Benchmarking logging libraries for Go

I compared a varity of logging libraries for Go, and performed 2 types of tests for 2 logging formats.

Types of test:

• Positive tests: everything will be logged because the baseline log level is set to lower or equal the level I am logging with.
• Negative tests: nothing will be logged because I set the baseline log level to ERROR but log wih INFO. This is important, because the faster it bails-out, and the less pressure the library puts on the GC, the better!

Formats:

• Text: there are a few minor differences among loggers, but I tried to follow a Time Level Message format).
• JSON: few loggers support this but it is still interesting.

Running the tests

On a terminal, just execute:

make bench

Benchmark Results (2023-05-19)

TextNegative

Name	ns/op	B/op	allocs/op
GoLog	0.14	0	0
Logrus	0.42	0	0
Zerolog	0.51	0	0
Gokit	11.42	32	1
Zap	49.89	192	1

JSONNegative

Name	ns/op	B/op	allocs/op
GoLog	0.79	0	0
Zerolog	1.24	0	0
Gokit	31.00	128	1
Zap	51.31	192	1
Logrus	161.00	496	4

TextPositive

Name	ns/op	B/op	allocs/op
Buildin	203.30	48	1
Gokit	209.20	256	4
GoLog	288.80	408	4
Zap	532.70	530	7
Logrus	1421.00	520	15
Zerolog	1597.00	2340	71

JSONPositive

Name	ns/op	B/op	allocs/op
GoLog	70.05	0	0
Zerolog	71.42	0	0
Zap	222.00	192	1
Gokit	745.30	1465	22
Logrus	2668.00	2132	32