Author
Dominic Chapman
Head of Product
People exploring Axiom tend to have some common questions. These are generally well covered in Axiom’s documentation, but we recapped the most common ones here.
Why customers choose Axiom
What makes Axiom different?
Axiom is logging re-invented for high-scale engineering teams:
- Cloud-native architecture delivers higher performance at lower cost.
- Built-in distributed tracing provides E2E visibility and faster problem resolution.
- Integrated data routing ends vendor lock-in.
- Axiom can be deployed in your cloud for unlimited log management at a fixed price.
What does Axiom offer that current logging tools don’t?
Axiom unifies logs and traces with built-in routing. Its all-new, cloud-native architecture delivers unmatched performance and cost-effectiveness, preparing high-scale engineering teams for tomorrowʻs data challenges. Customers build on Axiom to infuse their own apps and services with select event data that delivers new value.
Getting Started and Licensing
How can I try and buy Axiom?
There are free and self-serve plans you can try right now. See the Pricing page, and don’t hesitate to contact sales@axiom.co to discuss your enterprise-scale needs.
How do we get started?
Axiom supports many data collectors out of the box. You can likely point your existing collectors at Axiom — Vector, Cribl, OpenTelemetry, Fluent Bit, Fluentd, or Axiom’s own REST API, to name a few — to begin querying immediately.
What’s included in Axiom’s licensing?
Axiom offers transparent pricing with no hidden fees. Enterprise plans support advanced configurations like Bring Your Own Cloud and long-term retention for compliance.
Can I try it on my own before talking to you?
Please do! The Personal and Team plans provide all of Axiom’s features for a self-serve trial.
Billing
What happens if I hit my data limit?
Axiom works with Enterprise customers to optimize plans and prevent unexpected costs. We don’t do surprise bills. We never restrict ingest without warning if a customer surpasses their limit. We engage in good-faith communication, and only pause query capabilities in limited instances when we can’t reach a customer.
Can I monitor my bill?
Easily — your total ingested volume is always visible on your Billing page.
Data Ingestion
Can Axiom ingest data easily?
Yes. Axiom accepts many data sources without pre-processing. It stores events at full fidelity, making them queryable in their original format or with schemas applied at query time.
What data sources are supported?
It’s a long list. See the long page of ingest methods in the documentation.
How do I integrate Axiom into my environment?
Start by redirecting any existing log data (e.g., stdout) to Axiom. Axiom’s APIs and APL query language enable integration into your workflows and applications.
Deployment options:
- Axiom Cloud: Axiom manages compute and storage in its cloud.
- BYOC: Compute and storage operate in your private cloud, while Axiom handles updates.
Is data always queryable? Is there hot and cold storage?
All data is always queryable on demand. It’s all always hot. We don’t have other vendors’ access tiers, such as Monitoring versus Compliance, or Indexed versus Flex. These are coverup for architectures that can’t store and retain logs for the timeframes that high-scale engineering teams need to do their work. Axiom’s architecture was designed fresh from the ground up to support high-scale teams both today and tomorrow.
Retention and Compliance
How does retention work?
- Personal: 30 days.
- Team: 95 days.
- Enterprise: Custom retention periods of a year or more, tailored to your needs.
You can set shorter retention periods for individual datasets.
Axiom supports long-term storage for compliance. Enterprise customers can configure BYOC or other options to ensure efficient retention without frequent data transfers.
Can Axiom replace CloudWatch or OpenSearch for log searches?
Yes. Axiom supports collectors like Logstash and Fluent Bit, allowing you to centralize all logs and save significantly — customers slash more than 70% from their CloudWatch spend. Keep 100% of events in Axiom, and route only essential data to high-cost tools.
Can I use Axiom for long-term storage for compliance?
Yes. Axiom supports extended retention periods, ideal for compliance needs. Enterprise customers can configure solutions like BYOC or other tailored options to enable cost-effective long-term storage without complex data migrations. Contact sales for details.
Querying and Routing Data
What query language does Axiom use?
Axiom Processing Language (APL) is a proprietary query language optimized for timestamped event data. It’s similar to Kusto or SPL, familiar to users of AWS CloudWatch, and more advanced than SQL.
Where can I learn about APL?
See Axiom’s documentation on APL, and explore examples on play.axiom.co.
Additional Resources
- Just email us! sales@axiom.co
- Read our Documentation: axiom.co/docs
- Join our Discord: axiom.co/discord
- Follow Axiom for updates and insights: Blog, LinkedIn, X
