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Grafana Loki vs syslog-ng comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.9
Grafana Loki's support combines community aid and resources with varying user satisfaction, requiring effort for integration and documentation navigation.
No sentiment score available
We have not had to open any tickets yet, as we solve issues through forums and wikis.
 

Room For Improvement

Sentiment score
8.0
Grafana Loki needs better flow visibility, request correlation, stability, Docker integration, and enhanced scalability, security, and reporting features.
No sentiment score available
Syslog-ng in a SIEM context needs better filtering, skilled users, improved logging, Kafka integration, and enhanced observability.
It would be beneficial if Loki could directly access Windows Server logs or events directly from the servers.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
Grafana Loki is praised for its scalability, reliable operations, and ability to handle large systems and data efficiently.
No sentiment score available
Loki offers great scalability, allowing us to manage and compress logs extensively.
 

Setup Cost

No sentiment score available
Grafana Loki provides cost-effective pricing options with a popular free open-source version and a competitively priced cloud version.
No sentiment score available
The cloud version is competitively priced compared to other market solutions.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Grafana Loki is generally stable, but some users encounter issues with log retrieval and outdated methods affecting stability.
No sentiment score available
Users praise syslog-ng for stable, high-capacity performance, rating it nine out of ten despite external storage issues.
 

Valuable Features

No sentiment score available
Grafana Loki offers easy deployment, cost-effectiveness, and robust log monitoring with seamless Grafana integration and Kubernetes compatibility.
No sentiment score available
Syslog-ng enhances log management with extraction, storage, real-time monitoring, alerts, and compound search, aiding efficient incident tracking.
The most valuable part of Loki is the ability to filter logs by keywords and devices.
 

Categories and Ranking

Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
syslog-ng
Ranking in Log Management
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Grafana Loki is 6.4%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of syslog-ng is 3.0%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Arjun Pandey - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective for Logging, recovery from node failures is fast and single UI supports metrics, logs, and even tracing
If it is HelloGuard setup or doing some setup on the dev cluster, it's pretty straightforward. But when we're dealing with a heavy cluster, like 15 to 20 terabytes of data per day, we need a production-grade cluster. For that kind of scenario, we must invest time and understand the process. We could have integrated these features within their health check, but they're using processes like Tanka and Jsonnet to implement a production service. I feel this could have been better. If I use a metric solution for metrics, I'd use Grafana for metrics monitoring. For logging, I'd use a different tool, like ELK. And for tracing another tool. So, to troubleshoot a specific issue, I have to switch between three different consoles. What I see in metrics isn't the same as in logs because the metadata and collection methods differ. That's where Loki comes in. Within Grafana, you can see metrics, logs, correlations, generate metrics from logs, and also set alerts. Alerting from logs is something many companies desire. With Loki, if there's a pattern in the log, we can filter it out without altering the entire pipeline. For instance, if I had to add fields in ELK, it would require a lot of configuration changes. Loki, however, is more flexible. It uses a grep-like pattern and the metadata model from Prometheus. It's highly efficient, with compressed data and block storage like GCS bucket or AWS S3, making log storage cost-effective. Compared to other solutions, it's more economical. Loki also has a Log CLI, which is very effective. It's all on-premises. Like, it's on the cloud, but it's self-managed, not a managed service.
RyanVargas - PeerSpot reviewer
It's a user-friendly open-source solution that can replace or augment a commercial product in some cases
I rate syslog-ng 10 out of 10. It's free and easy to use. It has built-in tools that help us index the various logs sent to it. It's a solid log product. If you're looking for a SIEM solution, syslog-ng will work as a stopgap measure at beginning of the project. It can also work as an injector for a true SIEM solution. You can send all the logs to syslog-ng and forward all the data to the SIEM solution after you've cleaned up the data and got the pertinent information. It's a good front end for a commercial SIEM solution, which becomes more expensive as you load more data into it. I would highly recommend syslog-ng for that use case. However, if you lack the expertise, you might need to go with a cloud-based SIEM instead. You need some in-house expertise or an outside consultant to manage it and set it up.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Grafana Loki?
We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics.
What needs improvement with Grafana Loki?
I do not see any areas for improvement at the moment. The solution is very stable, and further improvements might result in it becoming resource-intensive like other solutions.
What do you like most about syslog-ng?
For us, the most valuable feature is the use of compound search for searching logs at a specific time, by a specific user, or specific behavior.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for syslog-ng?
The pricing is in the middle. I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with one being expensive and ten being cheap.
What needs improvement with syslog-ng?
There is room for improvement in terms of observability. Additionally, a possible new feature could be Kafka integration.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Tecnocom, University of Victoria, University of Exeter, Datapath
Find out what your peers are saying about Grafana Loki vs. syslog-ng and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,562 professionals have used our research since 2012.