head to head · open source
monolog vs plog
monolog has 21,402 GitHub stars, 1,920 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. plog has 2,597 stars, 407 forks, 58 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. monolog leads on adoption by 724% (21,402 vs 2,597 stars). monolog is written in PHP under MIT; plog is written in C++ under MIT. monolog has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, plog 16%. monolog 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 | plog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 2.6K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-10-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 407 |
| 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 plog if
- You want the plog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and plog 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 plog
Plog portable, simple and extensible C++ logging library Pretty powerful logging library in about 1000 lines of code Introduction Hello log! Features Integration Copy the source Git submodule CMake integration add subdirectory FetchContent Package managers Usage Step 1: Adding includes Step 2: Initialization RollingFileInitializer ConsoleInitializer Manual initialization (Init.h) Step 3: Logging Basic logging macros Conditional logging macros Logger severity checker Advanced usage Changing severity at runtime Custom initialization Multiple appenders Multiple loggers Share log instances across modules (exe, dll…
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Frequently asked questions
Is monolog or plog more popular?
monolog has 21,402 GitHub stars and plog has 2,597. monolog has the larger community by that measure.
Are monolog and plog free?
Both are open source. monolog is licensed under MIT and plog under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between monolog and plog?
monolog is written in PHP and plog 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 plog?
Choose monolog if you want the larger community (21,402 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose plog if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.