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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

"It has always been a stable solution."
"The Elastic User Interface framework lets us do custom development when needed. You need to have some Javascript knowledge. We need that knowledge to develop new custom tests."
"The solution is open-source and helps with back-end logging. It is also easy to handle."
"Machine learning is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"The ability to ensure that the data is searchable and maintainable is highly valuable for our purposes."
"The architecture and system's stability are simple."
"Elastic APM has plenty of features, such as the Elastic server for Kibana and many additional plugins. It's a comprehensive tool when used as a logging platform."
"Elastic provides built-in features for queries and report generation. It's a very good tool for monitoring integration capabilities."
"Grafana provides a user-friendly interface for viewing infrastructure metrics through dashboards."
"We can write queries in different languages, which is beneficial for visualization."
"The best thing about Grafana is the visualization. The colors and the ease of use make it very user-friendly."
"This solution provides valuable insights into the health of our infrastructure in real time."
"Grafana is able to connect with multiple data sources, unlike Elasticsearch."
"There are multiple kinds of models there to create dashboards, which is quite useful."
"The integration between Loki and Tempo is valuable."
"The solution can scale well."
 

Cons

"More web features could be added to the product."
"If we had some pre-defined templates for observability that we could start using right away after deploying it – instead of having to build or to change some of the dashboards – that would be helpful."
"The auto-discovery isn't nearly as good. That's a big portion of it. When you drop the agent onto the JVM and you're trying to figure things out, having to go through and manually do all that is cumbersome."
"Elastic Observability could improve asset discovery as the current requirement to push the agent is not ideal."
"Elastic Observability is reactive rather than proactive. It should act as an ITSM tool and be able to create tickets and alerts on Jira."
"Elastic Observability needs to have better standardization, logging, and schema."
"In the future, Elastic APM needs a portfolio iTool. They can provide an easy way to develop the custom UI for Kibana."
"The solution needs to use more AI. Once the product onboards AI, users would more effectively be able to track endpoints for specific messages."
"Its interface could be more accessible."
"The documentation or training provided by Grafana is limited compared to its competitors, like Splunk."
"There is room for improvement when using multiple dashboards because they can become complicated to keep track of and use."
"Grafana could consider building its own metrics system to eliminate the reliance on other tools like Prometheus, providing a one-stop solution."
"Grafana could improve by having its own query language. Currently, it uses languages like Prometheus or InfluxDB, which not everyone knows. Their query language should be easier."
"The features are complicated and not intuitive."
"Lacks in-depth graphs and sufficient AI."
"There are some areas of network drives that are not showing as expected based on server usage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."
"Elastic Observability's pricing could be better for small-scale users."
"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."
"We will buy a premium license after POC."
"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."
"The price of Elastic Observability is expensive."
"I am using an open-source version"
"Since Grafana is an open-source solution, it is free of cost."
"I give the price an eight out of ten."
"​Grafana is free and open source.​"
"My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."
"For me, Grafana is a cheap tool because I don't have to spend much time learning the product since it is a simple solution."
"It's free of cost; it operates as an open-source tool."
"We use the open-source version of Grafana."
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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.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.