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Show HN: Kubetail – Real-time log search for Kubernetes

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Show HN: Kubetail – Real-time log search for Kubernetes

#1

Post by andres »

Hi Everyone!

Kubetail is a general-purpose logging dashboard for Kubernetes, optimized for tailing logs across multi-container workloads in real-time. With Kubetail, you can view logs from all the containers in a workload (e.g. Deployment or DaemonSet) merged into a single chronological timeline, delivered to your browser or terminal.

I launched Kubetail on HN last year and at that time the top request was to add search. Now I'm happy to say we finally have search available in our latest official release (cli/v0.4.3, helm/v0.10.1). You can check it out in action here:

https://www.kubetail.com/demo

Kubetail normally fetches logs using the Kubernetes API, which does not have search built-in. To enable search, click the “Install” button in the GUI or run `kubetail cluster install` in the CLI to deploy a DaemonSet that places a Kubetail agent on every node. Each agent runs a custom Rust binary powered by ripgrep; it scans the node’s log files and streams only matching lines to your browser or terminal. You can think of a Kubetail search as "remote grep" for your Kubernetes logs. Now you don’t need to download an entire log file just to grep it locally.

Since last year we've also added some other neat features that users find helpful. In particular, we built a simple CLI tool that starts the web dashboard on your desktop:

    # Install
    brew install kubetail

    # Run
    kubetail serve
We also added a powerful logs sub-command to the CLI that you can use to follow container logs or even fetch all the records in a given time window to analyze them in more detail locally (quick-start):

    # Follow example
    $ kubetail logs deployments/web \
        --with-ts \
        --with-pod \
        --follow

    # Fetch example
    $ kubetail logs deployments/web \
        --since 2025-04-20T00:00:00Z \
        --until 2025-04-21T00:00:00Z \
        --all > logs.txt
We’ve added a lot more features since last year but these are the ones I wanted to highlight.

I hope you like what we're doing with Kubetail! Your feedback is very valuable so please let us know what you think in the comments here or in our Discord chat.

Andres

Show HN: Kubetail – Real-time log search for Kubernetes
github.com

Re: Show HN: Kubetail – Real-time log search for Kubernetes

#4

Post by andres »

glitchcrab wrote: post #2

My personal preference for log tailing is Stern. It doesn't have a web UI but then I've never felt like I needed one. https://github.com/stern/stern

If you get a chance to try out the Kubetail CLI, I'd love to hear your thoughts! There's a lot of overlap with stern at the moment but we're planning on adding new features soon that will be unique (e.g. remote grep, system logs).

Re: Show HN: Kubetail – Real-time log search for Kubernetes

#5

Post by carlgreene »

Wow, this is exactly what I’ve been missing—juggling a dozen kubectl logs windows and still losing context. Seeing all container logs merged in real time is a game-changer for debugging multi-pod workloads. Love that it runs locally against the API—no more sending sensitive logs offsite. Big thanks to the author for saving my sanity here!

Re: Show HN: Kubetail – Real-time log search for Kubernetes

#6

Post by corytheboyd »

Damn, if you took out the “Kubernetes” part, and made it generalized, it looks like you built something that I have wanted to see for a long time. I think log explorers work best as a GUI, and that they need deep integration with structured logs. Basically I just want the DataDog log explorer but locally, and able to simply intake from some files. Some have tried, but they are always too simple, not parsing out properties of structured logs and building good filtering on top of that. I think setting up Grafana/Loki/Whatever is way too heavy for such a simple ask.

Anyway all that is anecdotal, what you made here is really cool!

Re: Show HN: Kubetail – Real-time log search for Kubernetes

#7

Post by andres »

carlgreene wrote: post #5

Wow, this is exactly what I’ve been missing—juggling a dozen kubectl logs windows and still losing context. Seeing all container logs merged in real time is a game-changer for debugging multi-pod workloads. Love that it runs locally against the API—no more sending sensitive logs offsite. Big thanks to the author for saving my sanity here!

Thanks! Your comment made my day! It sounds like your use-case is similar to mine when I started working on the project. Now we have a community of contributors working on Kubetail so if you have time, stop by our Discord and let us know what else we can do to help (https://discord.gg/CmsmWAVkvX).

Re: Show HN: Kubetail – Real-time log search for Kubernetes

#8

Post by andres »

corytheboyd wrote: post #6

Damn, if you took out the “Kubernetes” part, and made it generalized, it looks like you built something that I have wanted to see for a long time. I think log explorers work best as a GUI, and that they need deep integration with structured logs. Basically I just want the DataDog log explorer but locally, and able to simply intake from some files. Some have tried, but they are always too simple, not parsing out prope…

Thanks! Part of what enables us to make a helpful lightweight solution is that we're leveraging the Kubernetes API to give logs context without requiring extra configuration. It'd be great to generalize Kubetail but a lot of that depends on how cloud platforms evolve over the next few years. Do you use Kubernetes?

Re: Show HN: Kubetail – Real-time log search for Kubernetes

#10

Post by andres »

ai-christianson wrote: post #9

This looks awesome --do you cache or store the logs, or is that left up to k8s?

Thanks! Kubetail doesn't cache or store logs itself. By default, it uses the Kubernetes API to fetch logs from your cluster and send them directly to your client (browser or terminal). If the "Kubetail Cluster API" is installed then it uses Kubetail's custom agent to do the same.
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