Loki: The Log System That Indexes Labels, Not Text
Loki is a log system that indexes only metadata labels, not the full log content. This makes it cheaper and simpler to run than full-text indexing systems, storing compressed logs in object storage.
Think of Loki as Prometheus for logs. Instead of indexing every word, it only indexes a small set of metadata labels, dramatically reducing costs. The raw log data is compressed and stored in cheap object storage like S3. You then query logs using LogQL, which filters on these labels. The main footgun is poor label choice; using high-cardinality labels like user IDs bloats the index, crippling performance and negating the entire 'cheap and simple' value proposition.
Read the original → grafana.com
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- #sre
- #observability
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