Wige:

One of my clients averages about 70,000 hits a day and I store his data in a MySQL database and analyze the data in real time.

Another client averaging about 50,000 hits day relies on a log file and parser. Real time analysis is a bit slower.

I think the higher the data volume the better off you will be to rely on a database instead of a logfile. With the right table design the performance hit has been negligible when analyzing the database in real time.

I prefer the MySQL solution. But of course the typical considerations apply: CPU, RAM, MySQL version, etc.

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