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Cribl vs Grafana Loki comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

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

Cribl
Ranking in Log Management
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (14th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (13th), Observability Pipeline Software (1st)
Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Cribl is 1.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana Loki is 8.2%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Phanindra Ponnada - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good documentation and worth the investment
As of now, there are some environments where some organizations are still on legacy infrastructure, so they are still in virtual environments and are using old versions of devices. Some companies bought Splunk, while others bought Cribl for a very low-priced license. There are some protocols to connect from Cribl to Splunk. I understand Cribl has come into the market very recently, but the tool might have had a picture in its mind where organizations might also have some legacy infrastructure. In the future, with our protocols or our level of architecture, Cribl should not come and say that it is not compatible with them. If Cribl is the reason because I have to change my environment, then I will have to end up investing more. There are some organizations where the end machines have forwarders that forward the data to Cribl, and from it, the data is forwarded to Splunk. This is how general architecture works. There are two methods of connection between Cribl and Splunk. One is the S2S protocol, which collects logs from Cribl or sends data between Cribl and Splunk. There is another method called HTTP Event Collector (HEC) and HTTPS protocol. With Cribl, connecting to Splunk mostly uses the S2S protocol. The tool supports all the latest devices and platform devices, like all the latest operating systems. There are some organizations where there is legacy infrastructure or if they are still on the old platforms. Companies using old platforms have to consider HTTP Event Collector (HEC), and then they have to change their infrastructure setup in order to fulfill that setup. In order to have Google and Splunk set up in my organization, if I have to change my existing infrastructure connectivity or setup, that might incur more cost or more investment for me to have Cribl and Splunk. Cribl should provide compatibility, or else the tool's developers should speak to the people of such organizations and understand the challenges. Cribl could have developed some version that can give backward compatibility.
CarlosPimentel - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient log filtering enhances quick network troubleshooting
We use Grafana Loki for various verticals including manufacturing, finance, health, and aerospatial sectors. It primarily helps in monitoring security and access to devices. Grafana dashboards are used to track access success and failure and audit commands issued on devices Loki significantly…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cribl offers other valuable features. For instance, you can replay data from an edge device, store your daily data in a stream, and replay specific event data into Splunk if a security incident occurs"
"My favorite option in Cribl is the Stream product."
"The support team was very helpful and managed to get everything production-ready."
"The product's most valuable features include the internal management of events, coding perspective, data processing, and serialization."
"The capability to reduce logs in a user-friendly manner is a standout feature. Cribl allows us to view logs live as they are being processed, giving us quick feedback on the changes made."
"I'd rate the solution ten out of ten."
"When it comes to the product's installation phase, it is not tough for people who have good knowledge...The tool is worth the investment."
"Features such as Cribl Stream, Cribl LogStream, and Cribl Edge have been the most beneficial. The Cribl LogStream, in particular, is valuable for routing data, creating firewalls on pipelines, and putting security measures in place to ensure data reaches its destination without issues."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source tool that is stable and flexible."
"The most valuable feature is the capability to set up alerts, which becomes necessary when we need to receive notifications for specific events."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the tool's GUI. The solution's GUI is very user-friendly."
"The effectiveness of filters is pivotal for optimizing the search process and extracting the specific information we need from the extensive log data."
"Loki also utilizes the same service discovery mechanism as used by Prometheus. So, whatever labeled metadata you see in Prometheus, you have the exact same metadata in the Loki system. Given this level of intricacy and the attempt to address these challenges, I firmly believe that Loki deserves praise for the work."
"I appreciate the capability to process logs from microservices and seamlessly integrate them into Grafana."
"The product's most valuable features are ease of installation, management, and reporting. It has an efficient ability to set thresholds for alerts, as well."
"The solution's stability has never been a problem. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine to ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"There have been several administrative issues. Another point is that the browsing functions aren't very intuitive."
"The sys logging could be enhanced to make it easier to identify errors, especially when dealing with multiple functions."
"Perhaps more flexibility in terms of metrics would be helpful."
"There is no alerting mechanism for the leader/worker nodes status."
"Cribl could have developed some version that can give backward compatibility."
"Cribl could improve by offering easier integrations with enterprise products, similar to what Splunk provides."
"Cribl doesn't have as many packs available"
"There is room for improvement in the documentation and knowledge base, particularly regarding configurations like sources where logs are being ingested"
"The product must improve its UI."
"My main concern is the recommended production-grade setup. They suggest using tools like Tanka or Jsonnet. They should simplify the process to increase adoption."
"The solution has shortcomings regarding security monitoring-oriented features that need improvement."
"The Docker container partition feature needs improvement as they do not reuse the space and goes into a pending state."
"The platform's stability needs improvement."
"The correlation of requests is not simple in Grafana Loki and can be improved."
"Visualization-wise, Grafana Loki's dashboard looks a little outdated compared to other open-source visualization tools like Chronograf."
"There is a need for some change in the alerting types of the product. In short, a few changes in the alert area are needed due to minor shortcomings."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product pricing is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"I would not say it is a cheaply priced tool as it has been doing wonders in the market. The tool has been budget-friendly for organizations."
"Since we are using the open-source version of Grafana Loki, we are not paying anything for the solution."
"The pricing structure varies based on the number of users; there might be specific taxes to pay for it."
"I find the licensing structure quite reasonable, as the free license effectively meets my requirements."
"You can use the free version of Grafana Loki on-premises."
"My company doesn't need to pay for the licensing cost of the solution."
"We use a free version."
"I use the open-source version of the product."
"Grafana Loki is an open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cribl?
I am not aware of the pricing details, however, I know they use a credit format for billing.
What needs improvement with Cribl?
At the moment, I don't have specific feedback on what can be improved as I do not work with Cribl daily. Perhaps more flexibility in terms of metrics would be helpful.
What is your primary use case for Cribl?
I am using Cribl to have everything centralized in one tool in terms of data collection. We were working with different Splunk customers, and Cribl helps collect data and then send it to an S3 buck...
What do you like most about Grafana Loki?
We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana Loki?
We use the open-source version of Loki. The cloud version is competitively priced compared to other market solutions.
What needs improvement with Grafana Loki?
It would be beneficial if Loki could directly access Windows Server logs or events directly from the servers.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Cribl vs. Grafana Loki and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,651 professionals have used our research since 2012.