head to head · open source
monolog vs picologging
monolog has 21,405 GitHub stars, 1,910 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped yesterday. picologging has 780 stars, 29 forks, 52 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. monolog leads on adoption by 2,644% (21,405 vs 780 stars). monolog is written in PHP under MIT; picologging is written in Python under MIT. monolog has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, picologging 4%. monolog was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (hacktoberfest, 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 | picologging | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 780 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 29 |
| 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 picologging if
- You want the picologging feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and picologging fits your workflow better
About monolog
Monolog is a logging library for PHP that sends log records to files, sockets, inboxes, databases, and various web services. It ships with the handlers, formatters, and processors needed to route records where they belong, and special handlers allow more advanced logging strategies than a single output stream. The library lives in the PHP ecosystem and is distributed through Packagist as monolog/monolog . It is released under the MIT license and has been developed for sixteen years, with more than twenty one thousand stars and roughly nineteen hundred forks on GitHub.
read the full monolog overview →
About picologging
Picologging is a high performance logging library for Python, published by Microsoft under the MIT licence, that works as a drop in replacement for the standard library logging module and is aimed at Python developers who want faster logging without rewriting existing logging code.
read the full picologging overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is monolog or picologging more popular?
monolog has 21,405 GitHub stars and picologging has 780. monolog has the larger community by that measure.
Are monolog and picologging free?
Both are open source. monolog is licensed under MIT and picologging under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between monolog and picologging?
monolog is written in PHP and picologging in Python. 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 picologging?
Choose monolog if you want the larger community (21,405 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose picologging if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.