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Serilog VS NLog

Compare Serilog VS NLog and see what are their differences

Serilog logo Serilog

Backend Development and Utilities

NLog logo NLog

NLog is a free logging platform for .NET with rich log routing and management capabilities.
  • Serilog Landing page
    Landing page //
    2020-01-19
  • NLog Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-07

Serilog features and specs

  • Structured Logging
    Serilog is designed around the concept of structured logging, which captures data in a structured format that can be easily queried or analyzed. This is more powerful than traditional text-based logs.
  • Sinks Variety
    Serilog supports a wide variety of sinks, which allows you to easily direct logs to different outputs like files, databases, or monitoring systems, providing great flexibility.
  • Enrichers
    Serilog offers enrichers that automatically add additional information to logs, such as thread or process details, making context information readily available for debugging and monitoring.
  • Format Flexibility
    With Serilog, you can format logs in different styles (e.g., JSON, plain text) which suits different consumption needs and makes integration with other systems straightforward.
  • Easy Setup
    Serilog is known for its user-friendly setup and configuration process, which can be done through code or configuration files, making it accessible for newcomers.

Possible disadvantages of Serilog

  • Learning Curve
    Although Serilog is powerful, its advanced features and flexibility can introduce a learning curve, especially for developers who are new to structured logging.
  • Performance Overhead
    In some cases, especially with high-volume logging, the performance overhead of logging can become noticeable. Choosing the right sinks and configurations is important to mitigate this.
  • Complex Configuration
    Configuration can become complex, particularly when integrating with various sinks and using advanced features, which might require more setup time and detailed understanding.
  • Limited Built-in Analysis Tools
    While Serilog excels at log capture, it relies on external tools for log analysis, which means additional setup and dependency on third-party solutions.

NLog features and specs

  • Flexibility
    NLog is highly configurable and can be extended to suit various logging requirements. It supports different logging targets like files, databases, console, and more, allowing developers to choose the appropriate medium for their logging needs.
  • Easy to Use
    NLog offers a straightforward setup process and provides an intuitive API for logging in .NET applications, making it easy for developers to integrate it into their projects.
  • Performance
    NLog is known for its high performance, capable of handling large volumes of log entries efficiently. It offers asynchronous logging, which helps reduce the performance impact on applications.
  • Rich Features
    NLog includes advanced features like log filtering, layout rendering, multi-targeting, and more. It supports conditional logging and can be extended with custom targets and layouts.
  • Active Community and Support
    NLog has an active open-source community, offering wide support, regular updates, and extensive documentation, which helps developers resolve issues and implement best practices.

Possible disadvantages of NLog

  • Configuration Complexity
    While NLog is flexible, its configuration can become complex, especially for large applications with multiple log targets and custom setups, requiring careful management and understanding.
  • Learning Curve
    For developers new to logging frameworks or .NET logging libraries, there may be a learning curve to fully understand and utilize all of NLog's features and configuration options.
  • Dependency Management
    Introducing NLog into a project adds an additional dependency, which can complicate dependency management if the project already uses other logging libraries or has specific dependency restrictions.
  • Overhead
    Although NLog is designed for performance, some setups might introduce overhead, particularly if synchronous logging is used extensively or improper configurations are applied, impacting application performance.
  • Potential Over-configuration
    The wide range of customizable options can sometimes lead developers to over-configure their logging setup, which may result in maintenance challenges and difficulties in managing log outputs effectively.

Serilog videos

SnapDevelop API Logging with Serilog and Seq

More videos:

  • Review - Thrashing Code Session C# A004 - Jetbrains Rider Env Var Explained - Serilog Logging - Travis CI

NLog videos

NLog Synth PRO - AUv3 Synth - Amazingly CPU Friendly Synth - Review & Demo

More videos:

  • Demo - IOS Synth Review: NLog Pro Synth Overview and Sound Demos

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Serilog and NLog)
Monitoring Tools
56 56%
44% 44
Development
52 52%
48% 48
Developer Tools
59 59%
41% 41
Backup & Restore
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Serilog should be more popular than NLog. It has been mentiond 14 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Serilog mentions (14)

  • Essential .NET Libraries Every Developer Should Know
    Logging with style? Serilog is here for you. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • C# PeriodicTimer
    If there are any runtime exceptions they are written to a log file using SeriLog. In source project see folder SampleLogFile for samples of the error log file. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Using toast notifications in Windows Forms
    Captured in public static void OnActivated() and note Log is SeriLog. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • EF Core Handling Concurrency Conflicts
    📌 Serilog NuGet package is used to log what goes on under the covers which will help to better understand how dealing with concurrency conflicts works and what information is available to a developer. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Lnav – An advanced log file viewer for the small-scale
    Take a look at the docs linked on the main page of Serilog[1] and the various videos[2] and blog posts[3] by the devs who make Seq. [1]: https://serilog.net/ [2]: https://datalust.co/ [3]: https://blog.datalust.co/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
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NLog mentions (6)

  • Essential .NET Libraries Every Developer Should Know
    Need an alternative logging library? NLog is another fantastic choice. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Best approach for logging in ASP.NET
    Log4Net does not get that much attention any more. From my understanding it served as an alternative for Log4J, but today better and more modern solutions have been created. I migrated a codebase over to .NET Core a couple of years ago, and it seemed that Log4net had issues running on Linux because of kernel calls inside their codebase. If you look at the version history on NuGet, it had just 3 patch releases last... Source: about 2 years ago
  • Powershell logging module
    I'm going to look at psframework mentioned elsewhere, but I make use of .NET NLog https://nlog-project.org/. it's not terribly hard to wire up, and is pretty feature rich. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Writing logs into Elastic with NLog , ELK and .Net 5.0
    On the other hand, NLog is a flexible and free logging platform for various .NET platforms, including .NET standard. NLog makes it easy to write to several targets. (database, file, console) and change the logging configuration on-the-fly. - Source: dev.to / over 3 years ago
  • How do you separate production code from development code? Do you manually remove logging at every release?
    For instance, we use NLog for our .NET projects. The nice thing there is that you use an external configuration file (nlog.config or your application's default configuration file) to configure logging. You can specify various "loggers" and "appenders", so that you can route your logs to several places, and all you have to do is change configuration between environments. You can do things like allowing for... Source: almost 4 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Serilog and NLog, you can also consider the following products

log4net - log4net is a tool to help the programmer output log statements to a variety of output targets.

Logmatic - Logmatic is a log centralization, analytics & visualization platform to improve software & business performance.

LOGBack - Logging framework

LogTailApp - LogTail is a local and remote (SSH) log file viewer and monitoring application for Mac OS X. It is a pure, modern, document-based Cocoa App

ZeroLog - ZeroLog is a JSON logging library that allows you to log messages in a structured, searchable, and easily parseable format and allow for customizable output.

Logary - Professional logging metrics and analytics for your apps