Central Logging vs Google Cloud Logging
Central Logging
centrallogging.com
Google Cloud Logging
cloud.google.comSide by side
| Figure | Central Logging | Google Cloud Logging |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $187/mo | $0.01/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 3 | 13 |
| Spec score · Log Management Software | 8.5 (#32) | 9.5 (#2) |
| Archive export | Yes | Yes |
| Deployment | It runs as a statically linked, self-contained executable with no installer, runtime, or dependencies. | cloud |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | The site documents log shipping guides for Nginx, Caddy, Docker, Kubernetes, Proxmox, PostgreSQL, rsyslog, systemd, and Python. | Official integrations include Cloud Monitoring, Error Reporting, Cloud Trace, Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage and BigQuery. |
| 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. | Cloud Logging is a fully managed, real-time log management service for storage, search, analysis, and alerting at exabyte scale. |
| Log retention | 15 | 30 |
Plans
Central Logging
- Free trialFree
- Unlimited license$187 a month
- Unlimited license$187, paid once
Google Cloud Logging
- Logging storage (non-vended network logs)$0.50 a month
- Vended network logs storage$0.25 a month
- Logging retention beyond default period$0.01 a month
- Free allotmentFree
- Log AnalyticsFree
- Log RouterFree
- Logs RouterFree
- Extended retention$0.01 a month
- Logging retention$0.01 a month
- Vended network logs storage$0.25, paid once
In their own words
Central Logging
Central Logging has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
Google Cloud Logging
Google Cloud Logging is a managed cloud service for storing, searching, analyzing and alerting on logs. Logs Explorer supports query-based searches, sorting, histogram views, field exploration and saved queries. Log Analytics uses BigQuery for SQL analysis, and log data can also be accessed in BigQuery alongside other business data. Google Cloud platform logs are ingested without setup; GKE workload logs are captured automatically, while the Ops Agent collects VM workload logs. Logs Router can send logs to external systems through Pub/Sub, and Cloud Storage can hold archives. Regional log buckets keep and process workload data in a selected region, with configurable access controls and retention. The service integrates with Cloud Monitoring, Error Reporting and Cloud Trace. Cloud Audit Logs records administrative activity and resource access, and its entries are immutable; the product page states 400 days of audit-log retention at no additional cost. Standard logging storage includes the first 50 GiB per project per month free, and new Google Cloud customers are offered $300 in credits. The listed deployment is cloud; platforms include API, Linux and web.