head to head · open source
monolog vs hl
monolog has 21,402 GitHub stars, 1,920 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. hl has 3,322 stars, 68 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. monolog leads on adoption by 544% (21,402 vs 3,322 stars). monolog is written in PHP under MIT; hl is written in Rust under MIT. monolog has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, hl 2%. hl was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (logging), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| monolog | hl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 3.3K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 68 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick monolog if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick hl if
- You want the hl feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and hl fits your workflow better
About monolog
Monolog Logging for PHP Note This is the documentation for Monolog 3.x , if you are using older releases see the documentation for Monolog 2.x or Monolog 1.x Monolog sends your logs to files, sockets, inboxes, databases and various web services. See the complete list of handlers below. Special handlers allow you to build advanced logging strategies. This library implements the PSR 3 interface that you can type hint against in your own libraries to keep a maximum of interoperability. You can also use it in your applications to make sure you can always use another compatible logger at a later time. As of 1.11.0…
read the full monolog overview →
About hl
hl [![Build Status][ci img]][ci] [![Coverage Status][cov img]][cov] [![Release][release img]][release] High performance log viewer and processor that transforms logs in JSON and logfmt formats into a human readable output. Built with efficiency in mind, it enables quick parsing and analysis of large log files with minimal overhead. Features overview Automatic Pager Integration : Automatically integrates with a pager for enhanced convenience, defaulting to less if available, but fully supporting any compatible pager. Log Streaming Mode : Enable log streaming with the P flag, which disables the pager. Field Based…
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Monitoring & Observability projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Monitoring & Observability field.
Frequently asked questions
Is monolog or hl more popular?
monolog has 21,402 GitHub stars and hl has 3,322. monolog has the larger community by that measure.
Are monolog and hl free?
Both are open source. monolog is licensed under MIT and hl under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between monolog and hl?
monolog is written in PHP and hl in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, monolog or hl?
Choose monolog if you want the larger community (21,402 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose hl if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.