Whether you're being forced to part ways with your Splunk Universal Forwarders as you migrate away from Splunk software, or you're searching for a Universal Forwarder replacement that can handle today’s dynamic environments, the truth is: vendor-specific agents were built for a different time. Plus, now they’re slowing you down with manual configurations, limited data shaping capabilities, and rigid vendor lock-in.
If you’re ready for a Universal Forwarder alternative that offers flexibility, centralizes management, and future-proofs your data collection, it’s time to take a closer look at Cribl Edge.
What to Look for in a Universal Forwarder Replacement
Today’s environments demand a new approach. You need:
A modern, flexible agent
that scales across thousands of endpoints without unnecessary overhead
Centralized management
to deploy, configure, and monitor at scale—without requiring access to each endpoint
Push-button upgrades
to stay secure with minimal downtime
Built-in troubleshooting tools
for easy investigation and comprehensive visibility
Advanced data processing at the edge
to shape and filter data before it's ingested—so you don’t pay more than you need to
A vendor-agnostic foundation
to break free from tool sprawl and eliminate future agent migrations or additions
In short, you need full control over your data collection, without being boxed in by your tooling.
Cribl Edge has all of this, making it the ideal Universal Forwarder replacement for modern organizations looking to simplify and scale their telemetry collection.
Cribl Edge Simplifies Your Universal Forwarder Migration
Cribl Edge offers a vendor-agnostic, modern approach to data collection. When you're replacing Splunk Universal Forwarders, Cribl Edge makes the migration process simple, secure, and scalable.
1. Fast, mass deployment
Cribl Edge offers teams the ability to rapidly deploy fleets of agents at scale. We have an intuitive UI that guides you to easily install agents in minutes, or even install hundreds of agents with a simple script to put into your tool of choice such as Ansible, Terraform, Puppet, and more. Once it’s installed, you no longer need to wait on host access or permission from other teams to configure and upgrade, giving your team complete control.
Because Cribl Edge is vendor-neutral, you can consolidate multiple data collection agents into a single unified data collection system. This not only reduces operational overhead but ensures consistency and efficiency across telemetry sources.
2. Centrally configure at scale
After you deploy your agents, efficiently configuring them is simple with Cribl Edge’s centralized fleet management, which lets you standardize configurations across groups of agents through your choice of hierarchical model—tailored to your organizational structure, geography, operating systems, or unique requirements. Admins can efficiently make changes across specific fleets and subfleets, and maintain version consistency without the risk of drift and of course, all changes are tracked for auditing purposes.
Out-of-the-box integrations with your array of tools make it easy to onboard new data sources or switch destinations. And with a UI-based pipeline builder, teams can effortlessly filter, shape, and logically route data directly at the edge.
When incidents or investigations arise, you can collect extra files within minutes directly from the user interface—no manual restarts required.
3. Push-Button Remote Upgrades
Cribl Edge minimizes downtime by supporting fleet-wide upgrades with no need to restart endpoints or destinations. Upgrades can be initiated remotely and directly by your team—no need to coordinate with endpoint owners. This reduces downtime and enhances your security posture.
Admins can control versioning across environments, executing upgrades when they fit operational timelines. Cribl Edge ensures agent maintenance is fully in your control.
It’s another reason Cribl Edge stands out as an easy-to-manage Universal Forwarder replacement.
4. Built-In Troubleshooting Tools
For those inevitable incidents, Cribl Edge provides comprehensive visibility across all of your Cribl Edge agents with a unified monitoring console that tracks performance, health, and connectivity. You can quickly isolate whether issues stem from the source, destination, or node.
To identify and resolve issues, you can “teleport” into individual nodes to explore metrics and logs—eliminating the guesswork from troubleshooting and dramatically reducing mean time to resolution (MTTR).
The Long-Term Value of Cribl Edge
Why Cribl Edge?
Eliminate vendor lock-in:
Break free from rigid proprietary tools with a flexible, vendor-neutral agent that strengthens your negotiation power, future-proofs your data collection strategy, and supports migration from inflexible software.
Reduce costs with a data tiering strategy:
Route data directly to your SIEM, Cribl Stream for heavier processing, data lakes, or storage to lower license costs while simplifying your architecture.
Simplify operations to increase efficiency:
Enjoy a unified data collection system with modern, UI-based agents that support centralized, version-controlled, and remote upgrades and configurations.
Start Your Migration Today
Whether you're migrating away from Splunk software or simply ready for an overdue agent management makeover, Cribl Edge gives you the flexible foundation you need to optimize data collection for today's hybrid, distributed, and cloud-first environments. It's the ultimate Universal Forwarder replacement for forward-thinking organizations.
✅ See how Cribl Edge stacks up in this comparison datasheet
✅ Accelerate your migration with Cribl’s Professional Services for Universal Forwarder Migration
✅ Start deploying our free trial now with our step-by-step Edge installation guide
Cribl Edge: The agent choice for complete control over your telemetry collection strategy.
