Fluentd
Fluentd is an open-source unified logging layer and data collector hosted under CNCF, serving 5,000+ companies including Microsoft, AWS, and Nintendo with 500+ plugins for connecting diverse data sources to backend systems.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2010
- HeadquartersBoston, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Fluentd does
Fluentd is an open-source data collector project that provides a unified logging layer between diverse data sources and backend systems. Originally created in 2010 and now hosted under the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) as a graduated project under Apache 2.0 license, the platform decouples log producers from storage and analytics destinations through a plugin-based architecture with 500+ community-maintained plugins covering inputs, outputs, filters, parsers, and buffers. The core technology is built primarily in Ruby with C components for performance-critical paths, featuring a pluggable model with O(M+N) integration complexity, multi-process workers for horizontal scaling, disk-based buffering with retry semantics, and a Phi Accrual Failure Detector for adaptive fault detection.
The platform is deployed at scale across the cloud-native ecosystem, with the largest reported installation collecting logs from 50,000+ servers and over 5,000 data-driven companies using it, including Microsoft, AWS, Atlassian, Nintendo, Twilio, Bloomberg, and LINE. Fluentd is distributed through multiple channels — fluent-package (the LTS successor to Treasure Agent), Calyptia Fluentd (maintained by Chronosphere), Docker Hub, Kubernetes DaemonSet, and RubyGems — supporting containerized, Kubernetes, and traditional server environments. The associated project Fluent Bit extends the ecosystem as a lightweight forwarder for edge and embedded use cases.
Fluentd itself is a non-profit hosted project under The Linux Foundation's CNCF and does not generate direct revenue from the core software. Commercial activity occurs through third-party enterprise service providers — Chronosphere, ClearCode, ITOCHU Techno-Solutions America, Procedure, and Sage Infrastructure Solutions Group — which offer consulting, support, custom plugin development, and managed services around Fluentd deployments. Treasure Data remains a historically significant sponsor and employer of core maintainer Kiyoto Tamura, while ClearCode has served as a core maintainer since 2014. Project governance and roadmap are driven by the CNCF open-source community rather than a commercial entity.
Fluentd firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Fluentd
- Legal name
- Fluentd Project
- Website
- https://fluentd.org
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2010
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Fluentd is an open-source unified logging layer and data collector hosted under CNCF, serving 5,000+ companies including Microsoft, AWS, and Nintendo with 500+ plugins for connecting diverse data sources to backend systems.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Fluentd industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Log Management Software
- NAICS
- Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Live Streaming Ingest & Contribution Networks (Encoder-to-Origin, Backhaul) (MPAHAIAI)
Keywords
Where Fluentd is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Boston
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Markets served
Fluentd business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Enterprise Support Services: Enterprise services are provided by third-party companies including Chronosphere, ClearCode, ITOCHU Techno-Solutions America, Procedure, and Sage Infrastructure Solutions Group. These companies offer consulting, support services, and custom plugin development for Fluentd deployments.
- Open Source (Apache 2.0): Fluentd core is open source under Apache 2.0 license with no direct revenue generation from the software itself.
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels6 records
Marketing channels8 records
Fluentd product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Fluentd is an open-source data collector that unifies data collection and consumption by providing a unified logging layer between data sources and backend systems. It decouples log producers from log consumers through a pluggable architecture with 500+ plugins, enabling reliable, scalable, and flexible log and event transport across distributed infrastructure. Related offerings include fluent-package (LTS distribution), Calyptia Fluentd, and Fluent Bit (lightweight forwarder for edge workloads).
Product overview
Fluentd is an open source data collector for unified logging layer, providing the core platform that unifies data collection and consumption across multiple sources and outputs through 500+ plugins. The product portfolio includes: Fluentd (core open source data collector), fluent-package (stable distribution package formerly td-agent), calyptia-fluentd (alternative distribution by Chronosphere), and Fluent Bit (lightweight forwarder for edge use cases). Enterprise-grade support is available through multiple providers including Chronosphere, ClearCode, ITOCHU Techno-Solutions, Procedure, and Sage Infrastructure Solutions Group. Fluentd is a CNCF graduated project with Apache 2.0 licensing.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Fluent Package: The stable distribution package of Fluentd, formerly known as Treasure Agent (td-agent).
- Calyptia Fluentd
- Fluent Bit
Products and services
- Fluentd Open source data collector providing a unified logging layer that decouples data sources from backend systems. Uses pluggable architecture with 500+ plugins to enable reliable, scalable data transport for developers, DevOps teams, SREs, and enterprises across distributed systems.
- fluent-package Stable distribution package of Fluentd (formerly Treasure Agent / td-agent) bundling Ruby, dependencies, and frequently-used plugins. Available as RPM, deb, Windows MSI, and macOS DMG for easy installation and maintenance.
- Calyptia Fluentd Alternative stable distribution of Fluentd maintained by Chronosphere after acquiring Calyptia. Includes Ruby and library dependencies along with frequently-used third-party plugins such as out_elasticsearch and in_windows_eventlog2. Available for RHEL/CentOS, Ubuntu/Debian, Windows, and macOS.
- Fluent Bit Lightweight embedded event collector designed for data forwarding at the edge. More efficient in CPU and memory usage than Fluentd, with a more limited feature set, designed to communicate with Fluentd for edge devices, servers, and containers.
- Fluentular Online webapp for testing Fluentd regular expressions, particularly useful for authoring the format field in Fluentd configurations.
Companies that use Fluentd
Customer profileNamed customers15 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles2 records
Fluentd technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Feature7 records
Fluentd partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Seven partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and minor.
- ChronospherecoreChronosphere (after acquiring Calyptia) maintains Calyptia Fluentd alternative distribution and provides Fluentd Academy for training. Offers enterprise features and support services from the creators and maintainers of Fluentd and Fluent Bit.
- ClearCodecoreCore maintainer of Fluentd since 2014, based in Japan. Provides enterprise support to large users including airlines, government agencies, and telecom carriers in Japan.
- ITOCHU Techno-Solutions America, Inc.majorGlobal IT solution provider offering enterprise services from consultancy, technology enablement and global service desk to ensure success in observability/data management platform operation at any scale.
- ProcedureminorCloud-native consulting and enterprise support for Fluentd and Fluent Bit deployments. Helps engineering teams design, deploy, and operate log aggregation and observability pipelines on Kubernetes.
- Sage Infrastructure Solutions Group Inc.minorCybersecurity firm providing enterprise services including custom plugin development, application onboarding, and fully managed service with SLAs.
- Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)coreFluentd is a CNCF graduated project. All components available under Apache 2.0 license. CNCF provides governance, marketing support, and ecosystem coordination for the project.
- Treasure DatamajorMain sponsor of the Fluentd project. Offers Fluentd Monitoring Service and maintains strong involvement in project governance and development. Kiyoto Tamura, a Fluentd maintainer, works at Treasure Data.
Scale indicators4 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Fluentd competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Filebeat: Filebeat (Elastic) is a lightweight log shipper that tails files and forwards events to Logstash, Elasticsearch, or other destinations. It overlaps with Fluentd's agent-tier role in cloud-native deployments and is the most commonly deployed alternative when organizations standardize on the Elastic stack.
- Logstash: Logstash (by Elastic) is the most direct competitor to Fluentd — an open-source data collection engine with a plugin-based pipeline for ingesting, transforming, and shipping logs to Elasticsearch and other backends. It competes head-to-head in the same log-collector category and is the canonical alternative when architecting an ELK-style stack.
- Promtail: Promtail is Grafana Labs' log shipper designed specifically to feed Loki. It performs the same agent-tier function as Fluentd (collecting logs from local sources and shipping to a centralized backend) and competes directly in Kubernetes log-collection deployments where Loki is the chosen store.
- Vector: Vector (originally Timber, now owned by Datadog) is a high-performance, Rust-based observability data pipeline that performs the same function as Fluentd — agent/aggregator for logs, metrics, and traces. It directly targets Fluentd's unified-logging-layer positioning with a claimed performance advantage and is the most credible open-source challenger.
- syslog-ng: syslog-ng (One Identity) is a long-established open-source log collector and forwarder supporting syslog and many application log formats. While more legacy in orientation than Fluentd, it serves the same unified-log-collector role and remains deployed in large enterprise and telco environments that Fluentd also targets.
- Fluent Bit: Fluent Bit is a sibling CNCF project under the same Fluent ecosystem — a lightweight log forwarder designed for edge/embedded/containerized deployments. It speaks Fluentd's wire protocol and is commonly deployed alongside Fluentd as the edge tier, making it both a complement and a competitive agent in container/Kubernetes use cases.
Broad incumbents
- Datadog: Datadog is a broad observability platform that acquired Vector (Timber) and now offers its own agent and pipeline as alternatives to Fluentd. Datadog competes with the Fluentd ecosystem both by offering a managed replacement and by absorbing Vector into its commercial stack.
- Splunk: Splunk is a broad incumbent in log management and observability. While Fluentd is an open-source data collector, Splunk offers a full-stack ingestion, indexing, and analytics platform that often consumes events from Fluentd — but also competes with it where Splunk's own forwarders and ingestion paths replace Fluentd in customer architectures.
- Elastic: Elastic (Elasticsearch/Kibana) bundles Logstash and Filebeat as its ingestion tier and competes with the Fluentd ecosystem end-to-end. While Fluentd can also forward to Elasticsearch, Elastic's tighter integration makes its stack an attractive single-vendor alternative for organizations choosing a log platform.
Emerging players
- Cribl: Cribl is an emerging observability pipeline vendor (Cribl Stream) that routes, filters, and reshapes log/metric/trace data between sources and multiple backends. It performs the same routing-and-transformation function as Fluentd at enterprise scale and is increasingly deployed in front of Splunk/Elastic to reduce ingest costs — directly addressing Fluentd's positioning.
Market position
Strengths1 record
Weaknesses1 record
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Fluentd social profiles
Digital presenceFluentd compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance1 record
Fluentd financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Fluentd leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles2 records
Fluentd funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Fluentd M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Fluentd
What does Fluentd do?
Fluentd is an open-source data collector that unifies data collection and consumption by providing a unified logging layer between data sources and backend systems. It decouples log producers from log consumers through a pluggable architecture with 500+ plugins, enabling reliable, scalable, and flexible log and event transport across distributed infrastructure. Related offerings include fluent-package (LTS distribution), Calyptia Fluentd, and Fluent Bit (lightweight forwarder for edge workloads).
Is Fluentd a public or private company?
Fluentd is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was Fluentd founded?
Fluentd was founded in 2010. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Fluentd based?
Fluentd is headquartered in Boston, United States, in the North America region.
How does Fluentd make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Enterprise Support Services are the primary driver. The others are open Source (Apache 2.0).
Who are Fluentd's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Filebeat, Logstash, Promtail, Vector, syslog-ng and Fluent Bit. Broad incumbents are Datadog, Splunk and Elastic. Cribl is listed as an emerging player.
Does Fluentd have an API?
No public API is recorded for Fluentd.
What industry is Fluentd in?
Fluentd's product category is Log Management Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPAHAIAI, Live Streaming Ingest & Contribution Networks (Encoder-to-Origin, Backhaul). Its NAICS code is 518 and its SIC code is 7370.