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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 Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
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

"The solution is quite stable. The performance has been good."
"Just the ability to do a lot more than just up-down is nice, which a lot of people take for granted."
"The most valuable feature is the machine learning capability."
"The solution is compatible with the cloud-native environment and they can adapt to it faster."
"The solution's most valuable features are anomaly detection and connectivity reporting."
"The performance is good and it is faster than IBM QRadar."
"It is very quick to react. I can set it to check anomalies or suspicious behavior every 30 seconds. It is very fast."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is that it is more flexible than AlienVault."
"The detection rules in Elastic Stack are the most valuable feature. The search capabilities are excellent and fast. As we collect logs from workstations and devices, the detection rules run on top of the logs and detect any suspicious activity, raising alerts accordingly. Integration with Elastic Stack depends on the specific integration. Elastic provides some bridging integrations that make it easy, but require custom integration. Most integrations are simple, but customization can be challenging because we need to do some parsing. There's something called Elastic Common Schema, and we need to parse the source logs to match this schema, which can be a bit challenging."
"I have experienced a return on investment from the use of the solution."
"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."
"The solution's technical support is good...Elastic Stack offers good value for value for money based on the product's features and what they offer."
"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."
"The machine learning capabilities are valuable."
"The biggest strength of Elastic Stack is its brilliant archiving capabilities."
"It is an excellent tool for monitoring purposes."
 

Cons

"The tool needs to integrate with legacy servers. Big companies can have legacy servers that may not always be updated."
"We'd like to see some more artificial intelligence capabilities."
"Their visuals and graphs need to be better."
"Installation is a little bit overwhelming, so improvements on the installation site could make it easier."
"The setup process is complex. You need a solid working knowledge of networking, operating systems, and a little programming."
"The interface could be more user friendly because it is sometimes hard to deal with."
"This solution is very hard to implement."
"The price of this product could be improved, especially the additional costs. I would also like to see better-quality graphics."
"Support could be improved. The error code is not helpful. We have to ask for it or pass it on to community forums."
"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"Agent deployment is a little tough in the on-premise version."
"AI-enablement would be a big improvement in Elastic Stack...If there is room for an ML model in Elastic Stack, then it would be good."
"Elastic Stack should be more simplified with ready-to-use widgets. Also, incorporating AI capabilities is essential as monitoring and observability tools are now adding AI features."
"The main issue related to Elastic Stack is in the area of its licensing."
"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."
"There could be better documentation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I find it better than Splunk in terms of cost-effectiveness. For cost-effectiveness, I would rate it a nine out of 10."
"When compared to other products, the price is average or on the low side."
"Compared to other tools, Elastic Security is a cheaper solution."
"The licensing cost of Elastic Security is based on the daily ingestion rate. I can't recall the exact figure, but for 10GB of log action daily, it would cost around $20,000."
"The solution is free."
"Elastic Stack is an open-source tool. You don't have to pay anything for the components."
"The solution is not expensive and costs around ten dollars a month."
"There is no charge for using the open-source version."
"We are using the open-source community version of the product."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."
"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
"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 rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"The product is expensive."
"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."
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Top Industries

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

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: February 2026.
883,026 professionals have used our research since 2012.