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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
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (16th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (6th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (8th)
Elastic Stack
Ranking in Log Management
12th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 3.9%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Stack is 4.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Nikhil-Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Customizable with great dashboards but the premium support is poor
The initial setup can be complex if you don't have technical knowledge. However, once it is deployed, it works well. I'm not sure how long it took to deploy. I wasn't there when it was set up and configured. We have an internal team that handles deployment and maintenance. It doesn't require too many people to deploy. Five or six people would be enough. However, for 24/7 monitoring, you need to have someone always on it.
Mahesh Ramichetty - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable product that can be fine-tuned easily
Elastic Stack provides all sorts of things, so it provides Elasticsearch for the transformations into a specific format, and pipelines can be defined for distributed applications along with the logs that come in the JSON format, which is clean. It's only the enhancements or the security that the product lacks and needs to be enhanced. I don't think further enhancement of the features needs to be added to the solution because it is already equivalent to a monitoring or alerting system, like Dynatrace and other tools. Some developments in the area of AI, which Elastic Stack is currently working on, should be fine in terms of the enhancements. Whenever some critical issue happens, there should be some kind of a co-pilot that helps resolve the issue. The tool should learn from its own previous issues. If you take Databricks, you see that it provides a co-pilot for Python, so a similar kind of development in Elastic Stack would be a real asset for it. AI would be considered a good way to enable the tool further for more in 2024, and even a beta launch would be helpful. If you take any sort of cloud-native monitoring product, like Azure Monitor or AWS CloudWatch, you see that such products don't provide much of the insights. If you go with Azure Monitor for any sort of ML models to be there, Sentinel needs to be used from Azure, which is very costly. AI-enablement would be a big improvement in Elastic Stack. Everyone in the monitoring space, including Dynatrace and New Relic, has lately been discussing AI, but it doesn't seem to be coming out. If there is room for an ML model in Elastic Stack, then it would be good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the machine learning capability."
"It is the best open-source product for people working in SO, managing and analyzing logs."
"ELK documentation is very good, so never needed to contact technical support."
"The visualization is very good."
"The most valuable features of Elastic Security are it is open-source and provides a high level of security."
"The most valuable feature is the search function, which allows me to go directly to the target to see the specific line a customer is searching for."
"The most valuable feature is the scalability. We are in Indonesia, more engineers understand Elastic Security here. So it is easier to scale and also develop. In features, the discovery to query all the logs is very important to us. It is very easy, especially with the query function and the feature to generate alerts and create tools. Sometimes we use the alert security dashboard to monitor our clients."
"The machine learning capabilities are valuable."
"It supports various integrations. It's open source and has excellent community support."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
 

Cons

"There is an area of improvement in the Logs list. The load list may need to be paginated as there are limits."
"There are connectors to gather logs for Windows PCs and Linux PCs, but if we have to get the logs from Syslog then we have to do it manually, and this should be automated."
"If the documentation were improved and made more clear for beginners, or even professionals, then we would be more attracted to this solution."
"The biggest challenge has been related to the implementation."
"Elastic Security can be a bit difficult to use if a person only has experience in SMBs with tools like Zoho. The product can also be difficult for those who have never dealt with query language."
"It could use maybe a little more on the Linux side."
"The initial configuration and setup are complicated and not straightforward."
"The solution needs to be more reactive to investigations. We need to be able to detect and prevent any attacks before it can damage our infrastructure. Currently, this solution doesn't offer that."
"Elastic Stack should work on their dashboards and integration process."
"It should facilitate easier manual integration."
"Elastic Stack should be more simplified with ready-to-use widgets."
"Support could be improved. The error code is not helpful. We have to ask for it or pass it on to community forums."
"The stability of the solution is rated as three or four out of ten as we frequently encounter issues."
"Improvements are needed in the solution in areas like SOAR and TIP, where there are certain shortcomings."
"It lacks a clear NDR (Network Detection and Response) feature. If Elastic could enhance this aspect, it would significantly boost its capabilities."
"When people try to move the data from another source to Elastic Stack for visualization, they face challenges when connecting to Elastic Stack from such different sources."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a monthly cost with Elastic SIEM, but I am not sure of the exact cost."
"I can say that the product is cheaply priced."
"Elastic Stack is an open-source tool. You don't have to pay anything for the components."
"Affordable but with additional costs"
"When compared to other products, the price is average or on the low side."
"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."
"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."
"It is easy to deploy, easy to use, and you get everything you need to become operational with it, and have nothing further to pay unless you want the OLED plugin."
"We are using the open-source community version of the product."
"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."
"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"If I compare Elastic Stack to the other products in the market, I would say that the tool is available at a competitive price."
"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
"The product is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
Elastic Security is considered cost-effective, especially at lower EPS levels. However, a direct comparison was not made due to different pricing structures.
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?
We use Elastic Stack's open source version, so it is free for us.
What needs improvement with Elastic Stack?
Elastic Stack needs more features similar to other SIEM tools such as Sentinel or the ability to create automations. Additionally, it should facilitate easier manual integration.
 

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: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.