journalctl
Ranked 4 of 4 log viewers by recommenders
The built-in systemd log viewer, recommended for troubleshooting and for its JSON output. Critics find it complicated, hard to read, and sometimes slow.
The built-in systemd log viewer, recommended for troubleshooting and for its JSON output. Critics find it complicated, hard to read, and sometimes slow.
17 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 10
- approval share
- 41%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Designed for troubleshooting use cases
“some of the most often misunderstood or unknown tools that I find useful for troubleshooting”
Comment from 1 Oct 2026 on Hacker News “journalctl is designed for these use cases and has options to solve those issues”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Go is portable, until it isn't” Intended, obvious way to read logs
“it is the obvious and intended way to do this”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Go is portable, until it isn't” “journalctl is designed for these use cases and has options to solve those issues”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Go is portable, until it isn't”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Complicated, hard-to-read output
“journalctl makes me want to pull my hair out; just let me grep a regular file”
Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “The Fedora 45 Sausage Factory” “journalctl makes logging needlessly complicated and log files slow to read”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “Preparing for KDE Plasma's Last X11-Supported Release” “journalctl is so bad at rendering text”
Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Single log line is 49KB+ (ext4) / 110KB+ (btrfs) of systemd-journald disk writes” Requires reading the manual
“I still have to read the manual of journalctl.”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “You Don't Love Systemd Timers Enough” “journalctl practically requires its own book”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Linux Career Opportunities in 2025: Skills in High Demand” “more ergonomic than systemctl/journalctl”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “I Am Building a Cloud” Slow or stalls sometimes
“journalctl makes logging needlessly complicated and log files slow to read”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “Preparing for KDE Plasma's Last X11-Supported Release” “seems to stall for on the order of 5 to 10s, sometimes”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “Single log line is 49KB+ (ext4) / 110KB+ (btrfs) of systemd-journald disk writes”
Other log viewers people recommend
The three most recommended other log viewers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| lnav | 14 | 3 | 82% | 5 | — | Approved |
| GoAccess | 8 | 2 | 80% | 5 | — | — |
| Log File Viewer for the Terminal | 8 | 2 | 80% | 1 | — | — |
| journalctlThis page | 7 | 10 | 41% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
17 of the 18 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“some of the most often misunderstood or unknown tools that I find useful for troubleshooting”
“seems to stall for on the order of 5 to 10s, sometimes”
“journalctl is so bad at rendering text”
“Take a look at journalctl's man page”
“journalctl makes me want to pull my hair out; just let me grep a regular file”
“that implies that you can't use journalctl from a rescue environment to access the logs of the host system?”
“journalctl makes logging needlessly complicated and log files slow to read”
“I still have to read the manual of journalctl.”
“more ergonomic than systemctl/journalctl”
“I'd rather just use journal or tail -f.”
“I found it easy to work with”
“double timestamps and double logs I find in journalctl”
“it is the obvious and intended way to do this”
“We dismissed using journalctl at the very start.”
“journalctl is designed for these use cases and has options to solve those issues”
“there is a --json (or -o json) flag for journalctl which will output line based json log entries”
“journalctl practically requires its own book”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.