In-Depth Feature Analysis of Papertrail vs. Logentries

Businesses need to keep vast amounts of log data on hand to comply with IT standards and policies, as well as to get a full picture of the whole IT infrastructure deployed throughout the firm. Data extraction, dynamic log correlation, event resolution, live tailing, and S3 archiving are just a few of the features that show why investing in a log management solution is a good idea. Despite the numerous advantages of log management solutions, not all of them are created equal. They are divided into two categories, each with its own set of characteristics, functions, and capabilities:

• Log collector centralised
• Management of security information and events (SIEM)

Choosing a tool is based on your organization's needs, as well as the tool's capabilities, usability, pricing, and specifications. Two modern log management tools are outlined below, along with a comparison and feature analysis.

Papertrail by SolarWinds

PapertrailTM is a hosted log management platform for servers, apps, and cloud services from SolarWinds®. SIEM capabilities are included in this unified log management solution. With root-cause analysis, the tool is designed to speed up troubleshooting, centralise logs, and detect issues rapidly. Papertrail supports a variety of log formats, including syslog, text log files, Apache, and Tomcat, and offers easy log search, real-time log tailing, filters, sophisticated command-line tools, and S3 for long-term archive data storage and preservation. Papertrail interfaces with popular communication systems like PagerDuty and Slack to help you rapidly spot possible incidents and fix delayed database queries.

Logentries

Logentries is a live log management and analysis solution that helps developers, IT operations, and business analysts organise and analyse machine-generated logs. Real-time search, alerting and reporting, server monitoring, auto-scaling, and rapid log search are among the sophisticated features. It provides simple graphical reports and customised dashboards for a rapid visual representation of log data. Logentries provides an end-to-end view by dynamically grouping and correlating logs in a single terminal. IT teams can see streaming logs in real time and highlight critical occurrences using the live tailing tool.

Logentries vs. Papertrail

Papertrail and Logentries both include all of the functionality needed to keep track of logs and detect problems. Their features, functionalities, and services, on the other hand, differ. Logentries collects field data, searches logs, visualises them with custom dashboards, allows real-time viewing of logs, and emphasises significant events with live tailing features. Papertrail includes search filters, dashboards, live tailing, a web-based log viewer, command-line tools, and a long-term archive, as well as a web-based log viewer, command-line tools, and a long-term archive (S3). A feature comparison of Papertrail vs Logentries is provided below to assist enterprises in determining which log management solution is appropriate for their logging needs.

Capability to Search Logs

One of the most significant and fundamental aspects of log management is log search. By simply typing the search phrase into a search field, you can identify certain logs in a pool of raw and unfiltered log data. To extract the results, the log management tools delve into the raw logs.

Papertrail is a search engine similar to Google. Logs can be searched by providing an IP address, a program's name, an error string, string fragments, or a user session name. To make query search quick and easy to understand and write, Papertrail employs Boolean search syntax. With features like RegExp and NOT/AND/OR combining, Logentries provides more restricted search capabilities.

Archiving of Logs

Log archiving is the process of keeping logs that you no longer use but want to keep in case of future needs. Log management tools allow you to set a retention period or archive logs for a set amount of time, after which they are completely erased from the system. Log storage options are available in both Papertrail and Logentries. Papertrail plans offer a year of log archiving, while Logentries offers a 30-90-day log retention duration.

Colorization of Logs

The technique of color-coding or highlighting logs for systems, applications, and faults is known as log colorization. ANSI escape codes are used by Papertrail and Logentries to colourize specific applications and apps in order to better comprehend faults and their severity. The 16-color set is accepted by Papertrail: eight dark foreground/background colours and eight bright foreground/background colours.

Filtering Logs

Filtering is essential for getting the most out of logs. It determines which messages should and should not be logged. Log filtering is used by both Papertrail and Logentries. Papertrail employs noise filtering, which is available to all Papertrail users. Papertrail allows you to configure log filtering, so you can have different filter settings for different contexts, applications, and systems. Filters in Logentries assist locate and identify problems by separating log streams in real-time.

Conclusion

Organizations require better log management solutions to manage and analyse logs and gain greater visibility into their whole IT infrastructure as their IT systems and applications become more complicated. Examine the free trial versions of several products to learn more about the features, integration capabilities, and benefits they provide. Papertrail is a good log management application since it has advanced log monitoring, an intuitive UI, real-time event, log search, and log colorization features. It also helps meet basic logging requirements by providing per-user access limits, automated backups, and long-term archives.