head to head · open source
monolog vs swift-log
monolog has 21,402 GitHub stars, 1,920 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. swift-log has 4,057 stars, 351 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. monolog leads on adoption by 428% (21,402 vs 4,057 stars). monolog is written in PHP under MIT; swift-log is written in Swift under Apache-2.0. monolog has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, swift-log 9%. swift-log 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.
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Side by side
| monolog | swift-log | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 4.1K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 351 |
| 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 swift-log if
- You want the swift-log feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and swift-log 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 swift-log
SwiftLog This repository contains a logging API implementation for Swift. SwiftLog provides a unified, performant, and ergonomic logging API that can be adopted by libraries and applications across the Swift ecosystem. 📚 Documentation and tutorials are available on the Swift Package Index 🚀 Contributions are welcome, please see CONTRIBUTING.md 🪪 License is Apache 2.0, repeated in LICENSE.txt 🔒 Security issues should be reported via the process in Security 🔀 Available Logging Backends : SwiftLog is an API package you'll want to choose from the many community maintained logging backends for production use…
read the full swift-log overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is monolog or swift-log more popular?
monolog has 21,402 GitHub stars and swift-log has 4,057. monolog has the larger community by that measure.
Are monolog and swift-log free?
Both are open source. monolog is licensed under MIT and swift-log under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between monolog and swift-log?
monolog is written in PHP and swift-log in Swift. 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 swift-log?
Choose monolog if you want the larger community (21,402 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose swift-log if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.