Difference between Log4js and Winston

In this article, we will discuss the difference between Log4js and Winston. Before discussing their differences, we must know about Log4js and Winston with their use cases, applications, and advantages.

Introduction to Log4js

Log4js is a logging library mainly used in Node.js applications. It will create a structured logging system. This library helps the developers track and know the program's flow of control in their applications. Logging the output of each section helps the developers to easily find the bugs and errors. It acts as the monitoring tool to find node.js application behavior. This library will provide many different methods to generate logs at different levels.

It is inspired by the Apache log4js library, which is mostly used in the Java ecosystem. This library allows developers to capture, format and output log messages in the console, files, and other external services.

Usages of Log4js:

Several usages of Log4js are as follows:

Tracking Application Behaviour: This library can track the application and log the status of the application after every section of the application is completed. It is also useful for monitoring and debugging.
Debugging Issues: The logs generated will log the exact location of the error if any error occurs in the application.
Performance monitoring: It can also log the performance values by analysing the condition of the application and helps in finding the bottlenecks

Applications of Log4js:

Several applications of Log4js are as follows:

Web applications: It is used for logging requests and responses.
Microservices: It is used for consistent logging strategy across various services.
Batch processing: Logging the outputs of each batch separately.
API development: It is used to capture API calls, responses, and errors.

Advantages of Log4js:

Several advantages of Log4js are as follows:

Structural Logging: Log4js supports structured logging, which make the developer work easy while searching and filtering.
Modular: This library is modular that allows developers to use the features, which are used in the application only. It will reduce the overhead of application.
Multiple Appenders: By these features, we can send logs to different destinations in the applications.

Introduction to Winston:

Winston is also a logging library used in node.js applications. It is used to log messages and outputs. It can also store and manage log messages. It helps in debugging by finding errors and bugs easily. This library will work efficiently in various environments seamlessly. It allows the developers to create and manage logs at different levels of importance, such as info, warning, error, and debug. This library can log messages in consoles, files, and other external services.

Usages of Winston:

Several usages of Winston are as follows:

Application monitoring: It will monitor the application and logs the key events, user actions, and system performance to know the status of the application
Debugging: When error occurs, applications do work as desired. After that, this library helps the developers to find the exact location where the error is occurred.
Security auditing: It can also log security related events, like unauthorized access, login attempts, and cookie information.

Applications of Winston:

Several usages of Winston are as follows:

Web applications: It logs the requests, responses, and track server health
Microservices: It logs information related to different microservices
Data processing pipelines: It capture progress and results of data processing pipelines with custom messages and errors

Advantages of Winston:

Several advantages of Winston are as follows:

Customization: This library defines custom log levels and formats.
Multi Transport support: Developer can log messages in multiple destinations.
Asynchronous logging: It also supports the asynchronous operations.
Rich Ecosystem: It can extend this library with other plugins.

Key differences between Log4js and Winston

There are several key differences between the Log4js and Winston. Some main differences are as follows:

Features	Log4js	Winston
Configuration style	It uses a JSON-like configuration format. Here, we define categories, appenders, and levels.	It uses JavaScript-based configuration. It defines functions and variables.
Logging levels	It has some inbuilt logging levels like 'trace', 'debug', 'info', 'warn', 'error', 'fatal', 'mark'. By using this library, we can create custom levels also.	It provides some predefined levels like 'error', 'warn', 'info', 'http', 'verbose', 'debug', 'silly' and also allows developers to create custom levels.
Ecosystem and plugins	It has small set of plugins to extend its functionality.	Winston has larger ecosystem, and it uses third-party transports to increase its functionality.
Error handling	It provides basic error handling.	It uses advanced error handling by using more advanced custom formats and transports.
Log Rotation	This library has built-in support for log rotation, it uses 'dataFile' appender to achieve log rotation.	It uses external packages like 'Winston-daily-rotate-file' for log rotation.
Logging to databases	It has to use additional plugins for logging to databases like MongoDB and MYSql. It uses custom appender to log MongoDB.	It has built-int support for logging to databases.
compatibility	It is mostly used for node.js applications and mainly used for server-side.	It is widely used in various environments and used for both client-side and server-side.
Community support	Log4js has a smaller community with fewer third-party resources.	It has a large community, which has many third-party resources. It has extensive documentation.