Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Elastic Observability vs Grafana Loki 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Elastic Observability
Ranking in Log Management
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (7th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (10th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 1.4%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana Loki is 8.6%, up from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

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.
Volodymyr Bondarchuk - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrations enhance monitoring but problem-solving proves challenging
Different types of integrations with various sources are the most helpful and useful features of Grafana Loki that I found for myself. As part of Kubernetes technology, I noticed benefits from using this product such as availability, configuration balancing, high availability solutions for high performance, and failover clustering. It provides a clear picture about the state of the system and gives needed information for taking action and quickly fixing problems.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is scalable and supports multitenancy, which is beneficial for MSPs."
"The product has connectors to many services."
"It's easy to deploy, and it's very flexible."
"I found Elk to be excellent for log analytics, security analytics, application code-level analytics, collaboration with DevOps teams, CI/CD, microservices, and Kubernetes, specifically cloud-native or cloud-specific tasks."
"The architecture and system's stability are simple."
"The most valued feature of Elastic is its log analytics capabilities."
"Elastic provides built-in features for queries and report generation. It's a very good tool for monitoring integration capabilities."
"We use AppDynamics and Elastic. The reason why we're using Elastic APM is because of the license count. It's very favorable compared to AppDynamics. It's inexpensive; it's economical."
"The tool can be used in multi-cluster environments."
"The effectiveness of filters is pivotal for optimizing the search process and extracting the specific information we need from the extensive log data."
"Loki significantly saves time in troubleshooting by quickly pinpointing network issues."
"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."
"Grafana Loki is easy to monitor and detect errors."
"Grafana agent is very lightweight and does not cost significant resources of our cluster."
"There are new features like that pilot code and things like that for profiling."
"The most valuable part of Loki is the ability to filter logs by keywords and devices."
 

Cons

"Improving code insight related to infrastructure and network, particularly focusing on aspects such as firewalls, switches, routers, and testing would be beneficial."
"Elastic APM's visualization is not that great compared to other tools. It's number of metrics is very low."
"I am familiar with Azure Monitor, which I find more user-friendly compared to Elastic, which is a very technical tool."
"Simplifying the parsing of logs and manual efforts would also be beneficial."
"The only challenging aspect for new users is often writing the query language."
"It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like network observability, package flow analysis, and device performance data on the infrastructure side."
"The solution needs to use more AI. Once the product onboards AI, users would more effectively be able to track endpoints for specific messages."
"The tool's scalability involves a more complex implementation process. It requires careful calculations to determine the number of nodes needed, the specifications of each node, and the configuration of hot, warm, and cold zones for data storage. Additionally, managing log retention policies adds further complexity. The solution's pricing also needs to be cheaper."
"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."
"Enhancing speed could be a game-changer, and while it might vary depending on the application, it's a factor worth exploring."
"The product must improve its UI."
"Visualization-wise, Grafana Loki's dashboard looks a little outdated compared to other open-source visualization tools like Chronograf."
"In Grafana Loki, the creation of metrics is not so easy, making it an area that could be made easier."
"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."
"It's not intended for proprietary services, so you have to struggle with configuration a lot."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."
"The product is not that cheap."
"The product’s pricing needs improvement."
"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."
"We will buy a premium license after POC."
"We have been using the open-source version."
"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."
"Elastic Observability's pricing could be better for small-scale users."
"I find the licensing structure quite reasonable, as the free license effectively meets my requirements."
"The cost is less than other paid services like CloudWatch."
"We use a free version."
"The solution is open source."
"Grafana Loki is a free, open-source solution."
"Since we are using the open-source version of Grafana Loki, we are not paying anything for the solution."
"My company doesn't need to pay for the licensing cost of the solution."
"The pricing structure varies based on the number of users; there might be specific taxes to pay for it."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
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 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?
The license for Elastic Observability is the same as for other uses; you pay for Elastic, and you can use it for various cases. Observability is actually cheaper compared to logs because you're not...
What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?
I think they are working on the AI-based features, which are currently in technical preview. The only challenging aspect for new users is often writing the query language. Basic searching is very e...
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?
Since it is an open source tool, there are no charges or fees.
What needs improvement with Grafana Loki?
I have no ideas at this moment about what could be improved in Grafana Loki.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. Grafana Loki and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.