Better Stack (Log Management)
Cloud-based log management solution for aggregating, searching, and analyzing application logs at scale
SigLens
Unified observability engine delivering 100x Splunk efficiency
SigLens is a single‑binary observability platform for logs, metrics, and traces, offering up to 100× faster queries and 90% lower costs compared to Splunk, Elastic, and Loki.
Overview
Overview
SigLens targets engineering teams that need a unified view of logs, metrics, and traces without the overhead of multiple tools. Built on years of monitoring experience, it promises dramatically lower cost and higher performance than traditional commercial solutions.
Capabilities
The platform ingests data via OpenTelemetry, Elastic, Splunk HEC, and Loki formats, and lets users query with either Splunk SPL or standard SQL. Its single‑binary architecture eliminates external dependencies, enabling rapid onboarding and simple maintenance. Benchmarks show up to 8 TB/day per instance and petabyte‑scale ingestion on modest cloud resources.
Deployment
Deploy SigLens via Git, Docker, or Helm, and run it on anything from a developer laptop to a fleet of EC2 instances. The lightweight design reduces hardware requirements, delivering up to 90% cost savings while maintaining high query speed.
Highlights
Supports OpenTelemetry, Elastic, Splunk HEC, and Loki ingestion formats
Query with Splunk SPL or standard SQL
Single binary with zero external dependencies
Handles up to 8 TB/day per node, scaling to petabytes on modest EC2 fleet
Pros
- Dramatic cost reduction versus commercial observability suites
- High ingestion throughput (8 TB/day per instance)
- Unified query across logs, metrics, and traces
- Zero external dependencies simplify operations
Considerations
- AGPL-3.0 license may limit commercial embedding
- Limited native visualizations; relies on external dashboards
- Performance benchmarks are self‑reported and may vary
- Single binary may lack fine‑grained scaling controls of distributed systems
Managed products teams compare with
When teams consider SigLens, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.
Looking for a hosted option? These are the services engineering teams benchmark against before choosing open source.
Fit guide
Great for
- Teams replacing Splunk or Elastic with a cost‑effective alternative
- Small to medium deployments preferring a single binary
- Organizations needing unified query language across observability data
- Developers familiar with SPL or SQL
Not ideal when
- Enterprises requiring multi‑tenant SaaS with built‑in RBAC
- Use cases demanding extensive out‑of‑the‑box visual dashboards
- Environments where GPL‑compatible licensing is prohibited
- Very large scale clusters needing specialized sharding beyond current design
How teams use it
Log aggregation for microservice fleet
Collects logs from 10,000 services, queries them instantly with SPL, cutting storage costs by 90%.
Unified tracing and metrics for CI pipelines
Ingests OpenTelemetry data from CI jobs, enabling correlated trace‑metric analysis without separate tools.
Cost‑effective observability in a startup
Runs on a single laptop during development, handling 8 TB/day, eliminating need for expensive SaaS subscriptions.
Petabyte‑scale data lake on modest cloud
Processes 1 PB/day using only 32 EC2 instances, outperforming traditional stacks that need thousands of nodes.
Tech snapshot
Go76%
JavaScript15%
HTML5%
CSS3%
Shell1%
Python1%
Frequently asked questions
What data formats can SigLens ingest?
SigLens accepts OpenTelemetry, Elastic, Splunk HEC, and Loki ingestion formats, covering most common log, metric, and trace sources.
Which query languages are supported?
You can query data using Splunk SPL or standard SQL, allowing flexibility for existing skill sets.
Do I need external services to run SigLens?
No. SigLens is delivered as a single binary with zero external dependencies, runnable on a laptop or any server.
How does SigLens achieve cost savings?
Its efficient storage engine and high ingestion throughput reduce required infrastructure, delivering up to 90% lower operational costs versus Splunk, Elastic, or Loki.
Is there a community or support channel?
Yes, users can join the project’s Slack community for questions and assistance.
Project at a glance
Active- Stars
- 1,658
- Watchers
- 1,658
- Forks
- 268
LicenseAGPL-3.0
Repo age2 years old
Last commit2 months ago
Primary languageGo
Last synced yesterday