Is Log4Net a message oriented middleware?

Question

I can't find information whether log4net is a MOM. If not then why? I tried to figure it out from their website.

Answer 1

log4net is not a message oriented middleware.

A MOM supports the exchange of general-purpose messages in a distributed application environment. Data is exchanged by message passing and/or message queuing supporting both synchronous and asynchronous interactions between distributed computing processes.

A MOM is usually designed for these goals:

• Asynchronicity
• Extensibility
• Load Balancing

Why is log4net not a message oriented middleware?

Because log4net was designed with these goals in mind:

• Speed of logging (or not logging, when disabling log)
• Flexibility of logging (can output to multiple logging targets and easily modify writing strategy at runtime)

Being able to output to multiple targets (including remote via UDP) is a crucial feature of a MOM. However log4net does not create a communication layer between applications, it only enables logs to be written to multiple targets. It also does not support asynchronous logging out of the box. So it does not offer everything a MOM is expected to.