---
title: "Ingesting logs to Loki using Alloy | Grafana Enterprise Logs documentation"
description: "Configuring Grafana Alloy to send logs to Loki."
---

# Ingesting logs to Loki using Alloy

Grafana Alloy is a versatile observability collector that can ingest logs in various formats and send them to Loki. We recommend Alloy as the primary method for sending logs to Loki, as it provides a more robust and feature-rich solution for building a highly scalable and reliable observability pipeline.

[](/media/docs/alloy/flow-diagram-small-alloy.png)

## Installing Alloy

To get started with Grafana Alloy and send logs to Loki, you need to install and configure Alloy. You can follow the [Alloy documentation](/docs/alloy/latest/get-started/install/) to install Alloy on your preferred platform.

## Components of Alloy for logs

Alloy pipelines are built using components that perform specific functions. For logs these can be broken down into three categories:

- **Collector:** These components collect/receive logs from various sources. This can be scraping logs from a file, receiving logs over HTTP, gRPC or ingesting logs from a message queue.
- **Transformer:** These components can be used to manipulate logs before they are sent to a writer. This can be used to add additional metadata, filter logs, or batch logs before sending them to a writer.
- **Writer:** These components send logs to the desired destination. Our documentation will focus on sending logs to Loki, but Alloy supports sending logs to various destinations.

### Log components in Alloy

Here is a non-exhaustive list of components that can be used to build a log pipeline in Alloy. For a complete list of components, refer to the [components list](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/).

Expand table

| Type        | Component                                                                                                |
|-------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Collector   | [loki.source.api](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.api/)                              |
| Collector   | [loki.source.awsfirehose](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.awsfirehose/)              |
| Collector   | [loki.source.azure\_event\_hubs](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.azure_event_hubs/)  |
| Collector   | [loki.source.cloudflare](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.cloudflare/)                |
| Collector   | [loki.source.docker](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.docker/)                        |
| Collector   | [loki.source.file](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.file/)                            |
| Collector   | [loki.source.gcplog](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.gcplog/)                        |
| Collector   | [loki.source.gelf](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.gelf/)                            |
| Collector   | [loki.source.heroku](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.heroku/)                        |
| Collector   | [loki.source.journal](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.journal/)                      |
| Collector   | [loki.source.kafka](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.kafka/)                          |
| Collector   | [loki.source.kubernetes](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.kubernetes/)                |
| Collector   | [loki.source.kubernetes\_events](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.kubernetes_events/) |
| Collector   | [loki.source.podlogs](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.podlogs/)                      |
| Collector   | [loki.source.syslog](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.syslog/)                        |
| Collector   | [loki.source.windowsevent](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.source.windowsevent/)            |
| Collector   | [otelcol.receiver.loki](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/otelcol.receiver.loki/)                  |
| Transformer | [loki.relabel](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.relabel/)                                    |
| Transformer | [loki.process](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.process/)                                    |
| Writer      | [loki.write](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/loki.write/)                                        |
| Writer      | [otelcol.exporter.loki](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/otelcol.exporter.loki/)                  |

## Learning path

Start your learning experience with Grafana Learning Paths

Grafana Learning Paths provide a clear, structured path that leads you from beginner concepts to advanced use cases. Learn about this Grafana feature on [Send logs to Grafana Cloud using Alloy](/docs/learning-paths/send-logs-alloy-loki/).

[Start learning](https://grafana.com/docs/learning-paths/send-logs-alloy-loki/)

## Interactive Tutorials

To learn more about how to configure Alloy to send logs to Loki within different scenarios, follow these interactive tutorials:

- [Sending OpenTelemetry logs to Loki using Alloy](examples/alloy-otel-logs/)
- [Sending logs over Kafka to Loki using Alloy](examples/alloy-kafka-logs/)