A method for obtaining information and status about a monitored system by adaptively analyzing log messages is provided. A log analyzer receives log messages generated by a monitored system. The log analyzer identifies static and variable portions in the received log messages. The log analyzer generates a template based on the identified static and variable portions of the received log messages. The log analyzer computes a metric for the generated template based on a number of log messages that fall within the template. The log analyzer reports a status in the monitored system based on the computed metric.