Locked. This question and its answers are locked because the question is off-topic but has historical significance. It is not currently accepting new answers or interactions.
Anyone have experience for both? How do they stack up against each other?
We are planning on using one of them for logging in an enterprise application.
References:
log4net
nlog
EDIT: We have no existing dependencies to either nlog or log4net.
I was recently tasked to "prototype up some loggin'" for an upcoming project. I didn't have any logging framework experience. I researched, ran through tutorials, made toy apps, etc. on Log4Net, NLog, and Enterprise Library for a few days. Came back 3-4 weeks later and put them together into a cohesive demo. Hopefully some of this is useful to you.
My recommendation for our project is this:
Use a logging facade (e.g. Common.Logging, SimpleLoggingFacade) to avoid direct dependencies.
If we end up using Enterprise Library for other facilities, then use it for Logging, too.
If we end up using something with a dependency on Log4Net, use Log4Net.
If none of the above, use NLog. Which I'd prefer.
That's based on these findings (opinions!):
All 3 frameworks are capable and can do some sophisticated things. We want a quality solution, but frankly don't need ultra high performance or 60 types of event sinks.
All 3 have very similar basic concepts.
Each has its own cool tricks, like really advanced routing, or dynamic log filenames, file truncating, etc.
All 3 are pretty well documented in their own way.
For a complete newb like me, they were all a little awkward initially. No drastic differences here for the basics. I got over it.
When revisiting things a few weeks later, NLog was clearly the easiest to resume. I needed very little brush up on it. With Log4Net, I had to revisit a few online examples to get going. With EntLib, I gave up and did the tutorials all over again from scratch - I was totally lost.
I couldn't figure out how to get EntLib to do some things like log to the database. It might be easy, but it was beyond my time limit.
Log4Net and NLog have a small in-code footprint. EntLib is spammy, but I'd use a facade over it anyway.
I accidentally mis-configured EntLib and it told me at run time. Log4Net didn't. I didn't have an accidental mis-config with NLog.
EntLib comes with a nice looking app.config editor, which you 100% need. NLog has a config file schema so you get "intellisense". Log4Net comes with nada.
So obviously I like NLog so far. Not enough to use it in spite of having another solution available, though.
A key consideration that hasn't been much discussed is support and updates.
Log4Net hasn't been updated since version 1.2.10 was published April 19, 2006.
In contrast, NLog has been actively supported since 2006 will soon release NLog 2.0 supporting many platforms that didn't exist when log4net was last updated such as:
NET Framework 2.0 SP1 and above, 3.5 & 4.0 (Client and Extended profiles)
Silverlight 2.0, 3.0, 4.0
.NET Compact Framework 2.0, 3.5
Mono 2.x profile
Having had an experience with both frameworks recently, I thought I can share my views on each frameworks.
I was asked to evaluate the logging frameworks for an existing web application, I narrowed down my choices to NLog (v2.0) and log4net (v1.2.11) after going through various online forums. Here are my findings:
Setting/starting up with NLog is dead easy. You go through the Getting started tutorial on their website and you are done. You get a fair idea, how thing might be with nlog. Config file is so intuitive that anyone can understand the config. For example: if you want to set the internal logging on, you set the flag in Nlog config file's header node, which is where you would expect it to be. In log4net, you set different flags in web.config's appSettings section.
In log4net, internal logging doesnt output timestamp which is annoying. In Nlog, you get a nice log with timestamps. I found it very useful in my evaluations.
Filters in log4net - You better check my this question - log4net filter - how to write AND filter to ignore log messages and if you find an answer/solution for this, please let me know.
I understand, there is a workaround for this question, as you can write your own custom filter. But something which is not easily available in log4net.
Performance - I logged around 3000 log messages to database using a stored procedure. I used simple for loop (int i=0; i<3000; i++... to log the same message 3000 times. For the writes: log4net AdoAppender took almost double the time than NLog.
Log4net doesnt support asynchronous appender.
It was sufficient comparison for me to choose NLog as the logging framework. :)
For anyone getting to this thread late, you may want to take a look back at the .Net Base Class Library (BCL). Many people missed the changes between .Net 1.1 and .Net 2.0 when the TraceSource class was introduced (circa 2005).
Using the TraceSource is analagous to other logging frameworks, with granular control of logging, configuration in app.config/web.config, and programmatic access - without the overhead of the enterprise application block.
.Net BCL Team Blog: Intro to Tracing - Part I (Look at Part II a,b,c as well)
There are also a number of comparisons floating around: "log4net vs TraceSource"
For us, the key difference is in overall perf...
Have a look at Logger.IsDebugEnabled in NLog versus Log4Net, from our tests, NLog has less overhead and that's what we are after (low-latency stuff).
Cheers,
Florian
First look at the rest of your stack.
If you are using NHibernate, it utilizes Log4Net directly.
Other frameworks might have other specific loggers they need.
Other than that: both work fine.
I've settled on Log4Net myself. It can be a pain to configure, and if it isn't configured correctly it is a pain to figure out what went wrong. But you can make it do almost anything you would want from a logger.
If you don't have a standing issue with Log4Net, here is an article I wrote on how to get started with it:
http://elegantcode.com/2007/12/07/getting-started-with-log4net/
Well .. I used Enterprise library for database logging tasks
and now I switched to NLog due to performance bottleneck.
some comparison info :
http://pauliusraila.blogspot.com/2010/10/solving-database-logging-bottlenecks.html
I echo the above and do prefer nLog. Entlib is needlessly bloated.
Re:Log4net One thing that ALWAYS gets me with log4net is forgetting to add the following to the global.asax to init the component:
log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure();
If you go here you can find a comprehensive matrix that includes both the NLog and Log4Net libs as well as Enterprise Lib and other products.
Somebody could argue that the matrix is done in a way to underline the features of the only commercial lib present in the matrix. I think it's true but it was useful anyway to drive my choice versus NLog.
Regards
As I noticed, log4net locks their output files the whole time application is running, so you can't delete them. Otherwise they are similar.
So I prefer NLog.
Shameless plug for an open source project I run, but given the lively discussion about which .NET logging framework is more active I thought I'd post an obligatory link to Serilog.
To use within an application, Serilog is similar to (and draws heavily on) log4net. Unlike other .NET logging options, however, Serilog is about preserving the structure of log events for offline analysis. When you write:
Log.Information("The answer is {Answer}", 42);
Most logging libraries immediately render the message into a string. Serilog can do that too, but it preserves the { Answer: 42 } property so that later on, using one of a number of NoSQL data stores, you can properly query events based on the value of Answer.
We're close to a 1.0 and support all of the modern (.NET 4.5, Windows Store and Windows Phone 8) platforms.
I second NLog too because it works with unmanaged code too.
I suppose it could be possibe to use log4net and log4cxx together, but NLog handles both managed and unmanaged code out of the box.
I also looked at Common.Logging, a facade that makes abstraction of the logging api, it supports log4net, NLog and Entreprise Library. I don't think i'll use it, but i like how they use lambdas to improve performance when logging is disabled (a feature shared with NLog and probably others).
You might also consider Microsoft Enterprise Library Logging Block. It comes with nice designer.
I think the general consensus is that nlog is a bit easier to configure and use. Both are quite capable, though.
Based on my experience, SmartInspect beats both NLog and log4net.
Its extremely easy to use, documentation is great, and you can view and filter previously logged messages with their interactive log viewer, which is a huge real world advantage.
One thing I like is the tabbed views of data, like the browser tabs in Chrome. Each tab can provide a different filtered view of the log.
Related
I’m contributing in an Enterprise Integration Infrastructure project. Like many other integration software, Apache-Camel is the core of our application. To enable users defining their EIPs graphically, I want to use Fuse IDE in the software. The only thing I need the Fuse do is generating xml file from the routes which are defined by the users.
On the other hand, I know that Fuse IDE is essentially an Eclipse plugin (I think it is an Eclipse RCP plugin). Since the UI of our application is based on javaFX I want to know that is there any way to manipulate the code of Fuse to adjust it to javaFX entities?
Your help will be more than appreciated, due to the high importance of this issue for me.
That would be a lot of hard work as that code is tightly coupled to Eclipse.
So I would say NO unless you are prepared to do a lot of work porting and migration the code.
What is the exact difference between p4.net and p4api.net?
I was trying to create a custom gui based tool for perforce and I started developing it using p4api.net. Much later I came to know about the existence of p4.net. Now I am confused with their difference and the purpose.
Also I have a doubt on which option to choose for the development.
Is there something else other than these two?
P4API.NET is the supported API for .NET applications, so I'd go with that. You can see a list of the officially released APIs for the various languages here.
We are using Xamarin Studio to create mobile applications in .NET to some platforms. Our experience show some compatibility problems to use original Log4Net but we're no tried yet the Log4Net Compact Framework (http://logging.apache.org/log4net/release/framework-support.html).
There's someone with this problem/solution ?
Thanks in advance!
There are a lot of limitations with the MonoTouch profile. But I managed to get some of the very basic appenders to work. Should give you enough to get started. It's a work in progress, so your milage may vary. Expect bugs!
https://github.com/drunkirishcoder/monotouch-log4net
Yes, it works properly! We done the follow steps:
include the log4net.dll into References (Figure 1).
added the using log4net; in using area code.
Figure 1 - Edit References
I need a better Live Log Viewer that supports NLog, Log4net and Enterprise Library. The Viewer must constantly be running in live mode for our operation guys. So far the ones that we've tried always run out of memory and we always need to restart them. I need a Viewer that can either remove unwanted stale messages or roll them over to a log file automatically. I know this is a tall order. So far no luck. We will even pay for it.
I use the ReflectInsight Viewer. http://www.reflectsoftware.com/
We use Enterprise Library and Log4net logging at work which produce text log files. Previously I would use a number of tail logging programs to show me new messages that came into the files, but didn't provide much filtering, searching capabilities.
By adding a reference to the ReflectInsight Logging Extensions https://insightextensions.codeplex.com and updating my existing logging configuration, I was able to send my logged messages to the ReflectInsight viewer and view them in real-time. I was then able to search, filter, bookmark, and view my messages.
I could then save the results to another file...containing only what I needed and filtering out the noise from other applications.
I hope this helps you as it did me.
Have you tried LogGrok for viewing NLOG logs?
It supports filter the log by any field for MSI, VB and NLOG, configurable highlighteres(some are already pre-configured), multiple search results (supporting Regex).
Utility supports large log files and has customizable docking windows UI.
LogGrok is opensource, you can add features you need by yourself(or ask project team to add it for you).
Project documentation can be found in this repository
I use LogExpert http://logexpert.codeplex.com/ it is free, and it has some very powerful features. I have only ran into one or two minor bugs. Features include, Filtering, Search, Color coded phrases, regular expressions, filter to tab (creating new log files from distilled results).
All in all really well done, and the developer needs help to keep it going!
Can existing .net application(in C#) be converted to MonoDroid? or
Can we port an existing .NET web app to Android using MonoDroid?
MonoDroid is intended to allow you to develop applications in C# as opposed to Java; not as a means to drop an existing application into place.
You asked about a web app, but I'm assuming you mean an ASP.NET web app, which wouldn't map to the Android API, and couldn't simply be copied over. Even taking your HTML and dropping it into something like Titanium would still require a lot of JS tweaking to make it work.
I have a feeling you're looking at a re-write. Maybe if you can provide more details (is this an ASP.NET app, etc.), I could give a better answer.
Yes no problem. But it wouldn't be an automatic process, nor a particularly simple one. All the UI elements, persistence stuff and so on (the platform specific parts of your application) will need to be redone. Depending on your app, and how it is written, this may be a major part, or a relatively small one. The more corners that were cut originally, the more it will cost to port over.
In addition to Tom's answer, I would say it has some limitations(link 1 and link 2) . I blogged some other interesting moments here.
Here is a good example of cross-platform mobile application (monoDroid, monoTouch, WP7).