Seq

Spec sheet

What it does

Seq is a self-hosted, real-time server for searching and analyzing structured application logs, traces and metrics.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Purpose

Seq is a self-hosted telemetry server that stores structured application events and makes them searchable through its web interface.Read 12 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Deployment

Seq is self-hosted and supported on Windows or under Docker/Linux, and can be deployed on-premises or in a public cloud.Read 12 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Integrations

Documented ingestion options include Serilog, Microsoft.Extensions.Logging, OpenTelemetry, Node.js libraries, HTTP, GELF, syslog, RabbitMQ, Docker and Kubernetes.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Security

Official security guidance describes HTTPS transport, salted one-way password and API-key hashes, encrypted feed secrets, role-based permissions and audit logging.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Support

The Individual plan includes community support; paid plans include priority email support, and Datacenter includes a 45-minute onboarding call with the engineering team.Read 12 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

License

Seq is proprietary subscription software; its agreement grants a non-exclusive, non-transferable internal-use license and forbids copying, resale and source-code derivation.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Headquarters

Datalust lists Level 1, 240 Queen Street, Brisbane 4000, Australia.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Founded

2013Read 28 Sep 2026 · datalust.co

Company

Datalust was founded in Australia in 2013 by Nicholas and Susan Blumhardt.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

AI agents

Seq supports agent integration through its command-line client and MCP server.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

AI and agent access

Seq's product page says agents can integrate through its CLI or MCP for live debugging or alert triage.Read 12 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Air-gap use

Seq is designed to work with hardware and network isolation, and outbound connectivity for update checks or telemetry is opt-in.Read 12 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Alerts

Users can define custom alert conditions and send notifications to Slack, Teams and email.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

C# SDK

The Seq.Api NuGet package provides C# representations and helpers for the server API.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com

CLI forwarder

seqcli includes a store-and-forward ingestion proxy for intermittently connected systems.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com

Command-line client

seqcli can log, search, tail, query and ingest JSON or plain-text files from any operating system.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com

Compliance deployment

Datalust says Seq can run entirely on customer servers without external cloud services, supporting secured GDPR, DORA, HIPAA or PCI environments.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Dashboards

Seq includes saved queries and dashboards without imposing limits on their number.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Data handling

Seq stores log data on the machine or cloud infrastructure hosting it, and the pricing FAQ says log and trace data is never sent to or shared with Datalust.Read 12 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Documentation depth

The documentation covers ingestion, querying, dashboards, alerting, authentication, storage, backups, Docker, Kubernetes, Azure, clustering, APIs and troubleshooting.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Extensibility

Seq plug-in input and output apps can be written in C# or other languages.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Legal name

The license agreement identifies the maker as Datalust Pty Ltd.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

License limits

The Individual license permits one person to access a Seq web interface, while more than one user of an instance requires a multi-user subscription.Read 12 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Light workload hardware

For a light workload, documentation recommends at least 2 CPU cores, 3.5 GB RAM and 50 GB SSD storage.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Limit: cloud cost

A GitHub discussion reported that running Seq in Azure with premium storage was expensive relative to other services.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com

Limit: ecosystem focus

Toolradar lists .NET and Windows focus, per-user pricing and a learning curve among Seq’s drawbacks.Read 15 Oct 2026 · toolradar.com

Limit: forwarder security

The seqcli forwarder does not authenticate incoming requests by default and can expose disk-exhaustion risk if reachable by untrusted clients.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com

Limit: local storage operations

The official requirements warn that SMB file shares are unsupported and recommend high-throughput dedicated storage.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Logs

Seq lets users filter and pivot on structured log-event properties.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Logs, traces, and metrics

Seq provides searching and analysis for logs and traces, and its 2026.1 release adds metrics ingestion and analysis.Read 12 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Metrics

Seq presents live application and infrastructure metrics together in one interface.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Notable news: Seq 2026.1

On 20 July 2026, Datalust announced OpenTelemetry metrics support, columnar metric storage, improved log and trace compression, and a first-party MCP server.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Notifications

Seq documentation covers email, Slack and webhook notification outputs.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Ownership and funding

Datalust says it is profitable, customer-supported and does not rely on venture capital, advertising revenue or data sharing.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Praise: free solo use

A user review described Seq as providing the needed features with a free license for solo use and better data control than a hosted service.Read 15 Oct 2026 · timdows.com

Praise: lightweight operation

An independent developer reported that Seq was lightweight and worked out of the box for a small home-network setup.Read 15 Oct 2026 · dev.to

Praise: usability

Toolradar’s editorial review highlights powerful search, native .NET integration, self-hosting and active development.Read 15 Oct 2026 · toolradar.com

Public API

Seq exposes a complete HTTP API for events, queries, apps and configuration, authenticated with API keys or cookies.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Rating on SourceForge

5 out of 5 from 2 reviewsRead 15 Oct 2026 · toolradar.com

Search language

Seq supports structured-property comparisons, SQL-like operators and regular expressions in searches.Read 15 Oct 2026 · seq.readme.io

Self-hosting

Seq runs on Windows or Docker/Linux and can be deployed on-premises or in public-cloud infrastructure.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Storage

Seq stores telemetry locally and supports native, Microsoft SQL Server or PostgreSQL metastore options.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

System requirements

Windows deployments require Windows 10 or later or Windows Server 2016 or later on a 64-bit machine.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Traces

Seq provides trace visibility for diagnosing slow requests and service dependencies.Read 15 Oct 2026 · datalust.co

Plans and prices

Every Seq plan and price →

Where Specifiction places it

• Log Management Software#23 of 1118.6
• Log Monitoring Tools#7 of 288.8