELaplana (29 comments.)

July 12th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
1

i better use the third party service like the Google Analytics and others

[Reply]
Allen Reply:
July 12th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
I tried google analytics before. It offers lots of features but it only updates once a day… ^_^

[Reply]
Jaypee (36 comments.)

July 12th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
2

Good choice of not using Firestats. I tried it before and it eats up a lot of space on your database.

Like what SELaplana suggested, you can also use a third party service and if you don’t like Google Analytics, try Reinvigorate. It’s still in Beta testing and invite only but just sign up and ask for an invite by giving your email address. It’s worth the try.

[Reply]
Omry (3 comments.)

July 13th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
3

Jaypee, FireStats 1.3.0 which will be out very soon (possibly in this weekend) will have data compacting functionality that will reduce used database size.
about using third party services for statistics, this is what I think:
http://firestats.cc/wiki/GAPrivacy

[Reply]
Allen Reply:
July 13th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Could there be anything done to the file size of the FireStats plug-in? It takes up almost 3mb when uncompressed. ^_^

[Reply]
Omry (3 comments.)

July 14th, 2007 at 1:58 am
4

I`m afraid not.
while I don’t include junk, I also don’t optimize for archive size.
features uses space.
for example, the included IP to country database takes 550k, and the browser, OS and counties images takes much more.

[Reply]
Allen Reply:
July 14th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Oh how about having an option where the user can select which features he wants to have? Those features that he does not want to chose, he can just un check.

[Reply]
Omry (3 comments.)

July 14th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
5

I`m sorry, but this is not something that is not likely to happen.
something like this will greatly complicate the development of FireStats.
For most users, 3mb is really not a big deal, and in fact it will only get bigger as I add new features (that ARE a big deal for most users).

[Reply]
Jaypee (36 comments.)

July 17th, 2007 at 11:28 am
6

@Omry - I’m not trying to diss Firestats, I was just sharing my experience using it. Good to know that you’ve addressed the issue and that the new version of Firestats would be more lightweight and DB friendly.

As soon as the new version comes out, let me know so I can do a review and promote it on my blog. More power!

[Reply]
Allen Reply:
July 17th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Hey, FireStats 1.3.0 beta is out. I just found about it today when I opened the Firestats blog.

[Reply]