First, we do not want to compare Advanced Web Stats with Google Analytics. They are two different solutions and that is why we do not compare them on our website.

Google Analytics uses as a tracking method Cookies via JavaScript and you can only see information that can be tracked via JavaScript. Another difference would be about privacy, because your data is not stored on on your server and you do not have control of backups and history.

On the other hand Advanced Web Stats analyzes web server log files and JavaScript page tags at the same time. This brings together information from both client and server side, giving you increased accuracy and flexibility of data collected. You can get more information about your visitors, such as analyzing downloads made from your website and the type of files downloaded, analyzing detailed information for hits to pages, identifying errors and status codes and check what spiders visit your website, how often they come and what pages they visit.

However starting with version 2.0 Advanced Web Stats added support for automatic log management. This means you no longer have to worry about your log files in terms of location or credentials. Please note that if you choose automatic log management can only see information that can be tracked via JavaScript (just like in Google Analytics).

I hope this answers your question.