rsyslog
Hacker ApprovedLogging daemon in Developer tools
Recommended as a solid, lightweight syslog daemon that handles high message volumes and forwards logs to remote machines. The most common caveat is that the configuration is hard to get right.
Recommended as a solid, lightweight syslog daemon that handles high message volumes and forwards logs to remote machines. The most common caveat is that the configuration is hard to get right.
15 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 12
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 80%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 12 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 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
Solid, mature and reliable
“Both syslog products you mention are solid and mature, and absolutely has an important place in any modern environment.”
Comment from 24 Aug 2026 in “What Is a Syslog Server?” “its so lightweight and simple and reliable”
Comment from 24 Aug 2026 in “What Is a Syslog Server?” Forwards logs to remote machines
“It can keep up with millions of messages per second, route them to higher order services for indexing”
Comment from 24 Aug 2026 in “What Is a Syslog Server?” “one simple and direct way to distribute logs to remote machines”
Comment from 11 May 2026 in “Stop MitM on the first SSH connection, on any VPS or cloud provider” Simple to set up
“On Debian, install rsyslogd instead - it's that simple.”
Comment from 14 Aug 2026 in “Single log line is 49KB+ (ext4) / 110KB+ (btrfs) of systemd-journald disk writes” “configuring rsyslog is extremely easy”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “A Love Letter to FreeBSD” Pairs with or replaces journald
“I like how RedHat distros have it setup, where journald collects the logs, but rsyslog is there parsing them”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Devuan – Debian Without Systemd” “I generally replace journald with rsyslogd on systemd setups.”
Comment from 14 Aug 2026 in “Single log line is 49KB+ (ext4) / 110KB+ (btrfs) of systemd-journald disk writes”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Configuration is a nightmare
“It works reliably, but the config is an absolute nightmare, documentation is a mixed bag”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “OpenTelemetry Profiles Enters Public Alpha” “I'll forever have nightmares from debugging RainerScript mixed with the declarative config”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “I Think about Kubernetes” Documentation is a mixed bag
“It works reliably, but the config is an absolute nightmare, documentation is a mixed bag”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “OpenTelemetry Profiles Enters Public Alpha” “even the rsyslog documentation starts out with UDP for remote delivery”
Comment from 24 Aug 2026 in “What Is a Syslog Server?” Seen as outdated next to OpenTelemetry
“I probably wouldn't go with rsyslog as my default choice anymore since the world is moving on to OpenTelemetry.”
Comment from 24 Aug 2026 in “What Is a Syslog Server?” “I would not say a "Syslog" server belongs in a modern stack.”
Comment from 24 Aug 2026 in “What Is a Syslog Server?”
What people recommend instead
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| rsyslogThis page | 12 | 3 | 80% | 7 | — | Approved |
| systemd-journald | 11 | 33 | 25% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 22 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“This was a solved problem a long time ago in rsyslog.”
“I would argue you want your first hop to be the simplest”
“I probably wouldn't go with rsyslog as my default choice anymore since the world is moving on to OpenTelemetry.”
“even the rsyslog documentation starts out with UDP for remote delivery”
“the queue management and at least the possibility of some rudimentary end-to-end cryptographic integrity checks”
“Both syslog products you mention are solid and mature, and absolutely has an important place in any modern environment.”
“its so lightweight and simple and reliable”
“It can keep up with millions of messages per second, route them to higher order services for indexing”
“I would not say a "Syslog" server belongs in a modern stack.”
“On Debian, install rsyslogd instead - it's that simple.”
“If you want to store logs in a database, just use standard rsyslog.”
“I generally replace journald with rsyslogd on systemd setups.”
“rsyslog is an incredible piece of software”
“Rsyslog for example can do local spooling in the event the syslog server is not available”
“You can forward logs to rsyslog or something”
“one simple and direct way to distribute logs to remote machines”
“Rsyslog can be configured to nullify known-knowns to save on storage and processing costs.”
“It works reliably, but the config is an absolute nightmare, documentation is a mixed bag”
“a service that has a configuration-dependent dependency on rsyslog”
“I like how RedHat distros have it setup, where journald collects the logs, but rsyslog is there parsing them”
“I'll forever have nightmares from debugging RainerScript mixed with the declarative config”
“configuring rsyslog is extremely easy”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.