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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
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (7th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
4th
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 May 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 1.4%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana Loki is 8.7%, up from 3.7% 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.
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

"The solution allows us to dig deep into data."
"Machine learning is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"The architecture and system's stability are simple."
"Its diverse set of features available on the cloud is of significant importance."
"The most valued feature of Elastic is its log analytics capabilities."
"It's easy to deploy, and it's very flexible."
"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."
"Grafana Loki is easy to monitor and detect errors."
"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 of Grafana Loki is the dashboards which are really simple to create."
"The most valuable part of Loki is the ability to filter logs by keywords and devices."
"The log collection feature is good and the solution is easily understandable. v"
"Grafana agent is very lightweight and does not cost significant resources of our cluster."
"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."
"We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics."
 

Cons

"The price is the only issue in the solution. It can be made better and cheaper."
"More web features could be added to the product."
"There could be more low-code features included in the product."
"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."
"There's a steep learning curve if you've never used this solution before."
"Elastic Observability needs to have better standardization, logging, and schema."
"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 reactive rather than proactive. It should act as an ITSM tool and be able to create tickets and alerts on Jira."
"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 Docker container partition feature needs improvement as they do not reuse the space and goes into a pending state."
"In Grafana Loki, the creation of metrics is not so easy, making it an area that could be made easier."
"We face some bugs when we install the latest version of Grafana Loki."
"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."
"I do not see any areas for improvement at the moment."
"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."
 

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."
"The product’s pricing needs improvement."
"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."
"The price of Elastic Observability is expensive."
"Elastic Observability's pricing could be better for small-scale users."
"The solution is open source."
"I use the open-source version of the product."
"We use a free version."
"The pricing structure varies based on the number of users; there might be specific taxes to pay for it."
"The cost is less than other paid services like CloudWatch."
"Grafana Loki is an open-source solution."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
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?
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 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

 

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: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.