Cribl Stream vs Fluent Bit

Cribl Stream processes machine data such as logs, instrumentation, application data and metrics in real time, then delivers it to an analysis platform. It can add external context, redact, obfuscate or encrypt sensitive fields, and optimize data for performance and cost requirements. Pipelines built from Functions transform incoming events, while Routes direct events to Pipelines and Destinations. Cribl says Stream connects to more than 80 data sources and destinations and supports Cribl Packs for integrations. The Copilot Editor accepts plain-language prompts to help build and refine pipelines, transform and enrich data, filter noise, and route telemetry. Stream can run on Cribl-managed cloud infrastructure or on customer infrastructure, Kubernetes Pods or containers. The Free plan costs nothing and supports up to 1TB per day, unlimited Pipelines and Routes, and Community Support; the on-prem Free license requires sending anonymized telemetry to Cribl. Standard and Enterprise are billed by credits used at ingest, with no prices listed. Cribl was founded in 2018.

Fluent Bit is a free, open-source telemetry agent for collecting and processing logs, metrics, and traces. It can run as an edge agent on constrained systems or as a central collector for cloud infrastructure, and is designed for high throughput with low resource consumption. Built-in parsers cover JSON, Regex, LTSV, and Logfmt; metrics compatibility includes Prometheus and OpenTelemetry. More than 100 built-in plugins cover inputs, filters, analytics, and outputs, with destinations including Splunk, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, and Kafka. Buffering in memory or on the file system and backpressure handling support data flow, while network input and output plugins include TLS and SSL. Stream processing supports SQL queries, aggregation windows, forecasting, and data analysis. Users can write plugins in C, Lua, Golang, or WebAssembly. The Open-source Fluent Bit plan costs nothing, with self-hosted deployment under the Apache License 2.0. Official packages and installation guidance cover Linux, macOS, Windows, containers, and selected BSD and IBM Z Linux environments.