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Observabilité · Courses

Fluent Bit and Vector: lightweight log collection

Training course on log collection with the lightweight agents Fluent Bit and Vector: pipelines, Kubernetes, multiline, buffers, VRL transformations, tests, masking and architecture choices.

8 chapters12 lessonsEN
At your pace, through practice.

By the end of this course you will be able to

  • Compare log collectors and choose an architecture
  • Configure Fluent Bit pipelines and deploy them on Kubernetes
  • Build Vector topologies and transform data with VRL
  • Ensure reliability (buffers) and compliance (masking)
  • Test and monitor your pipelines

🎯 Level : Intermediate👥 Who it is for : DevOps engineers, SREs and platform engineers who collect and transform logs at scale

LEARNING PATH

Course curriculum

0Course overview1 lesson
  1. Assessment quizQuiz · ⏱ 10 min
1Overview of collectors1 lesson

The role of a collector and a comparison.

  1. Overview of log collectorsArticle · ⏱ 3 min
2Fluent Bit2 lessons

Pipeline, configuration and plugins.

  1. Fluent Bit: pipeline and configurationArticle · ⏱ 8 min
  2. Lab: First Fluent Bit pipeline to LokiHands-on lab · ⏱ 40 min · Level 2/5
3Fluent Bit in production1 lesson

Kubernetes, multiline, buffers, monitoring.

  1. Fluent Bit on KubernetesArticle · ⏱ 8 min
4Vector3 lessons

Topology, components and operations.

  1. Lab: Fluent Bit on Kubernetes with metadataHands-on lab · ⏱ 45 min · Level 3/5
  2. Vector: topology and componentsArticle · ⏱ 7 min
  3. Lab: Parse nginx logs with Vector and VRLHands-on lab · ⏱ 45 min · Level 3/5
5VRL and tests1 lesson

Transform and test.

  1. VRL and unit testsArticle · ⏱ 9 min
6Choose and migrate2 lessons

Compare, combine, migrate.

  1. Fluent Bit or Vector?Article · ⏱ 4 min
  2. Final Lab: Vector unit tests and masking personal dataHands-on lab · ⏱ 40 min · Level 3/5
7Best practices1 lesson

Recommended practices for running the product in production.

  1. Log collection best practicesArticle · ⏱ 4 min

LEARN BY DOING

Use cases & applications

Centralise Kubernetes logs

One agent per node, enriched with metadata.

Reduce storage costs

Filter and sample at the source.

GDPR compliance

Mask personal data before storage.

Derive metrics

Count errors from logs.

Recommended prerequisites

Kubernetes: From Discovery to Expertise

What next?

Grafana Loki: from discovery to expertiseElasticsearch: from discovery to expertiseAlloy: From Discovery to Expertise

Frequently asked questions

Fluent Bit or Fluentd?

Fluent Bit is the lightweight agent (written in C) from the same project; Fluentd remains useful as an aggregator with its many plugins. For a new agent on Kubernetes, Fluent Bit is the usual choice.

Is Vector tied to Datadog?

Vector was acquired by Datadog in 2021 but remains open source (MPL 2.0) and sends to any destination.

Do you need an aggregator?

Not always: it becomes useful for large volumes, heavy transformations or multiple destinations.

What about OpenTelemetry?

Fluent Bit and Vector can both receive and emit OTLP and can run alongside an OpenTelemetry Collector or Alloy.