Which log forwarder to use

The Logging operator supports Fluentd and syslog-ng (via the AxoSyslog syslog-ng distribution) as log forwarders. The log forwarder instance receives, filters, and transforms the incoming the logs, and transfers them to one or more destination outputs. Which one to use depends on your logging requirements.

The following points help you decide which forwarder to use.

  • The forwarders support different outputs. If the output you want to use is supported only by one forwarder, use that.
  • If the volume of incoming log messages is high, use syslog-ng, as its multithreaded processing provides higher performance.
  • If you have lots of logging flows or need complex routing or log message processing, use syslog-ng.

Note: Depending on which log forwarder you use, some of the CRDs you have to create and configure are different.

syslog-ng is supported only in Logging operator 4.0 or newer.