A quick summary that does it for me: a log is something you read, a metric is something you measure. Usecases: Log: search, get context, read Metric: measure

A quick summary that does it for me: a log is something you read, a metric is something you measure. Usecases: Log: search, get context, read Metric: measure, plot dashboards, define alerts My theory for the concepts being so mixed up together: you use both to troubleshoot, and I think the old school way to emit metrics was to parse logs and turn that into measures.