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Amazon CloudWatch vs syslog-ng comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.6
Amazon CloudWatch customer service is praised for expertise and availability, though navigating support can be tedious; premium support offers faster resolution.
No sentiment score available
 

Room For Improvement

Sentiment score
7.0
Amazon CloudWatch users are dissatisfied with pricing, UI complexity, inadequate log functionalities, and seek better integration, reporting, and monitoring features.
No sentiment score available
Syslog-ng in a SIEM context needs better filtering, skilled users, improved logging, Kafka integration, and enhanced observability.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Amazon CloudWatch is highly rated for its scalability, handling high volumes and diverse organizational needs consistently across multiple accounts.
No sentiment score available
 

Setup Cost

No sentiment score available
Amazon CloudWatch pricing varies widely, from as low as $25 to over $300 monthly, depending on usage and integration.
No sentiment score available
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Amazon CloudWatch is highly stable and reliable, with minor UI lags on large data, rarely affecting overall performance.
No sentiment score available
Users praise syslog-ng for stable, high-capacity performance, rating it nine out of ten despite external storage issues.
 

Valuable Features

Sentiment score
8.8
Amazon CloudWatch offers real-time monitoring, alerts, analytics, and customizable dashboards, integrated seamlessly with AWS for enhanced security and functionality.
No sentiment score available
Syslog-ng enhances log management with extraction, storage, real-time monitoring, alerts, and compound search, aiding efficient incident tracking.
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon CloudWatch
Ranking in Log Management
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (13th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)
syslog-ng
Ranking in Log Management
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Rasanpreet Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable AWS monitoring and logging
The choice of logging solution should always be determined by the specific business requirements. It is crucial to align the logging strategy with what type of logs are needed and how they should be used. There are instances where we require custom solutions to retrieve logs, especially application logs that may not be easily accessible through CloudWatch or similar services. When we heavily rely on AWS native services, CloudWatch is indeed a robust choice. However, in certain scenarios, we might need integration capabilities with other tools, and if they can incorporate such features, it would enhance overall logging capabilities. I would rate it eight out of ten.
RyanVargas - PeerSpot reviewer
It's a user-friendly open-source solution that can replace or augment a commercial product in some cases
I rate syslog-ng 10 out of 10. It's free and easy to use. It has built-in tools that help us index the various logs sent to it. It's a solid log product. If you're looking for a SIEM solution, syslog-ng will work as a stopgap measure at beginning of the project. It can also work as an injector for a true SIEM solution. You can send all the logs to syslog-ng and forward all the data to the SIEM solution after you've cleaned up the data and got the pertinent information. It's a good front end for a commercial SIEM solution, which becomes more expensive as you load more data into it. I would highly recommend syslog-ng for that use case. However, if you lack the expertise, you might need to go with a cloud-based SIEM instead. You need some in-house expertise or an outside consultant to manage it and set it up.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
5%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudWatch?
In general, Amazon CloudWatch is cheaper compared to Dynatrace. However, there are potential costs to be mindful of, like running a log query that returns trillions of bytes of data.
What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?
There is room for improvement in setting up custom metrics in CloudWatch. Adding conditional expressions would enhance its functionality.
What do you like most about syslog-ng?
For us, the most valuable feature is the use of compound search for searching logs at a specific time, by a specific user, or specific behavior.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for syslog-ng?
The pricing is in the middle. I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with one being expensive and ten being cheap.
What needs improvement with syslog-ng?
There is room for improvement in terms of observability. Additionally, a possible new feature could be Kafka integration.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus
Tecnocom, University of Victoria, University of Exeter, Datapath
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudWatch vs. syslog-ng and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.