vectordotdev/vector

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

★ 21,781RustAudience · ops devopsComplexity · 4/5LicenseSetup · moderate

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((Vector))
    What it does
      Collects observability data
      Filters and transforms
      Routes to vendors
    Deployment modes
      Agent on servers
      Aggregator centrally
      Both combined
    Use cases
      Reduce monitoring costs
      Switch vendors easily
      Central data collection
    Tech stack
      Rust
      High performance
      Benchmarked throughput
    Why Vector
      Avoids vendor lock-in
      Processes before sending
      Outperforms alternatives

mindmap root((Vector)) What it does Collects observability data Filters and transforms Routes to vendors Deployment modes Agent on servers Aggregator centrally Both combined Use cases Reduce monitoring costs Switch vendors easily Central data collection Tech stack Rust High performance Benchmarked throughput Why Vector Avoids vendor lock-in Processes before sending Outperforms alternatives

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Reduce monitoring vendor costs by filtering and sampling logs before they're sent upstream.

USE CASE 2

Switch between monitoring vendors without changing how your applications emit data.

USE CASE 3

Build a centralized collection point for logs, metrics, and traces across your entire infrastructure.

USE CASE 4

Deploy agents on individual servers and aggregators centrally to process data end-to-end.

What is it built with?

RustObservabilityData pipelines

How does it compare?

	vectordotdev/vector	neondatabase/neon	gitui-org/gitui
Stars	21,781	21,744	21,880
Language	Rust	Rust	Rust
Setup difficulty	moderate	hard	easy
Complexity	4/5	4/5	2/5
Audience	ops devops	developer	developer

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Requires Rust toolchain and likely a config file to define data sources and routing rules.

Use freely. If you modify a Mozilla Public Licensed file, share that file's changes back under the same license. Your other code stays yours.

In plain English

Vector is a tool for moving observability data, the logs and metrics that systems produce to help operators understand what is happening inside their software, from where it is generated to wherever you want to send it. The README's pitch is that it puts you in control of that pipeline: you collect data from your sources, transform or enrich it along the way, and route it to one or more destinations, whether those are storage backends, analytics platforms, or specific vendor services. The project is built in Rust, and the README emphasises performance and reliability as the primary design goals, claiming Vector is up to 10x faster than the alternatives it compares against. The same comparison tables benchmark Vector against tools like Filebeat, FluentBit, FluentD, Logstash, and Splunk forwarders on both throughput and correctness. It is described as end-to-end, meaning the same software can run as an agent on individual machines or as a central aggregator. The data model covers logs and metrics today, with traces noted as coming soon. The README lists practical use cases: reducing observability bills, switching vendors without rewriting pipelines, cleaning up data quality, and consolidating multiple per-vendor agents into one. It also lists known users including Atlassian, T-Mobile, Comcast, Zendesk, Discord, Fastly, CVS, Visa, and Instacart, and says Vector is downloaded over 100,000 times per day with the largest deployment processing over 500TB daily. Vector is maintained by Datadog's Community Open Source Engineering team.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

How do I set up Vector as an agent on my servers to collect logs and forward them to Datadog?

Prompt 2

Show me how to configure Vector to filter out debug logs and sample metrics before sending to my monitoring vendor.

Prompt 3

I want to migrate from Filebeat to Vector. What's the configuration to read files and forward them over the network?

Prompt 4

How do I deploy Vector in both agent and aggregator mode to build a complete observability pipeline?

Prompt 5

What transformations can I apply in Vector to reduce the volume of data sent to my monitoring service?

Frequently asked questions

What is vector?

High-performance data pipeline for collecting, filtering, and routing logs, metrics, and traces to monitoring vendors without vendor lock-in.

What language is vector written in?

Mainly Rust. The stack also includes Rust, Observability, Data pipelines.

What license does vector use?

Use freely. If you modify a Mozilla Public Licensed file, share that file's changes back under the same license. Your other code stays yours.

How hard is vector to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is vector for?

Mainly ops devops.

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