Audit.NET
An extensible framework to audit executing operations in .NET and .NET Core, generating detailed audit logs with evidence for reconstruction.
What is Audit.NET?
Audit.NET is an extensible framework for generating detailed audit logs in .NET and .NET Core applications. It captures environmental data, execution details, and object state changes to provide evidence for reconstructing and examining operations. The framework solves the need for comprehensive, customizable auditing across various .NET technologies without intrusive code changes.
.NET developers and teams building applications that require detailed audit trails for compliance, debugging, or monitoring purposes, especially in domains like finance, healthcare, or enterprise systems.
Developers choose Audit.NET for its extensive extensibility, broad integration with .NET ecosystems (Entity Framework, WebAPI, Azure, etc.), and flexible storage options. Its non-intrusive design and configurable policies make it easy to add robust auditing to existing applications.
Overview
An extensible framework to audit executing operations in .NET
Use Cases
Best For
- Adding audit trails to Entity Framework data access operations
- Logging HTTP request/response details in WebAPI or MVC applications
- Tracking user activities and system events for compliance reporting
- Monitoring Azure Functions execution with detailed context
- Integrating audit logs into SQL Server, MongoDB, or Elasticsearch for analysis
- Implementing resilient audit logging with retry and circuit-breaker patterns
Not Ideal For
- Applications with strict real-time performance requirements where logging latency must be near-zero
- Projects exclusively using .NET Framework versions older than 4.6.2, as support is discontinued
- Teams needing simple, unstructured logging without object state tracking or environmental data
- Cross-platform applications requiring audit logging outside the .NET ecosystem
Pros & Cons
Pros
Central AuditScope and AuditEvent objects with custom data providers and wrappers allow deep customization, enabling support for diverse storage backends and resilience patterns like Polly.
Includes ready-made extensions for Entity Framework, WebAPI, Azure Functions, and more, providing seamless auditing without manual instrumentation for common .NET technologies.
Supports output to JSON files, SQL/NoSQL databases, Azure services, and others via data providers, making it easy to integrate with existing infrastructure.
Offers multiple event creation policies like Insert on End and Manual, giving fine-grained control over when audit events are saved to balance performance and completeness.
Cons
Configuring data providers, extensions, and custom actions can be involved, especially for teams new to the framework or integrating multiple systems.
Capturing detailed object states, environmental data, and serialization for storage adds latency, which may impact high-throughput applications.
Discontinued support for older .NET frameworks in version 23.0.0 forces upgrades for teams on unsupported versions, as noted in the README.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
awesome-static-analysis⚙️ A curated list of static analysis (SAST) tools and linters for all programming languages, config files, build tools, and more. The focus is on tools which improve code quality.
BenchmarkDotNetPowerful .NET library for benchmarking
coverletCross platform code coverage for .NET
StyleCopAnalyzersAn implementation of StyleCop rules using the .NET Compiler Platform
Found a gem we're missing?
Open-Awesome is built by the community, for the community. Submit a project, suggest an awesome list, or help improve the catalog on GitHub.