What is Logstash used for?

Logstash is a server-side data processing pipeline that ingests data from many sources, transforms it and sends it to destinations such as Elasticsearch. It is a good fit for shipping logs into Elasticsearch and ETL-style event processing pipelines.

Is Logstash open source?

Yes. Logstash is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at elastic/logstash and is written mainly in Java.

Yes. Logstash is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.

Can I self-host Logstash?

Yes. Logstash can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Logstash an alternative to?

Logstash is an open-source alternative to Cribl and Mezmo. Other open-source alternatives to Cribl include Vector, Telegraf and OpenTelemetry Collector.

Is Logstash actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Logstash was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v9.5.4, published on 15 September 2026. The project has 15k stars on GitHub.

Logstash: open-source alternative to Cribl, Mezmo

About Logstash

Logstash is part of the Elastic Stack alongside Beats, Elasticsearch and Kibana. It is a server-side data processing pipeline that ingests data from many sources at once, transforms it, and then ships it to a storage destination, with Elasticsearch being the natural target in Elastic's own stack. It is built with Java and JRuby.

Its functionality comes from plugins. The project says Logstash has over 200 plugins, hosted in separate repositories under the logstash-plugins GitHub organization, and each plugin is a self-contained Ruby gem published to RubyGems.org. Writing your own plugin is described as easy, with documentation on developing and testing them.

Official binaries and Debian and RPM packages are available from the downloads page, and documentation, a forum and Elastic support channels are listed. Development of the core requires JDK 21. The repository lists the license as 'Other', so the license files should be reviewed for exact terms.

Key features

Ingests data from many sources at once
Transforms and enriches events in a pipeline
Over 200 plugins
Plugins distributed as Ruby gems
Debian and RPM packages
Part of the Elastic Stack

Good fit for

→Shipping logs into Elasticsearch
→ETL-style event processing pipelines

Built with: Java
Tags: logging; etl; data-pipeline; elastic-stack; streaming; java; plugins; observability

Logstash: questions and answers

What is Logstash used for?: Logstash is a server-side data processing pipeline that ingests data from many sources, transforms it and sends it to destinations such as Elasticsearch. It is a good fit for shipping logs into Elasticsearch and ETL-style event processing pipelines.
Is Logstash open source?: Yes. Logstash is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at elastic/logstash and is written mainly in Java.
Is Logstash free?: Yes. Logstash is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.
Can I self-host Logstash?: Yes. Logstash can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Logstash an alternative to?: Logstash is an open-source alternative to Cribl and Mezmo. Other open-source alternatives to Cribl include Vector, Telegraf and OpenTelemetry Collector.
Is Logstash actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Logstash was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v9.5.4, published on 15 September 2026. The project has 15k stars on GitHub.