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The Zui Desktop Application

Zui (formerly called Brim) is a graphical user interface for exploring data in Zed lakes. While these docs are specific to the Zui app experience, you may want to browse the separate docs for the Zed project on topics such as:

Getting Started​

Trying out Zui is easy: just install the package for your operating system. Once you launch the app, click Import Data on the welcome screen and drag & drop a file of one of the formats shown. Simple operations such as filtering and "count by" are available in a menu that appears when you right-click on values in your data. When you're ready to perform more sophisticated queries and aggregations, consult the Zed language docs.

Behind the Name Change​

When Brim began as a company, we intended to build a security-focused desktop application powered by our backend called Zed. The company's main product was the app, so we called it the Brim app.

As we developed Zed, we started to realize we had something big on our hands. Zed's data model, language, query engine, and storage formats provided revolutionary new ways to work with all kinds of data. In April 2021, we decided to pivot, making Zed the company's flagship technology. Brim Security became Brim Data.

This change made us question the purpose of the app. We were now leading with the Zed lake, so we decided the app would support the lake. Users would be able to explore a lake's data and manage its configuration with the app. It would be a GUI for Zed.

At this point, having the app named after the company was confusing. We needed a name that clearly tied the app to Zed. After many fun naming sessions, we played off the word "GUI" and landed on "Zui": Zed user interface.

pcap processing

Functionality related to pcap processing (including the generation of Zeek and Suricata summary logs from pcaps and pcap import/extraction workflows) is handled by Brimcap, which is bundled with Zui. A separate Brimcap wiki contains current docs related to pcap processing.

Zui Insiders​

While GA versions of Zui will be released periodically, it's evolving fast. If you're interested in keeping up with the very latest enhancements and bug fixes, you can download the Zui - Insiders app. It can run side-by-side with regular Zui, stores data in a different location, and runs the Zed lake service on a different port. It receives automatic updates every weekday built from the tip of our main Zui branch. This is our take on a beta program. If you find bugs or think of improvements, please chime in on the #zui-insiders Slack channel.