Stop SSH-ing into servers to read log files. Send warnings and errors from every app to one hosted log, and read them from the dashboard, your terminal or your AI agent.
In recent years, outsourcing common features like authentication, payment and logging has gained a lot of traction. With Software as a Service (SaaS) and Cloud hosting like Azure, more and more companies trust Cloud providers to implement features previously handled inside the company.
Cloud Logging is the practice of sending out log statements to the Cloud. Setting up a SQL Server or similar may sound like a small task, but handling large amounts of data and making them searchable definitely is not. To help companies overcome the challenges of storing log data, a lot of providers have emerged.
When evaluating Cloud Logging providers, it's important to understand the difference between the various options. While some providers focus on storing and indexing massive amounts of log messages, others (like us) implement features on top of the data, providing systems generating dashboards, allowing error management and more.
Some of the many benefits of Cloud logging:
Log files work until you have more than one server. These are the usual options for .NET:
elmah.io is focused on errors and important log messages. It is not a full telemetry platform, so it pairs well with an APM tool if you need traces.
Send warnings and above from every application. That is where the signal is, and it keeps your message quota for what you will act on. Keep debug and information messages in the console or a local file.
Your logging code does not change. Add the elmah.io target, sink or appender next to the ones you have, and set the minimum level on it.
Your team reads them in the dashboard, and gets notifications by email, Slack or Microsoft Teams when a new error shows up. The CLI lets you search and tail from the terminal.
In 2026, the first reader of a production error is often an AI coding agent. elmah.io exposes your logs through an MCP server, so Claude Code, Cursor or Copilot in VS Code can pull the stack trace while you are already in the code.
Pick the framework you use, and add one package:
elmah.io started as an error log for ELMAH, and logging uncaught errors from ELMAH is still supported. The documentation lists everything else.
Warnings, errors and fatal messages from every application. Add information messages only for events you want to search later. Debug and trace messages are better kept local.
No, you add an elmah.io target, sink or appender to your logging configuration, and keep the rest of your code and your other targets.
Yes. Logging frameworks write to as many targets as you like, so you can keep a file or console target and add elmah.io.
A log platform stores and indexes messages for you to search. elmah.io does that too, and adds error management on top: grouping, new error detection, notifications, deployment tracking, uptime and heartbeats.
Yes. Connect the elmah.io MCP server to Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code or Visual Studio. It is included on every plan and is currently in beta.