Tailstream is the observability platform that outputs the last N lines of any file and follows it as it grows. Real-time streaming. Process-aware lifecycle. Auto-reconnect on rotation. This is production-grade log intelligence.
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Features
We took the core primitives of log tailing and turned them into an observability platform that never misses a line.
Real-time log streaming that outputs appended data as the file grows. Attach to any log file and watch events arrive the instant they're written. This is the core of production observability.
Follow by name with automatic retry. When log files rotate, get renamed, or get recreated, ResilientStream™ detects the change and re-attaches automatically. Zero downtime. Zero missed lines.
Output the last NUM lines of any file. Default 10. Want the last 500 lines of your error log? Done. The precision tail that gives you exactly the data window you need.
Output the last NUM bytes instead of lines. Byte-level precision for binary-aware workflows. Use +NUM to start from a specific byte offset. Surgical data extraction.
Attach your stream to a process lifecycle. Tailstream automatically terminates when the tracked PID dies. Perfect for CI jobs, build processes, and ephemeral workloads.
Configure the sleep interval between follow iterations. Fine-tune your polling frequency from millisecond-fast to battery-saving slow. Your stream, your cadence.
Keep trying to open a file even if it's temporarily inaccessible. Combined with LiveFollow™, this creates an indestructible stream that survives log rotation, disk pressure, and file system hiccups.
Use -n +NUM to start output from line NUM, or -c +NUM to start from byte NUM. Skip headers, jump to the action, and begin streaming from any point in the file.
Case Study
"We were running 340 microservices across 12 Kubernetes clusters. Our previous log aggregation solution had a 4-second ingestion delay and dropped lines during log rotation. We needed real-time."
NeonScale's SRE team deployed Tailstream's ResilientStream™ across every pod. With
-F handling log rotation and --pid tracking container lifecycles,
they eliminated 100% of their log gaps.
Result: MTTR dropped from 14 minutes to 90 seconds. Zero missed log lines across 2.4 billion events per day.
How It Works
Pass one or more file paths to Tailstream. Supports local files, rotated logs, and stdin. If no file is specified, Tailstream reads from standard input.
Set your tail depth with -n (lines) or -c (bytes). Default is the last 10 lines. Use +NUM prefix to start from a specific offset instead of the end.
Add -f to stream appended data as it arrives, or -F for resilient streaming that survives log rotation. Attach --pid to bind the stream to a process lifecycle.
Log events flow to your terminal the instant they're written. Pipe into grep, awk, or your alerting pipeline. Zero buffering delay. Production-grade throughput.
Pricing
Last 10 lines. The basics.
Custom depth + real-time follow
Resilient streaming + process tracking
Self-hosted log intelligence
Testimonials
"We replaced our entire log aggregation sidecar with Tailstream's LiveFollow™. Real-time event streaming with zero ingestion delay. Our on-call engineers can now see errors the moment they happen, not 4 seconds later."
"ResilientStream™ solved log rotation for us permanently. We rotate logs every 15 minutes across 200 nodes. Before Tailstream, we'd lose 2-3 seconds of events on every rotation. Now? Zero gaps. Zero."
"ProcessGuard™ with --pid is a game-changer for CI/CD observability. We attach Tailstream to every build process and it automatically terminates when the job finishes. Clean lifecycle management."
"The -n +1 feature is criminally underrated. Skip the header line and stream the rest of the file in real time. We use it to process CSV exports as they're being generated. Tailstream is infrastructure."
"We evaluated Splunk, Datadog, and Tailstream for real-time log tailing. Tailstream was the only one that delivered sub-millisecond latency with zero configuration. Pipe it into grep and you have a monitoring stack."
Demo
Real output. Real log streaming. Zero smoke and mirrors.
FAQ
LiveFollow™ (-f) follows a file descriptor — even if the file is renamed, it
continues tracking the original file. ResilientStream™ (-F) follows by name and
retries — if the file is rotated, deleted, or recreated, it detects the change and
re-attaches. Use -F for production log files that rotate. Use -f for files that stay in
place.
When you pass --pid=PID along with -f, Tailstream monitors the
specified process. When that process terminates, Tailstream automatically exits. This is
invaluable for CI/CD pipelines, build jobs, and any ephemeral workload where you want the
stream to die with the process.
Yes. Use -n +NUM to start output from line NUM, or -c +NUM to start
from byte NUM. For example, -n +1 outputs the entire file, while
-n +100 skips the first 99 lines and streams everything from line 100 onward.
Absolutely. Pass multiple file paths and Tailstream will output the last lines of each,
preceded by a header with the file name. Combined with -f, you can follow
multiple log files simultaneously. Use -q to suppress headers or
-v to always show them.
With --retry, Tailstream will keep attempting to open the file. Combined with
-F, this creates an indestructible stream that waits for the file to appear,
attaches when it's created, and re-attaches if it's rotated. Ideal for log files that
haven't been created yet at service startup.
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