Effortless Log Monitoring and Analysis

Unified observability and near‑real‑time alerts across your infrastructure with no data‑volume‑based pricing

What Is the Best Way to Monitor Logs Across Your Entire Infrastructure?

Effective log monitoring means collecting, filtering, and acting on messages from servers, network devices, firewalls, and applications in near real time. The challenge is that every system logs differently: syslog from Linux and network gear, Windows Event Logs from Microsoft infrastructure, SNMP traps from switches and UPS systems, text-based files from custom applications. Without a centralized approach, critical errors get missed.

Paessler PRTG brings all of this together in one platform. Preconfigured sensors watch for critical errors, filter out noise, and alert you the instant something relevant appears. Whether you need to cover a handful of servers or distributed infrastructure across multiple sites, you get centralized visibility and fast alerts without per-GB pricing or complex pipeline configuration.

Supported technologies: Syslog (UDP/TCP/TLS), Windows Event Logs (Application, System, Security, DNS, Directory Service), SNMP Traps, file-based logs, Linux servers, Windows servers, network devices (Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, Fortinet), firewalls, routers, switches, VMware, Hyper-V

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PRTG is compatible with all major vendors, products, and systems

Smarter Log Monitoring Across Your Entire Infrastructure

Catch Critical Errors Before They Cause Downtime

Critical errors buried in thousands of log entries mean slow detection and an even slower response time. By the time IT operations teams notice a problem, users are already affected. You can't afford to miss the warnings that matter, and manually checking log files across dozens of servers doesn't scale.

Log monitoring from PRTG alerts you in near‑real‑time when a critical event occurs, before users even notice the impact. Syslog Receiver sensors, Windows Event Log sensors, and SNMP Trap Receiver sensors continuously watch for error patterns, failures, and security events. Your team gets the seconds and minutes needed to prevent downtime.

Monitor syslog, Windows Event Logs, and SNMP traps with flexible scanning intervals depending on sensor type and system load
See matched log alerts in the PRTG interface with timestamps and source information
Correlate log alerts with infrastructure metrics (CPU, memory, network) on the same dashboard to understand root causes faster
Set severity-based thresholds so critical errors trigger immediate escalation while warnings queue for review
Reduce mean time to detection (MTTD) by eliminating manual log file review

Get Centralized Observability Across Your Entire Infrastructure

Logs are scattered. Servers, network devices, firewalls, applications, cloud services. Each system has its own log format, its own interface, its own quirks. Debugging a single issue means logging into multiple consoles, correlating timestamps manually, hunting for clues across disconnected data sources.

Centralized log collection from PRTG puts all your infrastructure in one unified dashboard. Windows Event Logs, syslog from network devices and Linux servers, SNMP traps from switches and firewalls, file-based application logs. All in one single pane of glass.

Collect telemetry data like logs from Windows, Linux, network devices, firewalls, applications, and infrastructure platforms your PRTG probes can reach
View log alerts alongside infrastructure metrics (availability, system performance, bandwidth) to see the complete picture during troubleshooting
Build custom dashboards and visualization tools showing log sensor status for your specific environment and team workflows
Scale from a few servers to hundreds without needing separate log monitoring tools or complex integrations
Grant different teams access to their relevant log sensors without exposing your entire infrastructure or requiring separate tool licenses

Monitor Logs Without Complex Parsing Pipelines or Specialist Skills

Dedicated log monitoring tools come with steep learning curves. Complex parsing pipelines, expensive per-GB ingestion fees, specialist skills requirements. Your team needs to troubleshoot issues and monitor infrastructure, not become log analytics experts.

A low-code approach from PRTG makes log monitoring simple. Pre-configured sensors for Windows Event Logs, syslog, and SNMP traps work out of the box. Point, click, done. You'll be monitoring production systems in minutes.

Pre-configured sensors deploy in minutes with no scripting, complex queries, or parsing pipeline configuration required
Use simple drop-down menus to select severity levels, event IDs, or data sources without learning proprietary query languages
Clone working sensors across similar devices to replicate configurations instantly instead of rebuilding from scratch
Your existing IT operations team can set up and manage log monitoring without training courses or expensive consultants
Start with basic functionality and expand sensor coverage or filtering rules as your needs grow, without rearchitecting

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Start monitoring your infrastructure in minutes. No professional services, no complex configuration, no risk.

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Correlate Logs with Infrastructure Performance in Real Time

When logs live in a separate tool from your infrastructure monitoring, correlation becomes guesswork. Was that application error caused by a network issue? Server resource spike? Database timeout? Switching between monitoring dashboards and log platforms slows down troubleshooting and creates blind spots.

Unified log and infrastructure monitoring from PRTG shows everything in context. Log alerts appear on the same dashboard as CPU usage, network traffic, disk space, and application performance. Correlate Windows Event Log errors with server metrics, syslog warnings with network bandwidth spikes, SNMP traps with device health.

View log sensor status alongside infrastructure metrics (CPU, memory, network, disk) on unified dashboards for complete context during incidents
Determine whether errors stem from application bugs or infrastructure bottlenecks (memory exhaustion, network congestion, disk I/O) in seconds, not hours
Set up intelligent dependencies so log alerts pause when the underlying infrastructure fails, reducing alert noise by up to 90%
Use maps and dashboards to visualize the status of log sensors across your devices
Trace issues across the stack, from network layer to application layer, without switching tools or exporting data manually

Avoid Surprise Bills with Predictable Log Monitoring Costs

Per-GB ingestion pricing makes log monitoring unpredictable and expensive. As your infrastructure grows or when you need to increase log verbosity during troubleshooting, costs spike. You're forced to choose between comprehensive monitoring and budget constraints, often limiting what you collect or your log retention policies.

Sensor-based subscription means you can collect unlimited syslog, SNMP trap, and Event Log volume per sensor No per-GB fees. Monitor as many syslog sources, Windows Event Logs, SNMP traps, and application logs as you need without worrying about data volume.

No per-GB ingestion fees mean predictable costs regardless of how many logs you collect or how verbose your logging is
Increase log verbosity during troubleshooting or incident response without triggering surprise charges or hitting data caps
Sensor-based licensing scales with your infrastructure, not your data volume, so growth doesn't break the budget
Monitor unlimited data sources within your sensor subscription limits with no consumption-based pricing or monthly overages
Plan monitoring budgets accurately months in advance without guessing at data volume growth or seasonal spikes

How PRTG Monitors Logs

Multiple sensor types work together to monitor log data from different protocols and data sources. Syslog Receiver sensors collect network messages from devices and servers. Windows Event Log sensors track errors and warnings as they're written to application, system, and security logs. SNMP Trap Receiver sensors process traps from network infrastructure. File Content sensors monitor text-based log files in real time. Together, you get comprehensive observability across your entire infrastructure.

Syslog Collection

The Syslog Receiver Sensor listens for messages sent over UDP, TCP, or TLS from network devices, Linux servers, firewalls, routers, switches, and applications. Configure filters based on facility, severity, source IP, or custom text/regex patterns to optimize focus on specific message types. When matching messages arrive, PRTG displays them in the interface and triggers alerts based on your configured thresholds. For distributed environments requiring multi-destination forwarding, PRTG Data Hub can forward collected monitoring data and selected syslog streams to PRTG and external systems depending on configuration.

Windows Event Log Analysis

Agentless sensors connect via WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) to read Windows Event Logs. Track Application, System, Security, DNS, and Directory Service logs for errors, warnings, and critical events. Filter by event ID, source, keyword, or severity level to ignore routine informational entries while capturing what matters. When critical log entries appear (authentication failures, service crashes, application errors), PRTG captures the log data and triggers notifications. Your DevOps and IT teams get near real-time visibility without opening Event Viewer on every server.

SNMP Trap Monitoring

The SNMP Trap Receiver sensor listens for traps sent by network infrastructure devices like switches, routers, firewalls, and UPS systems. Incoming traps are processed and matched against configured OIDs or message patterns. When specific events occur, you get alerts. This approach provides real-time notification of device failures, threshold breaches, configuration changes, and other infrastructure events without polling every device continuously.

File Log Monitoring

File Content sensors monitor text-based log files on Windows and Linux systems, capturing new log lines as they're written. Specify file paths, character encodings, and filter patterns using PCRE regex or simple text matching. When new log entries match your criteria, PRTG displays the matched lines in the interface and triggers alerts. This works for application logs, custom service logs, structured logging formats, or any text-based log format that isn't already covered by syslog or Windows Event Log sensors.

Alerting and Dependencies

A dependency system prevents alert fatigue by pausing child sensors when a parent component fails. If a server goes offline, you get one alert about the server instead of dozens about every log sensor running on it. Configure notifications via email, SMS, push notification, webhook, or integrate with ticketing systems and communication tools via HTTP Action notifications, webhooks, or API. Set escalation schedules, so the right people are notified based on severity and time of day. For forwarding log data to external analytics platforms, use Data Exporter, REST API, or PRTG Data Hub relay.

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Log Monitoring: Manual vs. PRTG

FEATURE	Without PRTG Without PRTG	With PRTG With PRTG
Syslog collection	Without PRTG Configure syslog forwarding to a file, manually review files or scripts	With PRTG Automated Syslog Receiver sensor with near real-time filtering and instant alerts
Windows Event Log analysis	Without PRTG Remote desktop to each server, open Event Viewer, search manually	With PRTG Near real-time event log filtering with automatic alerts and centralized dashboard
Log filtering and parsing	Without PRTG Write custom scripts or regex queries for each log source individually	With PRTG Built-in PCRE regex and text matching filters in pre-configured sensors
Alert when errors occur	Without PRTG Hope someone notices logs during periodic reviews	With PRTG Instant notifications via email, SMS, push, webhook, or ITSM integration
Centralized visibility	Without PRTG Log into multiple consoles, correlate data manually across sources	With PRTG Unified dashboard showing all log sensors and infrastructure metrics together

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We have found these sophisticated levels of monitoring to be highly effective, improving the end user’s experience of the systems and applications in use, giving us the opportunity to provide a proactive resolution rather than having the end user raise issues.

Saif Akil, Head of Service Management

Acurus

“Before PRTG, applications and hardware all gave messages, but all separately, so we had to search through hundreds of e-mails to find the problem. It was always only afterwards that we saw that something was going on within the infrastructure. To mitigate the issue, we also considered other software. PRTG stood out because of its user-friendliness, flexibility and minimal consultancy investment.”

Wim Vandenberghe, ICT Manager

Soenen Golfkarton

PRTG gives a birds-eye view of your network to troubleshoot problems or look at systems in their entirety that other solutions cannot – and I have looked at all of them.

Colin Metzler, Cybersecurity Analyst

Dayton Children’s Hospital

Paessler PRTG Network Monitor licenses & pricing

Choose the PRTG Network Monitor subscription that's best for you.

License Name	Price	License Details	Get started	Pricing Details
PRTG 500	^$200	per month paid annually	Buy now Buy now	Enough to monitor multiple aspects of 50 devices
PRTG 1000	^$358	per month paid annually	Buy now Buy now	Enough to monitor multiple aspects of 100 devices
PRTG 2500	^$742	per month paid annually	Buy now Buy now	Enough to monitor multiple aspects of 250 devices
PRTG 5000	^$1,300	per month paid annually	Buy now Buy now	Enough to monitor multiple aspects of 500 devices
PRTG 10000	^$1,642	per month paid annually	Buy now Buy now	Enough to monitor multiple aspects of 1000 devices

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Log Monitoring: Frequently Asked Questions

Can PRTG replace my SIEM or dedicated log management platform?

PRTG is designed to complement, not replace, dedicated log management and SIEM tools. It excels at near real-time log monitoring, infrastructure correlation, and immediate alerting. Perfect for troubleshooting, incident response, and operational visibility. For deep log analytics, long-term retention, compliance workflows, anomaly detection, or full-text search across massive log volumes, PRTG can forward log data to external platforms (Elasticsearch, Splunk, open source tools) via Data Exporter, REST API, or PRTG Data Hub relay while simultaneously providing near real-time monitoring and alerts.

Can PRTG monitor logs from distributed sites or remote locations?

Yes. Multiple architectures support distributed log collection. Deploy PRTG Remote Probes (Windows, Linux, Docker) at branch offices or edge locations to collect logs locally and report to your central PRTG server. For advanced scenarios requiring multi-destination forwarding (sending logs to PRTG and an external archive simultaneously), PRTG Data Hub acts as a network relay with configurable forwarding rules. Data Hub runs on Linux (Debian/Ubuntu) and requires a separate license.

Does PRTG require agents on every server for log monitoring?

For most log monitoring, no. Syslog Receiver sensors don't require agents because devices and servers send syslog messages directly to PRTG. Windows Event Log sensors use agentless protocols like WMI, so you don't need to install anything on target servers. File Content sensors require network access to the file path but don't need a dedicated agent. Just make sure the PRTG server or probe has the necessary permissions and network access.

What's the difference between PRTG sensor-based licensing and per-GB log pricing?

PRTG charges based on the number of sensors you deploy, not the volume of log data collected. One syslog sensor can receive very high message volumes from multiple sources within the limits of your probe system resources. You pay for the monitoring functionality, not the data volume or retention. This means predictable costs when you scale, increase log verbosity during troubleshooting, or add new infrastructure. No surprise bills based on data consumption.

How quickly can I start monitoring logs with PRTG?

Most teams start monitoring logs within minutes. Auto-discovery identifies many systems automatically, and adding log sensors (Syslog Receiver, Windows Event Log, SNMP Trap Receiver, File Content) requires minimal setup. Auto-discovery finds Windows servers and network devices automatically. Pre-configured sensors (Windows Event Log, Syslog Receiver, SNMP Trap Receiver, File Content) require minimal setup. Define your alert thresholds, and you'll be monitoring production systems immediately.