Loki
Loki is a horizontally-scalable, highly-available log aggregation system designed by Grafana Labs to store and query logs from applications and infrastructure. It indexes only metadata (like labels) rather than log content, making it lightweight and cost-effective compared to full-text indexing systems. It integrates seamlessly with Grafana for visualization and Prometheus for metrics, forming a unified observability stack.
Developers should use Loki when they need efficient log aggregation for cloud-native environments, especially in Kubernetes or microservices architectures, as it reduces storage costs and simplifies log management. It's ideal for debugging, monitoring application performance, and correlating logs with metrics in real-time, leveraging its Prometheus-like labeling system for fast queries.