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<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="de">
<title>rsyslog vs. syslog-ng - a comparison</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>rsyslog vs. syslog-ng</h1>
<P><small><i>Written by
<a href="http://www.gerhards.net/rainer">Rainer
Gerhards</a> (2008-01-29)</i></small></P>
<p>We have often been asked abut a comparison sheet between rsyslog and
syslog-ng. Unfortunately, I do not know much about syslog-ng, I did not even use
it once. Also, there seems to be no comprehensive feature sheet available for
syslog-ng. So I started this comparison, but it probably is not complete. For
sure, I miss some syslog-ng features. This is not an attempt to let rsyslog
shine more than it should. I just used the <a href="features.html">rsyslog feature sheet</a> as a staring
point, simply because it was available. If you would like to add anything to the chart, or
correct it, please simply <a href="mailto:rgerhards@adiscon.com">drop me a line</a>.
I would love to see a real honest and up-to-date comparison sheet, so please
don't be shy ;)</p>
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td valign="top"><b>Feature</b></td>
<td valign="top"><b>rsyslog</b></td>
<td valign="top"><b>syslog-ng</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">native support for
<a href="http://www.rsyslog.com/doc-rsyslog_mysql.html">writing to MySQL
databases</a></td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">paid edition only</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">native support for writing to Postgres databases</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">paid edition only</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for (plain) tcp based syslog</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for sending and receiving compressed syslog messages</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">I think "no"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for on-demand on-disk spooling of messages</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">paid edition only</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to configure backup syslog/database servers </td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for receiving messages via reliable
<a href="http://www.monitorware.com/Common/en/glossary/rfc3195.php">RFC
3195</a> delivery</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to generate file names and directories (log targets)
dynamically</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">control of log output format, including ability to present channel
and priority as visible log data</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">not sure...</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">good timestamp format control; at a minimum, ISO 8601/RFC 3339
second-resolution UTC zone</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">? (I guess so)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to reformat message contents and work with substrings</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">I think yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for log files larger than 2gb</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for file size limitation and automatic rollover command
execution</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for running multiple rsyslogd instances on a single machine</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">? (but I think yes)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for
<a href="http://www.rsyslog.com/doc-rsyslog_stunnel.html">ssl-protected
syslog</a> </td>
<td valign="top">via stunnel</td>
<td valign="top">via stunnel<br>
paid edition natively</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to filter on any part of the message, not just facility and
severity</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to use regular expressions in filters</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for discarding messages based on filters</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">?</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to execute shell scripts on received messages</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to pipe messages to a continously running program</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to preserve the original hostname in NAT environments and
relay chains</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes (think so)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to limit the allowed network senders (syslog ACLs)</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">powerful BSD-style hostname and program name blocks for easy
multi-host support</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">massively multi-threaded for tomorrow's multi-core machines</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">?</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for IETF's new syslog-protocol draft</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for syslog-transport-tls based framing on syslog/tcp
connections</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for IPv6</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to control repeated line reduction ("last message repeated n
times") on a per selector-line basis</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to include config file from within other config
files</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to include all config files existing in a
specific directory</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">supports multiple actions per selector/filter condition</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">?</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">plug-in interface</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">Windows Event Log gatherer</td>
<td valign="top">via <a href="http://www.eventreporter.com">EventReporter</a> or
<a href="http://www.mwagent.com">MonitorWare Agent</a> (both commercial
software)</td>
<td valign="top">via Windows agent, paid edition only</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">config file format</td>
<td valign="top">compatible to legacy syslogd but ugly</td>
<td valign="top">clean but not backwards compatible</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for GSS-API</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">?</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">web interface</td>
<td valign="top"><a href="http://www.phplogcon.org">phpLogCon</a><br>
[also works with <a href="http://freshmeat.net/projects/php-syslog-ng/">
php-syslog-ng</a>]</td>
<td valign="top"><a href="http://freshmeat.net/projects/php-syslog-ng/">
php-syslog-ng</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">using text files as input source</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">native support for Oracle databases</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
<td valign="top">paid edition only</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">native support for SQLite databases</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
<td valign="top">paid edition only</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">rate-limiting output actions</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">discard low-priority messages under system stress</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">?</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" height="43">flow control (slow down message recpetion
when system is busy)</td>
<td valign="top" height="43">limited (TCP Window, delay on queue full)</td>
<td valign="top" height="43">yes (limited, too? "stops accepting
messages")</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">rewriting messages</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes (at least I think so...)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">output data into various formats</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes (looks somewhat limited to me)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to control "message repeated n times"
generation</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">on the wire (zlib) message compression</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">license</td>
<td valign="top">GPLv3 (GPLv2 for v2 branch)</td>
<td valign="top">GPL (paid edition is closed source)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">supported platforms</td>
<td valign="top">Linux, BSD, anecdotical seen on Solaris</td>
<td valign="top">many popular *nixes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">DNS cache</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">native ability to send SNMP traps</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">?</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">? (probably many I do no know off...)</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>Based on a discussion I had, I also wrote about the <b>political argument why
it is good to have another strong syslogd besides syslog-ng</b>. You may want to
read it at my blog at "<a href="http://rgerhards.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-does-world-need-another-syslogd.html">Why
does the world need another syslogd?</a>".</p>
<p>This document is current as of 2008-02-11 and definitely incomplete (I did
not yet manage to complete it!).</p>
</body>
</html>
|
