TL;DR — Quick Summary

Deploy Dozzle as a self-hosted real-time Docker log viewer. Stream container logs in a browser, search across containers, and filter by log level without SSH.

Why Dozzle?

docker logs -f requires SSH. Dozzle puts live container logs in your browser:

  • Real-time streaming — Logs appear instantly as they’re written.
  • Multi-container view — See logs from all containers side by side.
  • Search — Find entries across all containers.
  • Log level highlighting — ERROR, WARN, INFO colored differently.
  • No storage — Zero disk usage, pure streaming.
  • ~8 MB image — Smallest log viewer available.

Prerequisites

  • Docker on any machine.
  • Access to Docker socket.

Deploy with Docker

docker run -d \
  --name dozzle \
  --restart=always \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  amir20/dozzle:latest

Access at http://your-server:8080.

Features

Feature Description
Live streaming Real-time log output, no refresh needed
Multi-container View multiple containers simultaneously
Search Full-text search across all container logs
Regex Search with regular expressions
Log levels Color-coded ERROR, WARN, INFO, DEBUG
Docker Compose Groups containers by compose project
Multi-host Aggregate logs from remote Docker hosts
Authentication Built-in simple auth or forward auth
Dark mode Built-in dark theme

Dozzle vs Log Management Tools

Feature Dozzle Portainer Logs Loki + Grafana ELK Stack
Purpose Live log viewer Docker management Log aggregation Full search + analytics
Storage None (streaming) None Persistent Persistent
Image size ~8 MB ~250 MB ~500 MB+ ~2 GB+
Setup time 30 seconds 2 minutes 30 minutes 1 hour+
Multi-host Yes (agents) Yes Yes Yes
Search Live search Basic LogQL queries Full-text + aggregation
Best for Quick debugging Docker management Production monitoring Enterprise analytics

Troubleshooting

Problem Solution
No containers showing Verify Docker socket is mounted: -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
Permission denied Ensure the Dozzle container user can read the Docker socket
Logs not updating Container might not be writing to stdout/stderr; check logging driver
Multi-host not connecting Verify Dozzle agent is running on remote host and network is reachable

Summary

  • Real-time Docker log viewer — no SSH, no CLI, just a browser.
  • Zero storage — streaming only, no disk usage.
  • ~8 MB footprint — lightest log viewer available.
  • Multi-host aggregation for distributed environments.