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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
15th
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 April 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 1.5%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana Loki is 8.5%, up from 3.0% 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

"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."
"It's easy to deploy, and it's very flexible."
"The most valuable feature of Elastic Observability is the text search."
"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."
"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 solution is open-source and helps with back-end logging. It is also easy to handle."
"The solution has been stable in our usage."
"It has always been a stable solution."
"I appreciate the capability to process logs from microservices and seamlessly integrate them into Grafana."
"Grafana Loki is easy to monitor and detect errors."
"The effectiveness of filters is pivotal for optimizing the search process and extracting the specific information we need from the extensive log data."
"We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics."
"The tool can be used in multi-cluster environments."
"Loki significantly saves time in troubleshooting by quickly pinpointing network issues."
"The most valuable part of Loki is the ability to filter logs by keywords and devices."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the tool's GUI. The solution's GUI is very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"Elastic Observability’s price could be improved."
"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."
"The cost must be made more transparent."
"One example is the inability to monitor very old databases with the newest version."
"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."
"Simplifying the parsing of logs and manual efforts would also be beneficial."
"There is room for improvement regarding its APM capabilities."
"The correlation of requests is not simple in Grafana Loki and can be improved."
"We face some bugs when we install the latest version of Grafana Loki."
"The product must improve its UI."
"The solution's scalability depends on the team managing the Grafana instance."
"It's not intended for proprietary services, so you have to struggle with configuration a lot."
"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."
"The Docker container partition feature needs improvement as they do not reuse the space and goes into a pending state."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not that cheap."
"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."
"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."
"The price of Elastic Observability is expensive."
"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."
"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."
"Elastic Observability's pricing could be better for small-scale users."
"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."
"I use the open-source version of the product."
"My company doesn't need to pay for the licensing cost of the solution."
"We use a free version."
"Grafana Loki is an open-source solution."
"The cost is less than other paid services like CloudWatch."
"I find the licensing structure quite reasonable, as the free license effectively meets my requirements."
"The solution is open source."
"Grafana Loki is a free, open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
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?
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.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.