Central Logging
7.1#41 in log management software$187 one-timeWebAPILinuxmacOS
VisitCentral Logging vs Grafana Loki
Grafana Loki
8.9#1 in log management softwareFrom $19 a monthFree planWebAPILinuxSelf-hosted
VisitWhat both publish
| Fact | Central Logging | Grafana Loki |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment options | self-hosted | self-hosted |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | The site documents log shipping guides for Nginx, Caddy, Docker, Kubernetes, Proxmox, PostgreSQL, rsyslog, systemd, and Python. | Official documentation lists Grafana Alloy as the recommended collector and describes OpenTelemetry, Promtail, Fluent Bit, Fluentd, Vector, Logstash and other clients. |
| Live log tailing | Yes | Yes |
| Log pipelines | Yes | Yes |
| Purpose | Central Logging is a self-hosted logging, alerting, cron monitoring, and uptime system installed on the customer's server. | Loki is a log aggregation system designed to store and query logs from applications and infrastructure. |
Central Logging plans
- Free trialFree
- Unlimited license$187, paid once
Grafana Loki plans
- Grafana Cloud Logs FreeFree
- Grafana Loki OSS self-hostedFree
- Loki (self-hosted)Free
- Grafana Cloud Logs Pro$19 a month
- Grafana Cloud Logs Enterprise—
Pick Central Logging if…
You want what its maker publishes above — check its page for the details.
Pick Grafana Loki if…
Loki suits teams that need to aggregate and query application or infrastructure logs and can manage a self-hosted deployment or use Grafana Cloud Logs. Its label-based indexing and LogQL are central considerations for selecting it.