The Logstash Forwarder is being retired and replaced with Filebeat.
Filebeat has improved functionality, including the ability to ship to multiple different outputs such as directly to Elasticsearch or to Logstash, both with optional TLS/SSL. It also comes with its own Logstash input plugin which uses the existing Lumberjack protocol.
Future improvements for Filebeat include multiline support and field filtering.
We also have a Filebeat category for any questions you may have, so please be sure to check it out.