Item: SolarWinds Papertrail
Rating: 10
Author: Henrik Holst

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use SolarWinds Papertrail to monitor our multi-service distributed machine learning applications. We use Papertrail for both Kubernetes deployments as well as serverless functions. Papertrail fits with our agile dev-ops engineering practice that makes it easy to debug a complex distributed workflow.

Pros and Cons

Searching and grouping information from many sources
Structured data (JSON attachments)
Low-latency real-time monitoring

I'd like to have better control of the UI how log information is presented in the web UI.
I would like improved workflows to manage alerts together with queries
Improved support for Kubernetes integration

Return on Investment

It makes the platform manageable. It is one of the core components in our tech stack. Things often change but logging has no reason to change now or in a foreseeable future.
A stable platform for monitoring has been critical. The SaaS offering frees up our time to focus on our core business.

Alternatives Considered

Azure Managed Grafana, Grafana, Prometheus, Sysdig Monitor and Azure Monitor

Papertrail offers a much easier to use solution than Azure. We were able to integrate it into our applications without much work and the solution works robustly. Papertrail offers traditional logging services, only, but we have used Sysdig Monitor together with papertrail and that stack serves us well. Grafana did not have a deployment / sharing model that fitted us since we were required to share metric data with the customer. Grafana and Grafana Tempo was the solution we considered instead of Papertrail + Sysdig.

Key Insights

Do you think SolarWinds Papertrail delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with SolarWinds Papertrail's feature set?

Yes

Did SolarWinds Papertrail live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of SolarWinds Papertrail go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy SolarWinds Papertrail again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Docker, MongoDB Atlas, Sysdig Monitor

Likelihood to Recommend

Perfect for Cloud deployments where a cloud agnostic / platform independent solution is required.
Low-complexity, easy to get going solution for startups.
Low-cost with easy to understand price model.

SolarWinds Papertrail should be on the shortlist for any IT startup that requires logging capabities

Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds Papertrail