What Drives iLogtail Adoption? Insights from the 2‑Year Community Survey

Key Points

51.85% of users have deployed the open‑source iLogtail in gray‑scale or large‑scale production, with 22.22% operating over 1,000 instances.

85.19% of deployments are containerized; 81.48% use Kubernetes and 18.52% use Docker.

66.67% of respondents are willing to contribute to the community; of those, 40% have already contributed, 85% say better documentation would help, and 55% want timely updates on development needs.

40% are willing to share case studies via articles or developer meetings.

Detailed Analysis

Community View of Open‑Source iLogtail

90% of respondents are currently using iLogtail. Most first learned about it through official channels such as promotional articles and the public account, highlighting the impact of high‑quality technical content on open‑source adoption.

High performance, container‑friendliness, and a rich plugin ecosystem are the primary drivers for adoption, reflecting the project’s alignment with modern IT architecture.

While performance and stability receive high praise, users emphasize the need for more detailed and user‑friendly documentation.

Usage Scenarios

All users deploy iLogtail on Linux, with some also on Windows. Kubernetes is the dominant environment, with 81.48% of users deploying via DaemonSet.

22.22% of users run iLogtail on more than 1,000 machines in production.

Plugin Usage

Input plugins : file_log/input_file (70.37%), service_docker_stdout/input_container_stdio (48.15%), service_kafka (48.15%).

Processor plugins : processor_json (59.26%), processor_regex (59.26%), processor_add_fields (44.44%).

Flusher plugins : flusher_kafka/flusher_kafka_v2 (74.07%), flusher_stdout (25.93%), flusher_elasticsearch (25.93%).

File and container stdout are essential data sources, while Kafka is the preferred ingestion tool, reflecting the growing importance of real‑time data streams.

JSON and regex parsing remain the most common data transformation methods, with custom field addition gaining traction among developers.

For data output, users favor mature log management platforms and message queues such as Alibaba Cloud SLS, Elasticsearch, and Kafka; usage of HTTP, gRPC, or OTLP is limited due to the need for custom consumers.

Some developers are experimenting with the newly released SPL processing feature.

ConfigServer Adoption

ConfigServer is a simple configuration management tool for iLogtail. 76.67% of respondents have never used it; among them, 65.21% are unaware of its existence.

Among users who have tried ConfigServer, 57.14% have customized it, and the most requested features are functionality, UI, and configuration management. An upgrade is planned for the summer.

Community Participation

66.67% of respondents are willing to contribute to the project, indicating strong community vitality.

The main barriers are lack of knowledge on how to develop (75%) and unclear development direction (33.33%). Improving documentation, providing clear development guides, and offering sample projects are planned to lower these barriers.

Respondents also call for richer documentation and tutorials to reduce technical entry thresholds.

Summary

iLogtail’s efficient, flexible design excels in containerized deployments, yet user feedback highlights opportunities for documentation improvement, enhanced plugin performance, and more robust configuration tools. The upcoming rebranding to LoongCollector aims to strengthen the project’s role in observability, foster community co‑creation, and drive future innovation.