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Elastic Observability vs Grafana comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

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

Elastic Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Log Management (15th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
Grafana
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 5.4%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana is 6.4%, up from 5.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Adelina Craciun - PeerSpot reviewer
Customization enables tailored monitoring and alerting across departments
The possibility to customize it has been quite useful. Whatever the other departments want to dream up, we implement. Whatever they want to monitor, the granularity of it, the changes in the threshold, and the anomalies that they want reported all require some development. So far, every single request has been fulfilled.
Vikash-Agarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Displays data visually from multiple sources while integrating seamlessly with existing systems
Grafana provides a user-friendly interface for viewing infrastructure metrics through dashboards. It integrates with Prometheus to pull data and offers a straightforward setup process. Users can monitor metrics with greater ease, and the tool aids in quickly identifying issues by providing a visual representation of data. Grafana's integration capability is straightforward, which facilitates building dashboards as needed.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can view and connect different sources to the dashboard using it."
"It is a powerful tool that allows users to collect and transform logs as needed, enabling flexible visualization and analysis."
"The tool's most valuable feature is centralized logging. Elastic Common Search helps us to search for the logs across the organization."
"The ability to ensure that the data is searchable and maintainable is highly valuable for our purposes."
"All the features that we use, such as monitoring, dashboarding, reporting, the possibility of alerting, and the way we index the data, are important."
"The architecture and system's stability are simple."
"Elastic provides built-in features for queries and report generation. It's a very good tool for monitoring integration capabilities."
"It is very stable, and I would rate it ten out of ten based on my interaction with it."
"The integration between Loki and Tempo is valuable."
"I find Grafana beneficial due to its numerous plugins."
"Grafana is stable and has great engineers."
"It is easy to change and move virtual servers."
"The most important feature of Grafana is its alarm formatting capability."
"The most valuable aspect is customization. There are many customizations possible, so I like that."
"Visualisation: It is easy to create beautiful, understanding graphs, snapshots to share the graphs with people who do not have access to Grafana, and templating to create powerful graphs."
"The best thing about Grafana is the visualization. The colors and the ease of use make it very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"Improving code insight related to infrastructure and network, particularly focusing on aspects such as firewalls, switches, routers, and testing would be beneficial."
"In the future, Elastic APM needs a portfolio iTool. They can provide an easy way to develop the custom UI for Kibana."
"The price is the only issue in the solution. It can be made better and cheaper."
"The solution would be better if it was capable of more automation, especially in a monitoring capacity or for the response to abnormalities."
"The cost must be made more transparent."
"I am familiar with Azure Monitor, which I find more user-friendly compared to Elastic, which is a very technical tool."
"The interface could be improved."
"Elastic Observability is difficult to use. There are only three options for customization but this can be difficult for our use case. We do not have other options to choose the metrics shown, such as CPU or memory usage."
"Lacks event management which affects our DevOps people."
"It would be helpful if they simplified the data source."
"The formatting could be better."
"I had issues with the solution's configuration part."
"Lacks in-depth graphs and sufficient AI."
"The product's configuration for saving files could be improved."
"​The security needs to be improved, such as the capacity to add permissions on dashboards.​"
"It can take a considerable amount of time to learn the graphs if a long duration is selected."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Elastic Observability is expensive."
"The product is not that cheap."
"There are two types: cloud and SaaS. They charge based on data ingestion, ingest rate, hard retention, and warm retention. I believe it costs around $25,000 annually to ingest 30GB of data daily. That is the SaaS version. There is also a self-managed license where the customer manages their own infrastructure on-prem. In such cases, there are three license tiers that respectively cost $5,000 annually per node, $7,000 per node, and $12,500 per node."
"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."
"Elastic Observability is cheaper than other similar solutions, such as Dynatrace. Its license calculation is based on various factors like data volume and physical infrastructure, particularly related to RAM capacity."
"We have been using the open-source version."
"So far, there are just the standard licensing fees. Several of the components are embedded in the license or are even open source. They're even free depending on what you use, which makes it even more appealing to someone that is discussing pricing of the solution."
"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."
"I am using an open-source version"
"We are using the open-source license."
"You need to purchase the solution's license for its commercial use."
"My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."
"I use the open source model so it is free."
"​Grafana is free and open source.​"
"Since Grafana is an open-source solution, it is free of cost."
"I give the price an eight out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Elastic Observability?
Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?
Elastic Observability is cost-efficient and provides all features in the enterprise license without asset-based licensing. However, sizing and licensing information could be clearer.
What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?
Of course, maintenance is necessary, as with any software, requiring updates with the latest features and security enhancements. It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like netw...
What do you like most about Grafana?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana?
I used the open-source version for my learning, which was free. In an enterprise setting, pricing is reasonable, as many customers use it.
What needs improvement with Grafana?
The interface is not well-liked by my customers. Grafana cannot be easily embedded into certain applications and offers limited customization options for graphs. I think predictive capabilities in ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
Microsoft, Adobe, Optum, Sky, Nvidia, Roblox, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Informatica, Maersk, Daimler Truck, SNCF, Atlassian, DHL, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, Citi and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. Grafana and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.