---
title: "Loki | Grafana Labs"
description: "The Loki data source for logs."
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

## Loki: Cost-effective log aggregation

**What it’s for:** Logs including application logs, system logs, and audit trails.

## Trade-offs

| Pros                            | Cons                        |
|---------------------------------|-----------------------------|
| Much cheaper than Elasticsearch | No full-text indexing       |
| Same labels as Prometheus       | Limited search capabilities |
| LogQL similar to PromQL         | Different mental model      |
| Scales horizontally             | Newer ecosystem             |
| Native Grafana integration      |                             |

## Best for

- Teams already using Prometheus
- Cost-conscious log aggregation
- Correlating logs with metrics

## Documentation

View the full documentation. *Learning path coming soon!*

[Loki data source](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/datasources/loki/)