SolarWinds Papertrail review

SolarWinds Papertrail closes the list as the simplest tool to set up and read, though its per-GB price is the highest here. Pricing starts at $5.00 per GB per month and includes unlimited systems and users, encrypted logging, team-wide groups and searches, a long-term archive, a REST API and search alerts. Papertrail measures transfer as the message length plus 50 bytes of metadata, and says 1 GB holds about 6.6 million 100-character messages. When you hit the limit, logs can stop or continue as usage-based service up to 200% extra at a 30% higher price per GB. Archives are downloadable text files copied to Amazon S3. Its live tail viewer, log groups and saved-search alerts cover most day-to-day debugging, and setup supports syslog, text files, NAT, dynamic IPs, EC2 and PaaS. The 30-day trial includes 100 GB without a credit card. Teams that need tracing or ML-based analysis will outgrow it.

Who it is for

small teams and Heroku-style apps that need simple live tail

Price

From $5.00 per GB per month; 30-day free trial with 100 GB.

Log Management Starts at: $5.00 Per GB per month*
Quoted from the vendor pricing page on November 12, 2026.

Key features

• Live tail in a web-based log viewer
• Saved searches that become alerts with instant or daily notifications
• Log groups to split logs by app, environment or host
• Archives copied to Amazon S3 as downloadable text files
• Ingest from syslog, text log files, NAT, dynamic IPs, VMs, EC2 and PaaS

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Unlimited systems and users
• Strength: 30-day trial with 100 GB of usage and no credit card
• Strength: Logs can continue past the limit at up to 200% extra usage
• Weakness: $5.00 per GB is the highest per-GB rate in this list
• Weakness: Overage usage costs 30% more per GB
• Weakness: Fewer analytics features than full observability platforms

Key facts

• Starting price: $5.00 per GB per month
• Free trial: 30 days, 100 GB included
• Users: Unlimited systems and users
• Archives: Copied to Amazon S3

Where it ranks

SolarWinds Papertrail is No. 9 in our Best Log Management Tools verdict.