There are many cases in which it can be useful to use the information contained in your server access logs and import this data into Matomo (Piwik).

For example, in the following use cases, analyzing server logs with Matomo is desired:

  • if you manage a web app or a desktop app but cannot add direct Javascript,
  • if you want to track and report the activity on a particular server or set of servers (for system administration purposes, QA, debugging, dealing with spammers, etc
  • if you wish to compare the data from the server logs and the standard Matomo reports using the Javascript code,
  • if you are a web hosting provider and you can’t use the Matomo JavaScript code to track visits (eg. if you do not control a website source code directly — but you control the web server)
  • if you have weeks or months of server logs that you wish to import for historical analysis: Matomo will let you import months of server access logs that you can then visualize

And more! Please let us know if you use this script with another use case and we can add it to the list.

Previous FAQ: What is Matomo Server Log Analytics?