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

Elastic Security vs Elastic Stack 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 Security
Ranking in Log Management
9th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (15th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (7th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (8th)
Elastic Stack
Ranking in Log Management
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 3.0%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Stack is 3.3%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Elastic Security3.0%
Elastic Stack3.3%
Other93.7%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Laurentiu Popescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Product Officer at ClusterPower
Has improved threat detection with deep log analysis and streamlined investigation workflows
The most useful features I find in Elastic Security are the forensic ones that allow us to carry deeper analysis into the logs for in-depth investigations, and the dashboards, with the reporting dashboard being quite user-friendly. Elastic Security is quite good at identifying threats, as it is part of the deep investigation tool that I mentioned before. Unless we need to look further into a certain log, we can carry out a deeper analysis and forensics on those particular logs. I can assess the impact of Elastic Security's real-time data analysis on our threat response efficiency as working pretty good. We are looking for real-time analysis because we have a continuous inflow of logs from different sources: from our cloud, from Active Directory, from our network. So it works pretty well.
LB
Senior Consultant at Skillfield
Offers robust out-of-the-box integrations and streamlines logging processes effortlessly
There are improvements needed for Elastic Stack. It is mostly based on Lucene, and the heart of Elastic Stack is Lucene, which has some limitations. Anything built on top of Lucene often feels an add-on, and that includes vector databases. Elastic Stack can store vector embeddings as well and perform AI and machine learning tasks out of the box without excessive configuration. The main improvements involve increasing speed and compression capabilities; I have seen databases that claim to achieve significantly better compression. While Elastic Stack can manage vast amounts of data, if the mapping is not specified correctly, the indexing time can be slow, especially with many events per second. Improper mapping usually means that every document received gets indexed for all fields, which is not desired. Elastic consultants typically optimize this, but out of the box, as data volume increases, scaling becomes necessary. They are working on these improvements in new versions.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Elastic Security offers advanced features such as machine learning and integration with ChatGPT."
"It's open-source and free to use."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to collect authentication information from service providers."
"ELK is open-source, and it will give you the framework you need to build everything from scratch."
"It can handle millions of loads at a time, and you can always use the filters to find exactly what you are looking for and detect errors in every log message you are searching for, basically."
"I use the stack every morning to check the errors and it's just so clear. I don't see any disadvantage to using Logstash."
"It is an extremely stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"What customers found most valuable in Elastic Security feature-wise is the search capability, in particular, the way of writing the search query and the speed of searching for results."
"I have benefited from the security features provided by X-Pack in Elastic Stack, particularly the SIEM capability, which is very good for checking security issues."
"I have experienced a return on investment from the use of the solution."
"It supports various integrations. It's open source and has excellent community support."
"I think the ecosystem is well supported, and for logs, it was faster compared to our previous previous log management."
"Prior to the latest updates, data lake management was a standout feature. The hybrid capability for on-premise and cloud integration was also crucial. Now, with Elastic Defense, the agent simplifies security monitoring, making it a key asset."
"Elastic Stack is mainly used to monitor servers and APIs. It helps ensure the software's availability and sends notifications at the right time so the system is not down for a long time. The tool's stability and advanced features, such as anomaly detection, are the most valuable features. The benefit of using it is real-time monitoring."
"We can group a lot of alarms into one automation alarm supervision. The alarm supervision allows us to put the alarm under the same. It's quite helpful for us. We used that to suppress our alarms. Elastic already provides the agent. It is easy to integrate Elastic Stack with other devices and vendors."
"It is a very scalable solution...I didn't face any problem with this scalability part of the solution since we only have a few pieces of equipment in our company."
 

Cons

"If you compare this with CrowdStrike or Carbon Black, they can improve."
"The price of this product could be improved, especially the additional costs. I would also like to see better-quality graphics."
"The solution's basic setup takes time, and a lot of effort is required from the beginning to make it actually work."
"This type of monitoring is not very mature just yet. We need more real-time information in a way that's easier to manage."
"We'd like better premium support."
"The initial configuration and setup are complicated and not straightforward."
"The tool needs to integrate with legacy servers. Big companies can have legacy servers that may not always be updated."
"The solution's query building is not that intuitive compared to other solutions."
"I would rate the technical support by Elastic as five or six out of ten. They should improve their response time and first-level support, particularly knowledge, which is very important for using Elasticsearch."
"The main issue related to Elastic Stack is in the area of its licensing."
"It lacks a clear NDR (Network Detection and Response) feature. If Elastic could enhance this aspect, it would significantly boost its capabilities."
"Elastic Stack's search capabilities can be challenging, especially when searching for precise data from past years, such as two or ten years ago. Its indexing performance for exact data retrieval may decrease as the data volume grows. Therefore, I believe there is room for improvement in the product's search functionality. It needs to improve its pricing as well."
"Elastic Stack should work on their dashboards and integration process."
"The implementation of dashboards in the solution needs to be made easier...I had some issues with the ports and configuration since it was kind of complex to implement with Docker."
"There could be better documentation."
"Improving integration capabilities, especially with authentication systems, firewalls, and security controls, is a crucial area for improvement in Elastic Stack. Additionally, enhancing functionality to handle large Yara queries more efficiently would be beneficial, as many EDR solutions can run such queries faster than Elastic Stack's current limitations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable. It probably costs the same as ArcSight and LogRhythm SIEM. FortiSIEM might cost less than Elastic Security. There are no hidden or additional costs."
"I can say that the product is cheaply priced."
"The tool's pricing is flexible and comes at unit cost. You don't have to pay for everything."
"The pricing is in the middle. I think it is not an expensive experience if we compare it with big names, for example, QRadar, and also Oxide. I think Elastic Security is quite cheap. I would rate the pricing of this solution a five out of ten."
"This is an open-source product, so there are no costs."
"We use the open-source version, so there is no charge for this solution."
"We are using the free, open-source version of this solution."
"I find it better than Splunk in terms of cost-effectiveness. For cost-effectiveness, I would rate it a nine out of 10."
"If I compare Elastic Stack to the other products in the market, I would say that the tool is available at a competitive price."
"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."
"We are using the open-source community version of the product."
"The product is expensive."
"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
What do you like most about Elastic Security?
Elastic provides the capability to index quickly due to the reverse indexes it offers. This data is crucial as it contains critical information. The reverse index allows fast data indexing because ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
I am satisfied with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing cost. It is a pure 10.
What do you like most about Elastic Stack?
The tool is huge, and it performs brilliantly. I tested it for malware, and within two weeks of launching, the product alerted me about a network intrusion. This was a tough test for it, but it per...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Stack?
My experience with Elastic Stack pricing indicates that it is node-based. While I do not have complete pricing details, they are available online. If I choose Elastic Cloud, it includes licensing a...
What needs improvement with Elastic Stack?
I would like to improve Elastic Stack by addressing the current big problem we face with importing logs and log files, such as syslogs. To import these log files, we need to design the ingest pipel...
 

Also Known As

Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Security vs. Elastic Stack and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.