Stop using Logrus

Logrus has long been a popular choice for logging in Go applications, but as the landscape of logging libraries evolves, it’s time to reconsider its place in your projects. In this post, I’ll outline several reasons why you might want to stop using Logrus and explore better alternatives that can enhance your logging experience.

Performance is Terrible

One of the primary reasons I’ve moved away from Logrus is its performance. While it offers a range of features, the overhead it introduces can be significant, especially in high-throughput applications.

Logrus regenerates maps for every logging operation, which is extremely terrible in terms of performance. This is something that should never be done, and in fact, a single logging library can seriously degrade application performance.

Lack of Active Maintenance

Another significant drawback of Logrus is that it is not actively maintained. While it has been a popular choice for logging in Go applications, the pace of development has slowed, leading to concerns about its long-term viability.

So What Should I Use?

If you’re considering moving away from Logrus, I highly recommend using Zerolog. It stands out as one of the fastest logging libraries in Go, making it an excellent choice for performance-conscious developers.

Zerolog features a very ergonomic API design, which allows for easy integration into your applications without the complexity often associated with logging libraries. Its straightforward syntax makes it simple to implement structured logging, enabling you to log rich, contextual information effortlessly.

One of the standout features of Zerolog is its zero-allocation logging. This means that it does not allocate memory on hot paths during logging operations, which is crucial for high-performance applications. By reducing garbage collection pressure, Zerolog helps maintain the responsiveness of your application, even under heavy logging loads.

Not only is it performant, but it is also very easy to use and highly extensible, allowing you to customize it to fit your specific logging needs.