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Elastic Observability vs Microsoft System Center comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
Elastic Observability enhances cost-effectiveness, reduces incidents, and improves efficiency, yielding significant time savings and operational benefits.
Sentiment score
8.6
Organizations reaped over 50% ROI with Microsoft System Center, automating tasks and enhancing efficiency while reducing costs.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.7
Elastic Observability's support is praised for prompt, efficient service and effective community-driven insights, enhancing overall user experience.
Sentiment score
5.0
Microsoft System Center's support is inconsistent, with mixed reviews on response times, cost, and users preferring self-resolution.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Elastic Observability is efficiently scalable, with performance stability across varying team sizes, influenced by subscription level and infrastructure.
Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft System Center is praised for its strong scalability, efficiently managing environments from small setups to large infrastructures.
Elastic Observability seems to have a good scale-out capability.
What is not scalable for us is not on Elastic's side.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Elastic Observability is praised for its robust and stable performance, efficiently handling large data volumes across industries.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft System Center is stable, reliable, and users rate its stability 8/10, with minimal issues in virtualized environments.
It is very stable, and I would rate it ten out of ten based on my interaction with it.
Elastic Observability is really stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Elastic Observability needs better licensing, visualization, automation, integration, pricing, AI features, customization, and support for observability and cost transparency.
Microsoft System Center struggles with integration, complexity, performance issues, and requires enhancements in interface, documentation, and cloud capabilities.
It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like network observability, package flow analysis, and device performance data on the infrastructure side.
One example is the inability to monitor very old databases with the newest version.
Elastic Observability could improve asset discovery as the current requirement to push the agent is not ideal.
 

Setup Cost

Elastic Observability offers competitive pricing with variable costs, favoring enterprises over startups, requiring premiums for advanced features.
Microsoft System Center costs $25,000 annually, requiring yearly licensing, rated mid-high in expense, with no extra charges.
Elastic Observability is cost-efficient and provides all features in the enterprise license without asset-based licensing.
The license is reasonably priced, however, the VMs where we host the solution are extremely expensive, making the overall cost in the public cloud high.
 

Valuable Features

Elastic Observability offers scalable logging, seamless integrations, real-time visualization, and enhances system performance with a user-friendly, open-source model.
Microsoft System Center offers seamless integration, automation, intuitive GUI, third-party management, and efficient reporting, enhancing system control and functionality.
The most valuable feature is the integrated platform that allows customers to start from observability and expand into other areas like security, EDR solutions, etc.
the most valued feature of Elastic is its log analytics capabilities.
All the features that we use, such as monitoring, dashboarding, reporting, the possibility of alerting, and the way we index the data, are important.
 

Categories and Ranking

Elastic Observability
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
7th
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), Log Management (15th), Container Monitoring (4th)
Microsoft System Center
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
24th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 5.9%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft System Center is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

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.
Ajinkya Mohod - PeerSpot reviewer
Makes user management and application management easy for users
Speaking about the impact of the automation feature that impacted our company's operational efficiency, I can say that the complete tool works on automation. You just have to configure it, and it works, especially in areas like auto-patching updates. I suggest that others can definitely go ahead with Microsoft System Center, especially beginners who choose it, can get hands-on experience with it, and acquire a good understanding of how things work. In terms of the value and benefits derived from the use of the solution, I can say that my company's operations have been made simpler because of the product, especially in areas like user management and application management where we have been benefited a lot. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
No data available
 

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 needs improvement with Microsoft System Center?
Microsoft System Center should be easier to manage. However, it is complex to deploy, so people hesitate to use it. Though it has many features, such as licensing, asset tracking, and software depl...
 

Also Known As

No data available
MS System Center
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
Kassen_rztliche Vereinigung Nordrhein, Magyar Telekom Nyrt., Adeka, QualCare, Aeriandi, UniCredit Bank d.d., Mostar, Allianz Australia Ltd., Grupo Familia
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. Microsoft System Center and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.