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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
6.7
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (7th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (11th), 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 September 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 1.3%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana Loki is 8.1%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Grafana Loki8.1%
Elastic Observability1.3%
Other90.6%
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

"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 over a month from multiple data sources can be completed within seconds."
"Machine learning is the most valuable feature of this 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."
"I have built a mini business intelligence system based on Elastic Observability."
"It is a powerful tool that allows users to collect and transform logs as needed, enabling flexible visualization and analysis."
"The most valuable feature of Elastic Observability is the text search."
"It is very stable, and I would rate it ten out of ten based on my interaction with it."
"Good design and easy to use once implemented."
"We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics."
"Grafana Loki is easy to monitor and detect errors."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the tool's GUI. The solution's GUI is very user-friendly."
"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."
"There are new features like that pilot code and things like that for profiling."
"The effectiveness of filters is pivotal for optimizing the search process and extracting the specific information we need from the extensive log data."
"The log collection feature is good and the solution is easily understandable. v"
"The best feature of Grafana Loki is that it integrates well with our other tool."
 

Cons

"More web features could be added to the product."
"They need more skills in the market. There are not enough skills in the market. It is not pervasive enough on the market, in my opinion. In other words, there isn't a big enough user base."
"There is room for improvement regarding its APM capabilities."
"Improving code insight related to infrastructure and network, particularly focusing on aspects such as firewalls, switches, routers, and testing would be beneficial."
"Elastic Observability is an excellent product for monitoring and visibility, but it lacks predictive analytics. Most solutions are aligned with the AIOps requirements, but this piece is missing in Elastic and should be included."
"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."
"Elastic APM's visualization is not that great compared to other tools. It's number of metrics is very low."
"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."
"In Grafana Loki, the creation of metrics is not so easy, making it an area that could be made easier."
"The solution's scalability depends on the team managing the Grafana instance."
"We had a well-structured dashboard with a functional query. However, an issue arose when the Kubernetes pod restarted. The statistics from our Grafana query would reset, dropping to zero and starting anew. This was particularly noticeable with linear graphs, which are expected to show consistent growth."
"We encountered certain limitations when it came to alerting, particularly when dealing with specific data sources."
"Visualization-wise, Grafana Loki's dashboard looks a little outdated compared to other open-source visualization tools like Chronograf."
"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."
"The solution has shortcomings regarding security monitoring-oriented features that need improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We will buy a premium license after POC."
"We have been using the open-source version."
"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."
"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."
"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."
"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."
"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."
"The product is not that cheap."
"Grafana Loki is an open-source solution."
"The solution is open source."
"The pricing structure varies based on the number of users; there might be specific taxes to pay for it."
"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."
"I find the licensing structure quite reasonable, as the free license effectively meets my requirements."
"We use a free version."
"I use the solution's open-source version. Grafana Loki is a completely free solution for me."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise3
 

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.
 

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: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.