head to head · open source
monolog vs quill
monolog has 21,402 GitHub stars, 1,920 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. quill has 3,079 stars, 275 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. monolog leads on adoption by 595% (21,402 vs 3,079 stars). monolog is written in PHP under MIT; quill is written in C++ under MIT. monolog has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, quill 9%. 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 | quill | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 3.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 275 |
| 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 quill if
- You want the quill feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and quill 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 quill
Quill Ultra Low Latency Asynchronous C++17 Logging and Metrics Library 🔬 Try It Online · 🚀 Benchmarks · 📚 Documentation · ⚡ Recipes · ❓ FAQ 🐛 Report Bug · 💡 Request Feature 🧭 Table of Contents Introduction Quick Start Features Performance Usage Design Caveats License ✨ Introduction Quill is an asynchronous logging and metrics library for C++17 and later . It keeps formatting and I/O away from latency sensitive application threads by encoding log arguments on the frontend and processing them on a dedicated backend worker. Low Frontend Latency : Log arguments are encoded and queued for asynchronous…
read the full quill overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is monolog or quill more popular?
monolog has 21,402 GitHub stars and quill has 3,079. monolog has the larger community by that measure.
Are monolog and quill free?
Both are open source. monolog is licensed under MIT and quill under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between monolog and quill?
monolog is written in PHP and quill 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 quill?
Choose monolog if you want the larger community (21,402 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose quill if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.