head to head · open source
monolog vs NLog
monolog has 21,402 GitHub stars, 1,920 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. NLog has 6,546 stars, 1,378 forks, 50 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. monolog leads on adoption by 227% (21,402 vs 6,546 stars). monolog is written in PHP under MIT; NLog is written in C# under BSD-3-Clause. monolog has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, NLog 21%. NLog was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (logger, 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.
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Side by side
| monolog | NLog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | PHP | C# |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 NLog if
- You want the NLog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and NLog 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 NLog
NLog is a free logging platform for .NET with rich log routing and management capabilities. It makes it easy to produce and manage high quality logs for your application regardless of its size or complexity. Handles both structured logging and traditional logging from any .NET language, augment with contextual information, format according to your preference and send them to one or more targets such as file or console. Major and minor releases will be posted on project news. Getting started .NET Framework ASP.NET Core .NET Core Console For the possible options in the config, check the Options list and API…
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Frequently asked questions
Is monolog or NLog more popular?
monolog has 21,402 GitHub stars and NLog has 6,546. monolog has the larger community by that measure.
Are monolog and NLog free?
Both are open source. monolog is licensed under MIT and NLog under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between monolog and NLog?
monolog is written in PHP and NLog in C#. 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 NLog?
Choose monolog if you want the larger community (21,402 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose NLog if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.