Today we’re excited to announce that Simple History Premium 1.8.0 adds support for forwarding events to local syslog and remote syslog server and also to an external MySQL/MariaDB database.
Whether you’re managing a single high-traffic site or overseeing dozens of WordPress installations across your organization, this release gives you the tools to centralize your logs, meet compliance requirements, and integrate with your existing monitoring infrastructure.
Beta Release – We Want Your Feedback
These log forwarding features are released as a beta. The core functionality is solid and ready for testing, but we’re actively looking to improve based on real-world usage.
We’d love to hear from you:
- Which log forwarding destinations are you using?
- What formats or protocols are missing for your setup?
- How can we make the configuration easier?
- Any issues or edge cases you’ve encountered?
Your feedback directly shapes how these features evolve. Just send an email to contact@simple-history.com with your feedback.
What’s New in 1.8.0
Syslog Channel
If your organization already uses a local syslog server, Graylog, Papertrail, or any SIEM solution – you can now send WordPress activity events directly there.
The new Syslog channel supports:
- Local syslog – Send to your server’s local syslog daemon
- Remote UDP – Fast, lightweight transmission to remote servers
- Remote TCP – Reliable delivery when you can’t afford to lose events
This means your WordPress security events can sit alongside your server logs, application logs, and network logs – all in one place. Perfect for security teams who need a unified view of what’s happening across their infrastructure.
External Database Channel (MySQL/MariaDB)
Here’s a scenario: an attacker gains admin access to your WordPress site. The first thing they might do? Clear the activity log to cover their tracks.
The External Database channel solves this by writing events to a completely separate database server. Configure it with write-only credentials, and even a compromised WordPress installation can’t touch your audit trail.
This is ideal for:
- Compliance requirements – Keep logs beyond WordPress retention periods
- Multi-site monitoring – Aggregate logs from multiple WordPress sites into one database
- Forensic readiness – Maintain evidence that can’t be tampered with
Three more formats for the file logger
The core version of Simple History already supports writing human readable log formats. Now in Premium we’ve added three more output formats for the File channel:
JSON Lines – Each event as a self-contained JSON object on its own line. Perfect for reading the logs using terminal tools like hl and loggo.
Logfmt – The format beloved by cloud-native tools and DevOps teams. Key-value pairs that are both human-readable and machine-parseable.
RFC 5424 – The official syslog standard format. We even registered our own IANA Private Enterprise Number (64775) specifically for Simple History, so structured data is properly namespaced.
Who Is This For?
Enterprise IT teams who need WordPress logs in their central monitoring systems.
Security professionals who require tamper-proof audit trails and SIEM integration.
Managed WordPress hosts who want to aggregate client activity logs.
Compliance officers who need to prove what happened, when, and by whom.
DevOps engineers who want WordPress to play nicely with their existing logging stack.
Getting Started
If you’re already a Simple History Premium user, simply update to version 1.8.0. You’ll find the new channels under Simple History → Settings → Channels.
New to Premium? Get Simple History Premium and unlock these enterprise features along with Stats & Summaries, Message Control, Extended Retention, and more.
Note: This release requires Simple History 5.21.0 or later.
Changelog
1.8.0 (December 2025)
- Add Syslog channel for forwarding events to syslog servers (beta).
- Add External Database channel for storing events in external MySQL/MariaDB databases (beta).
- Add JSON Lines, RFC 5424, and Logfmt formatters for File log channel.
- Use IANA Private Enterprise Number 64775 registered to Simple History for RFC 5424 structured data.
- Require Simple History 5.21.0.