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mtail

Extract Prometheus metrics from application log files

Monitoring & Status ★ 4k stars Medium setup Apache-2.0

mtail is a tool from Google for extracting metrics from application logs to be exported into a time series database. It runs small programs that parse log lines and increment counters or gauges, bridging log data into Prometheus monitoring.

Official siteSource code

Key features

  • Turns log lines into metrics
  • Compact pattern language
  • Prometheus export endpoint
  • Low overhead tailing

Pros & cons

Strengths

  • Bridges legacy logs to metrics
  • Tiny footprint

Trade-offs

  • Custom program language to learn
  • Not a full log pipeline

mtail replaces

Self-hosted Splunk alternativesSelf-hosted Datadog Log Metrics alternatives

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