Best PC Monitoring Software for 2024: Top 9 Log Monitoring Tools
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Key notes
- Unless you’re a true IT specialist, PC logging software is your only chance to monitor the activity of your machine.
- These can register all events that can, for example, lead up to a serious BSoD error.
- We’ve also included complete solutions for server and network monitoring.
The days of painful plain-text log management are long gone. It’s true that plain-text data is still useful in particular cases when it comes to extended analysis to gather essential infrastructure data it really pays to have reliable log monitoring software.
Log monitoring software will monitor the log files generated by security devices, networks, servers, and apps.
All errors and issues are saved for deeper analysis. System admins can then set up a monitor on the generated logs to detect problems.
These monitors will scan the log files and search for known patterns and rules that show important events. After such events are discovered, the monitoring software will send an alert to the user or another system.
The main advantage of using log monitoring software is that it can help you quickly pinpoint the cause of an error within a single query.
How can I choose the right log monitoring tool?
When you are choosing the perfect tool, you first need to evaluate your current business operation.
You’ll have to decide whether you need basic data out of your logs or you require more powerful and efficient tools for a larger scale log management.
All these being said, we have put together a list of the best log monitoring tools for robust solutions. Check them out and pick your favorite tool that will meet your needs.
Which are the best log monitoring software for PC?
ManageEngine OpManager
ManageEngine OpManager is a dedicated tool for server and network management that takes log monitoring to another level.
It’s a professional-level software that not only analyzes your entire network architecture but also VMware-virtualized servers to provide IT administrators complete situation awareness.
OpManager monitors Host, VMs, and Storage Repositories of Citrix XenServer and offers complete visibility regarding their performance.
The solution offers agent-based log file monitoring to supervise the system and application logs. The agent deployed on the end Windows system monitors the text log files in real-time.
Apart from the network components, OpManager also provides file and folder monitoring that helps you instantly detect storage subsystem problems, an unexpected steep increase in disk utilization, and more such events.
Its script monitoring feature supports Powershell, Linux shell script, VBscript, Perl, and Python scripts out-of-the-box.
It even provides a strong 24×7 monitoring of your website for availability and performance to identify any problems before they cause any damage.
ManageEngine OpManager best features:
- Over 70 workflow checks and actions grouped under 9 different categories
- Monitors Host, VMs, and Storage Repositories of Citrix XenServer
- 24×7 website management
- Failover and failback functionality
- Bandwidth monitoring, network configuration management, firewall management, IP address management, and switch port management
ManageEngine OpManager
Monitor all your network devices and servers from a single, powerful console with this premium tool!PRTG Network Monitor
Instead of collecting a ton of logs and only accessing them when things go bad, use PRTG as a centralized tool to see all your logs and also set up alarms to be notified immediately.
Once you receive a notification, you access the dashboard to detect the time frame when an issue occurred and spot the problem quickly.
PRTG is equipped with multiple sensors used for data collection and there are also a lot of filters you can customize.
There’s a Windows API sensor and a WMI sensor to collect Windows Event Logs and a Syslog Receiver Sensor for monitoring and collecting Syslog messages sent by devices from your network.
Next, create alarms and customize them for your particular situation. The dashboard is also customizable so that you can integrate data from other log tools.
What’s more, PRTG Network Monitor also comes with a lot of other tools to spot network problems or even prevent them from happening.
PRTG Network Monitor best features:
- Windows API and WMI sensors
- Centralized dashboard
- Identifies potential network disruptions and issues notifications
- Detailed graphical reports
- Advanced network logging features
PRTG Network Monitor
Use PRTG as a centralized tool to collect all your logs and monitor the entire network.SentryPC
SentryPC is a modern platform for logging, managing, and aggregating all potential errors from your software and within your applications.
The tool’s high-class algorithm can help out teams to detect any possible errors within the application infrastructure that could be critical to production operations.
Its real-time error reporting takes place as you deploy a new version of your application so that all errors can be monitored as they happen and eventually prevented before it’s much too late to do anything else.
SentryPC provides support for avoiding the hassle of having to deal with problems that are much too late to be fixed anymore.
The tool uses its technology to help inform teams about all potential fixes and rollbacks that would be able to sustain healthy software.
SentryPC best features:
- Detailed error reporting for URLs, header information, and used parameters
- The graphical interface is perfect for understanding the nature of particular errors and their origin to fix them
- Dynamic alerts and notifications involve SMS, chat services, and email
- Real-time error reporting
- User-feedback system for comparing any potential error reporting
SentryPC
Every recorded action contains the precise day and time the event happened, as well as the length of the activity.Logz.io
Logz.io uses predictive analytics and machine learning to make the process of finding critical events and data generated by logs from servers, apps, and network environments much easier.
This SaaS platform has a cloud-based back end built with the help of ELK Stack – Elasticsearch, Logstash & Kibana. The environment offers you real-time insight into any log data that you are trying to understand or analyze.
Logs.io best features:
- Analyze logs in the cloud and use ELK stack as a Service
- Critical log events before they even reach production
- Fast set-up with only five minutes to production
- Dynamic scaling for any businesses
- AWS-built data protection
⇒ Get Logz.io
Splunk
Splunk focuses its log monitoring services around enterprise customers who need very concise software for searching, diagnosing, and reporting all events that surround data logs.
The software is built in such a way to entirely support the process of indexing and deciphering logs of all kinds. It will work with structured, unstructured, and complex applications logs based on a multi-line approach.
Splunk understands machine data of all kinds including networks, servers, web servers, exchanges, security devices, mainframes, and so on.
The software offers a robust monitoring and alerting system for keeping an eye on all important actions and events.
Splunk best features:
- Analyzes networks, servers, web servers, exchanges, security devices, mainframes, and more
- Versatile and flexible user interface for searching and analyzing data in real-time
- Drilling algorithm for finding all kinds of anomalies and familiar patterns across log files
- Robust monitoring and alerting system
- Visual reporting using an automated dashboard input
⇒ Get Splunk
Cloudlytics
Coudlytics is a SaaS startup created to enhance the quality of the analysis of billing data, log data, and cloud services. The tool is aimed at AWS Cloud services in particular, such as CloudFront and S3 CloudTrial.
Using the software, customers can get in-depth insights and pattern discovery based on the data provided by the services.
Cloudlytics features three management modules, and it offers its users the flexibility to choose from monitoring resources in their environment, to analyzing AWS logs and monthly bills.
Cloudlytics best features:
- R real-time alerts of errors as soon as they pop up
- The billing analytics lets you watch closely over the consumption of your resources
- Sophisticated user interface for an in-depth view of all your data
- The file download analytics includes GEO data
- Cloud management for back-ups and service status
⇒ Get Cloudlytics
Flume
Apache Flume is a service that helps its users stream data straight into Hadoop. The service’s core architecture is based on streaming data flows.
They are used to ingest data from a variety of sources to directly link up with Hadoop for deeper analysis and storage purposes.
Flume’s Enterprise customers use the service to stream data into Hadoop’s HDFS. This data usually includes machine data, data logs, geodata, and social media data.
Flume best features:
- Multi-server support for ingesting data from multiple sources
- The collection can be done in real-time or another variant is to use batch modes
- Ingestion of large data sets from conventional social and eCommerce networks for analysis in real-time
- Scalable by adding more machines to transfer more events
- Reliable back end built with durable storage and failover protection
⇒ Get Flume
Sentinel Log Manager
NetIQ is an enterprise software company that focuses more on products that are related to application management software operations and security and log management resources.
The Sentinel Log Manager is a pack of software apps that provide businesses the opportunity to take advantage of features such as the effortless log collector, secure storage units, and analysis services, to keep your data safe and accessible.
Sentinel’s cost-effective and flexible log management platforms make it very easy for businesses to audit their logs in real-time for any possible security risks or app threats that could disturb the production software.
Sentinel Log Manager best features:
- Distributed search to find comprehensive details about events from your local or your global Sentinel Log Manager servers
- Common regulatory reporting; the predefined reports reduce the time you have to spend on compliance
- One-click reports based on your search queries
- Choose from traditional text-oriented search or built custom, and more complex search queries yourself
- Support for non-proprietary storage systems
- Log encryption over the network to provide another layer of security for your log data
- Intuitive storage analysis
NXLog
The modern environment of IT departments can provide a layer of challenges when it comes to a truly in-depth understanding of the reasons for which events occur and what logs are reporting.
Entries are collected from multiple sources. With the demand for analyzing logs in real-time, some difficulties can arise regarding data management in a centralized environment.
NXLog focuses on providing the necessary tools for a concise analysis of logs from a variety of platforms, formats, and sources.
Note that it can collect logs from files in lots of formats and it can receive logs from the network remotely on all supported platforms.
NXLog best features:
- Multi-platform support for GNU, Linux, Solaris, Android, BSD, and Windows
- Pluggable plugins offer modularization
- Ability to collect logs as 500,000 EPS or even more
- Buffer and prioritize logs so that they will not get lost in the pipeline
- Log rotation and task schedule
- Secure network transport over SSL
- Offline log processing capabilities for transfers, conversions, and general post-processing
⇒ Get NXLog
We’ll end our list here. Before downloading one of the tools listed above, write down your needs and expectations in terms of log monitoring software and then select the tool that best suits your needs.
And while we’re on the subject, you might get extra ideas from our selection of the best network of file analysis tools.
Have you already picked the best solution for yourself? Let us know about your experience in the comments section below.
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