Alternatives
Softechlog isn't the only answer. Depending on your stage and requirements, building it yourself or stretching a tool you already pay for can be right — here's how the options actually differ.
Side by side
"DIY" is a Postgres events table plus the APIs around it. "Product analytics" is the Mixpanel/Amplitude category. "Log management" is the Datadog/ELK category. "Enterprise audit" is compliance-focused audit-log vendors sold to large orgs.
| You need | DIY (Postgres) | Product analytics | Log management | Enterprise audit | Softechlog |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-facing activity feed | Build the API + UI yourself | Not designed for it — data is aggregated for internal dashboards | No — logs are internal by design | Varies; often admin-only | Drop-in web component + feed API |
| Append-only audit semantics | Up to your discipline | No — events can be mutated/deleted by admins | Yes, within retention | Yes | Yes — no edit/delete path exists |
| Per-user scoped reads (safe in a browser) | Design + build it yourself | No — API keys read everything | No | Varies | Feed tokens: one actor, short-lived |
| Retention enforced automatically | Write and monitor the purge job | Plan-based, aggregate-oriented | Yes (priced per GB ingested) | Yes | Hourly, by plan (30/90/365 days) |
| CSV/JSON export for audits | Build it | Usually paid tier / API gymnastics | Yes | Yes | Every plan, filtered, one GET |
| Typical cost at seed stage | ~10 eng-weeks + maintenance | $0–$300/mo (but wrong tool) | $100s/mo at modest volume | $1k+/mo, annual contracts | $0–$99/mo |
The honest read
Choose it when activity data is your core product, or hard residency rules keep third parties out of the event path. Know that the honest scope is ~10 engineering weeks plus permanent maintenance — we priced it line-by-line on the build-vs-buy page.
Choose them for funnels, retention curves, and product decisions — that's what they're for, and they're excellent at it. Know that they're the wrong shape for audit trails: events are mutable, keys read everything (so nothing is safe in a browser), and there's no customer-facing feed. Many teams run analytics and an activity log — different questions, different tools.
Choose them for infrastructure observability — request logs, traces, alerts. Know that per-GB pricing punishes high-volume user events, and nothing is exposable to your customers. Your ops logs and your customers' audit trail have different readers, retention, and privacy properties.
Choose them when you're selling into large enterprises that mandate a specific vendor, or need SIEM streaming out of the box. Know that pricing and contracts assume you have a security team; for a seed-stage SaaS shipping its first audit page, it's a forklift where you need a hand truck.
Softechlog's lane: customer-facing activity history for early-stage B2B SaaS, priced like a utility.
Request Beta AccessNot sure which shape fits your case? We'll tell you honestly — even if the answer isn't us.
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