Decision to land on log collection tool

[JayGhiya]

The choice is between promtail and fluent bit:
Right now we use promtail
Here are some key differences:
Fluent Bit and Promtail are both log shippers, but they have some differences in their capabilities and use cases. Here are some things that Fluent Bit can do that Promtail can't:

1. Multiple Output Destinations: Fluent Bit supports a wide variety of output plugins, allowing you to send your logs to many different destinations, such as Elasticsearch, AWS CloudWatch, Google Stackdriver, and more. Promtail, on the other hand, is primarily designed to send logs to Loki.

2. Log Transformation and Enrichment: Fluent Bit supports filters that can process, enrich, and transform logs before they are shipped. This includes things like adding or modifying fields, excluding certain records, and more. While Promtail does support some log processing features, it's not as extensive as Fluent Bit.

3. Support for More Input Types: Fluent Bit supports a wider variety of input sources, including system logs, network sockets, and more. Promtail primarily focuses on scraping logs from the local system and Kubernetes pods.

4. Built-in Metrics Collection: Fluent Bit can also collect system and application metrics in addition to logs. Promtail is focused solely on logs.

5. Cross-Platform Support: Fluent Bit has broader platform support and can run on Linux, Windows, and macOS, as well as various ARM architectures. Promtail is primarily designed for Linux and Kubernetes environments.

6. Integration with Fluentd: Fluent Bit can be used as a lightweight log shipper in combination with Fluentd, a more robust log aggregator and processor. This allows you to use Fluent Bit to collect and forward logs, and Fluentd to aggregate, process, and store them. Promtail doesn't have this kind of integration.

In summary, Fluent Bit is a more flexible and feature-rich tool that can handle a wider variety of logging use cases. Promtail, on the other hand, is a simpler tool that is tightly integrated with Loki and is a good choice if you're primarily using Loki for log storage and querying.