Pino: The Super Fast, All-Natural JSON Logger for Node.js

Intro

Logging is one of those things you don’t think about until it becomes a bottleneck. Most Node.js logging libraries are convenient but slow—until you meet Pino. Touted as a "super fast, all-natural JSON logger," Pino is built for performance without sacrificing usability.

With over 15.7k GitHub stars, Pino has become a go-to choice for developers who need structured logging without the overhead. Let’s break down why it’s worth your attention.

What It Does

Pino is a low-overhead, high-performance JSON logger for Node.js. It outputs logs in structured JSON by default, making it easy to parse, filter, and analyze logs in production.

Basic usage is straightforward:

const logger = require('pino')();

logger.info('hello world');

const child = logger.child({ context: 'request' });
child.warn('watch out!');

This produces clean, machine-readable logs:

{"level":30,"time":1620000000000,"msg":"hello world","pid":1234,"hostname":"server-1"}
{"level":40,"time":1620000000001,"msg":"watch out!","pid":1234,"hostname":"server-1","context":"request"}

Why It’s Cool

1. Blazing Fast

Pino is optimized for speed, often 5x faster than alternatives like Winston or Bunyan. It minimizes overhead by avoiding unnecessary serialization and leveraging Node.js’s streams efficiently.

2. Structured & Parseable

JSON logs work seamlessly with log aggregators (ELK, Datadog, etc.), making debugging and monitoring easier.

3. Ecosystem-Friendly

• Transports: Process logs in separate threads (via pino.transport) to avoid blocking the event loop.
• Pretty Printing: Use pino-pretty for human-readable logs during development.
• Web Framework Integrations: Works with Fastify, Express, Koa, and more.

4. Bundler Support

Pino plays nice with webpack and esbuild, so you can use it in frontend or bundled Node.js apps.

How to Try It

1. Install:

   npm install pino
   # or
   yarn add pino
   

2. Log something:

   const pino = require('pino');
   const logger = pino();
   
   logger.info('Pino is live!');
   

3. For pretty logs in development:

   npm install pino-pretty
   node app.js | pino-pretty
   

Check out the full docs for advanced features like redaction, child loggers, and transports.

Final Thoughts

Pino is one of those rare tools that just works without getting in your way. If you’re tired of slow loggers or want structured logs without the hassle, give Pino a spin. It’s especially great for high-throughput apps where every millisecond counts.

Bonus: The team behind Pino includes Node.js veterans like Matteo Collina (Fastify creator) and David Mark Clements, so you know it’s battle-tested.

Got a logging horror story or a favorite Pino feature? Drop it in the comments! 🚀