Logging to syslog vs filesystem: pros and cons

unix logging syslog

Cons

limited number of categories (e.g., when compared to log4j), which limits filtering capabilities
system-wide, requires administrator privileges to set up
not available on all OS-s (e.g., Windows)

Pros

application logging is plug-and-play, with well-known locations
single place to filter all messages
factors a lot of common functionality (such as writing to a file, sending logs remotely, rotating log files)
tools can be build (and actually exist) which can look at the logs of all applications at once