what's the relationship between `system.diagnostics.trace` and nlog/log4net?

Question

I am learning asp.net web API (framework, not core). generally, I will use system.diagnostics.trace to write logs. but a bro suggests to use Nlog.

is Nlog/log.net a wrapper of system.diagnostics.trace ? will it override the built-in behavior of system.diagnostics.trace ? And what are Microsoft Extension Logging and NLog.Extensions.Logging ?

if I use Nlog, will the system log from .Net framework also turn to Nlog target?

I am confused with above concepts, can you help me?

Answer 1

NLog.Extensions.Logging and NLog.Web.AspNetCore is for Microsoft Extension Logging in ASP.NET Core.

The nice thing about system.diagnostics.trace is that it doesn't add any extra dependencies.

The nice thing about NLog/log.net/Serilog is that they make it easy to redirect logging-output to many different targets (file / console / database / email / etc.) and provides many options for how configure the layout-format of the output (json / csv / plain-text).

Forexample NLog.Web for ASP.NET Classic provides extensions to NLog for easy capture context of the web-request. Ex. ${as.net-request-url}