GoAccess

GoAccess is a real-time web log analyzer and interactive viewer for analyzing HTTP server access logs. It runs as a terminal TUI on Unix-like systems and can also generate and serve interactive, real-time HTML reports in a browser.

Key Features

• Real-time dashboards with frequent metric updates in terminal and HTML views
• Interactive terminal interface (TUI) for fast analysis over SSH
• Generates self-contained reports in HTML, JSON, and CSV formats
• Supports many log formats, including Apache, Nginx, Caddy JSON, and various cloud/CDN load balancer logs
• Minimal setup: specify a log format and run against access logs
• Incremental processing with optional on-disk persistence for larger datasets
• Built-in WebSocket server for real-time HTML output, with JWT-based WebSocket authentication support
• Panels for traffic, visitors, bandwidth, response times, and virtual host breakdowns

Use Cases

• Monitor web traffic and errors in real time on production servers
• Produce shareable HTML reports for stakeholders without external analytics trackers
• Investigate performance issues using request and response-time metrics

Limitations and Considerations

• Focused on web access log analytics (not a general-purpose metrics system)
• Parsing accuracy depends on having the correct log format configuration

GoAccess is a lightweight, fast option for privacy-friendly web analytics based on your existing server logs. It is well-suited for admins who want immediate visibility from the terminal, with the option to publish a live HTML dashboard when needed.