Performancing Metrics is dead - what now?
I used the Metrics service by Performancing for quite a while and was really happy with it. Unfortunately Performancing recently closed the service.
In case you don't know: Metrics was a free website statistic tool specially aimed at blogs. Besides basic stats like visitors, page views, browser, OS and screen resolution it featured a lot of useful additional data like search engine queries, referrers, outgoing links and AdSense clicks. For bloggers they also tracked the number of comments per post and other blog specific data. Additionally to the really useful data they provided an excellent API to access this data externally as well. I used this API to provide a list of the most popular pages here at splitbrain.
So now I'm in the need of a replacement. I don't need the special blog functions – they didn't work for my DokuWiki powered blog anyway. But I want search query analysis, external links, referrers and an API/RSS if possible. Did I mention I want it for free? I guess there is no such thing but lets have a look at some of the Performancing Metrics alternatives…
Feedburner Site Stats
Feedburner is widely known for their RSS feed services and statistics. They recently added basic site statistics and Performancing recommends them as a replacement for the Metrics service.
- Pros
- Integrates nicely with your feed services (if you use them)
- Tracks outgoing links
- Cons
- Only the last 30 days can be analyzed at maximum
- No API
- Limits
- None yet but upcoming features will be probably available to the Pro account holders only
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a full featured analysis package formaly produced by Urchin and sold to Google about a year(?) ago. It was high priced before but Google makes it available for free. I'm using it for while (parallel to Performancing) but it's quite heavy and too complicated for the daily stats pr0n 
.
- Pros
- Multiple views (for designers, executives and marketing)
- Special marketing tracking stuff
- Site-Overlay for link popularity
- Cons
- Complex, finding the the info you're looking for can be frustrating
- Needs Flash for graphics
- No outgoing link tracking
- No API
- Limits
- None, I think
StatCounter
StatCounter is a classical web counter service but on steroids. It adds many features of a full blown analytics tool. Unfortunately the analytical stats are restricted to the last 100 visits only.
- Pros
- Simple lightweight interface
- Webcounter (if you like them)
- Cons
- No outgoing link tracking
- No API
- Limits
- Free version analyzes 100 last links only
MyBlogLog
MyBlogLog provides reader communities to blogs (it powers the nice “Recent Readers” graphics in the sidebar/footer). They also provide some statistics for your site.
- Pros
- Cool reader communities
- Tracks outgoing links
- Tracks ad clicks
- Cons
- Very basic
- No search engine data
- Only 7 days of metrics
- No API
- Limits
- Only Top10 links are shown, more is available to Pro Users only
10³ Bees
10³ Bees is not really a replacement for Performaning Metrics, but offers some quite unique features. I mention it here because Andy Boyd lists it as the winner in his Alternatives to Performancing Metrics post. It is specialized on analyzing search engine query terms with a focus on optimizing you blog for the “long tail” search queries.
- Pros
- Excellent search engine analysis
- Cons
- No other analysis
- No API
- Limits
- None
Conclusion
I want my Metrics back 
! None of the above services provides an API, the features of the Feedburner statistics are quite okay, though I will miss the possibility to compare traffic over longer periods than 30 days. 10³ Bees will stay a permanent addition to my stats for sure. For the most popular widget I will probably need to fall back to do my own tracking 
If you know of any free hosted statistic service I missed above, feel free to mention it in the comments.