I have used logback for almost 15 years now instead of log4j. util logging and commons logging weren't nearly as good, although I don't recall specifically why

I have used logback for almost 15 years now instead of log4j. util logging and commons logging weren't nearly as good, although I don't recall specifically why. jdk logging was fine-finer-finest and some other weird things Ultimately what is important in javaland is adopting SLF4J and then delegating to whatever you want to use beyond that for the actual logging.