No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Amazon OpenSearch Service vs Elastic Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 22, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Amazon OpenSearch Service
Ranking in Log Management
18th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (22nd), Search as a Service (3rd)
Elastic Security
Ranking in Log Management
12th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (8th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (20th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (10th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Amazon OpenSearch Service is 1.7%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Security is 3.2%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Elastic Security3.2%
Amazon OpenSearch Service1.7%
Other95.1%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Md. Shahariar Hossen - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Cefalo
Event tracking has become smoother and data analytics provide clear insights for user actions
Amazon OpenSearch Service is not providing the processing feature directly. From Amazon OpenSearch Service, we are actually maintaining the AWS SQS, the queue service, which is responsible for providing information about what data has to be modified. So using that SQS, we're actually providing it, but we're not directly using Amazon OpenSearch Service for keeping data to other data pipeline thing. So far we didn't use it for any machine learning purposes, but in future, we have plans to extend or implement this feature. Since AWS itself is secure and Amazon OpenSearch Service is a part of this entire ecosystem, it becomes much easier for security purposes. From the validation point of view, Amazon OpenSearch Service itself provides easy to communicate APIs and up-to-date documents, which is much beneficial. For example, if I'm missing anything, I can directly go and check the documentation. That is actually much easier. I would rate it as really good so far. It's much faster. For our local machine, we can also use a kind of replica of Amazon OpenSearch Service just for development purposes. That is another good feature. I would say for the encryption thing and also the user access control management, it's much faster. For some of these hashing algorithms, it also worked really well so far. To be honest, I didn't find any places where it can be improved. However, I think they could provide more abstraction. For example, still for searching, we have to write down the queries in a specific manner, such as for a specific JSON structure or in a specific way. Otherwise, they don't provide us the actual results. For at least this purpose, I think abstraction could be a bit easier or a bit improved. Other than that, right now there is the age of AI, so some kind of prompting could also work, but I'm not sure how it could be integrated. As a user, lower prices or reasonable pricing is always better. Those can be improved as well. However, it is good that most of the services including Amazon OpenSearch Service actually provide pay as you go pricing. So if there were a bit lower version or a bit less payment methodology, it might be much better.
Laurentiu Popescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Product Officer at ClusterPower
Has improved threat detection with deep log analysis and streamlined investigation workflows
The most useful features I find in Elastic Security are the forensic ones that allow us to carry deeper analysis into the logs for in-depth investigations, and the dashboards, with the reporting dashboard being quite user-friendly. Elastic Security is quite good at identifying threats, as it is part of the deep investigation tool that I mentioned before. Unless we need to look further into a certain log, we can carry out a deeper analysis and forensics on those particular logs. I can assess the impact of Elastic Security's real-time data analysis on our threat response efficiency as working pretty good. We are looking for real-time analysis because we have a continuous inflow of logs from different sources: from our cloud, from Active Directory, from our network. So it works pretty well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Our customers have seen tangible benefits from Amazon OpenSearch Service, especially in terms of their applications running smoothly, so they do get a return on investment."
"The business analytics capabilities are the most important feature it provides."
"It's a good log management platform. In terms of infrastructure management, it's good."
"The initial set up is very easy...We really appreciate Amazon!"
"It's actually easier to collaborate since it is already deployed in the AWS cloud itself."
"Regarding valuable features of the solution, we found with the process, which we have used in both cases where we used the solution that while you're seeing the streaming of data, you can analyze in the initial phase what sort of data you are streaming and whether it is valuable."
"We retrieve historical data with just a click of a button to move it from cold to hot or warm because it's already stored in the backend storage"
"Amazon OpenSearch Service provides a managed database solution, so we don't need to manage everything ourselves."
"We like the detailed investigation features of the platform as you're able to get a lot of detail as to what's going on on the host when you do investigations."
"Elastic Security is cost-effective compared to Defender and CrowdStrike."
"My advice to anybody who is considering this product is that it is a very competitive tool that is very new in the market and the vendor is doing their best to improve services."
"I would advise others to use this solution as it is relatively low cost and the implementation is quick, giving you results faster."
"Its flexibility is most valuable; we can have a number of scenarios, and we can get logs from anything, and if we know how to use Logstash, we can tweak it in many ways, which makes the logging search on Elastic very easy."
"This is one of the best open-source log management and log analyzer tools in the world."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to collect authentication information from service providers."
"I use the stack every morning to check the errors and it's just so clear. I don't see any disadvantage to using Logstash."
 

Cons

"There is the problem with the database. Amazon only provides the host to run to our applications bias, but there is no option to manage the database within the Elasticsearch product."
"The configuration should be more straightforward because we had to select a lot of things."
"As a user, lower prices or reasonable pricing is always better."
"There is a problem with the database. Amazon only provides the hosting to run our applications bias, but there is no option to manage the database within the Elasticsearch product."
"The configuration should be more straightforward because we had to select a lot of things."
"In terms of data handling capabilities with Amazon OpenSearch Service, they can be complex and managing data in comparison to other SIM solutions is a major drawback, as it is very hard to handle the data."
"It would be beneficial to have some level of customization available in the managed service, tailored to the specific use cases of the end users."
"Amazon Elasticsearch can improve the bullion in the near search and the ease of integration with Kibana. Additionally, there could be more flexibility in the configuration and documentation."
"It's a little bit of a learning curve to understand the logic of searching for things and trying to find what you're looking for in Elastic Security."
"There are connectors to gather logs for Windows PCs and Linux PCs, but if we have to get the logs from Syslog then we have to do it manually, and this should be automated."
"The training that is offered for Elastic is in need of improvement because there is no depth to it."
"The process of designing dashboards is a little cumbersome in Kibana. Unless you are an expert, you will not be able to use it. The process should be pretty straightforward. The authentication feature is what we are looking for. We would love to have a central authentication system in the open-source edition without the need for a license or an enterprise license. If they can give at least a simple authentication system within a company. In a large organization, authentication is very essential for security because logs can contain a lot of confidential data. Therefore, an authentication feature for who accesses it should be there."
"Elastic sometimes does not correctly identify threats or anomalies. It might not classify an issue as malicious or critical accurately."
"It is difficult to anticipate and understand the space utilization, so more clarity there would be great."
"Elastic doesn't have the features like other competitors in SIEM. For example, Dynatrace as a solution for SIEM has features that Elastic actually doesn't have."
"Because of the notification issue we moved to Logentries, as it provides a simple way to get notification whenever a server encounters an error or something unexpected happens (which we have defined using Regex)."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a community edition available and the price of the commercial offering is reasonable."
"Compared to other cloud platforms, it is manageable and not very expensive."
"You only pay for what you use."
"The solution is not expensive, but priced averagely, I will say."
"Its price is fine. Its licensing works on a yearly basis. We have to renew the license every year. I also have a good experience with Darktrace. When we buy Darktrace, we get training free of cost, which is not there in Elastic. We have to pay extra for training. There is certainly room for improvement."
"Elastic Security is free to use."
"The pricing is in the middle. I think it is not an expensive experience if we compare it with big names, for example, QRadar, and also Oxide. I think Elastic Security is quite cheap. I would rate the pricing of this solution a five out of ten."
"The base product is open-source but if you need advanced security features then you need to pay for the subscription. Elastic Security's price is reasonable in some cases and in other cases it's not."
"The tool's pricing is flexible and comes at unit cost. You don't have to pay for everything."
"I find it better than Splunk in terms of cost-effectiveness. For cost-effectiveness, I would rate it a nine out of 10."
"Elastic Stack is an open-source tool. You don't have to pay anything for the components."
"We are using the free, open-source version of this solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.
892,646 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon OpenSearch Service?
We retrieve historical data with just a click of a button to move it from cold to hot or warm because it's already stored in the backend storage
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon OpenSearch Service?
I would consider the pricing as a six based on how much data we are handling; if we handle minimal data, it's cheap, but for large data, it becomes costly. Our clients usually pay between $1,000 to...
What needs improvement with Amazon OpenSearch Service?
Amazon OpenSearch Service is not providing the processing feature directly. From Amazon OpenSearch Service, we are actually maintaining the AWS SQS, the queue service, which is responsible for prov...
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
What do you like most about Elastic Security?
Elastic provides the capability to index quickly due to the reverse indexes it offers. This data is crucial as it contains critical information. The reverse index allows fast data indexing because ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
I am satisfied with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing cost. It is a pure 10.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Elasticsearch Service
Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

VIDCOIN, Wyng, Yellow New Zealand, zipMoney, Cimri, Siemens, Unbabel
Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon OpenSearch Service vs. Elastic Security and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,646 professionals have used our research since 2012.