The present disclosure is directed towards systems and methods for lightweight identification of flow information by application. A flow monitor executed by a processor of a device may maintain a counter. The flow monitor may associate an application with the value of the counter and transmit, to a data collector executed by a second device, the counter value and a name of the application. The flow monitor may monitor a data flow associated with the application to generate a data record. The flow monitor may transmit the data record to the data collector, the data record including an identification of the application consisting of the counter value and not including the name of the application. The data collector may then re-associate the data record with the application name based on the previously received counter value.