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Elastic Security vs Security Onion 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
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (7th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (15th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (10th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (12th)
Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
25th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 3.4%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Security Onion is 1.9%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Elastic Security3.4%
Security Onion1.9%
Other94.7%
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.
HJ
Manager at teshama
Centralized threat monitoring has improved visibility but demands complex setup and configuration
The best features Security Onion offers include acting as the intrusion detection system in my organization and helping me to address traffic, logs, and events happening within the organization. Since Security Onion is an open-source system that integrates with tools like Suricata and Zeek with the ELK stack, it enables threat detection and response capabilities, delivering high-level security measures at a cost, making it suitable for businesses of varying skill levels. These integrations with Suricata and Zeek have greatly impacted our workflow and our team's effectiveness by helping us address issues such as identifying intrusions, evaluating threats, and overseeing log files. This tool is very cost-effective, making it suitable for any size of organization wanting to use it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"ELK is open-source, and it will give you the framework you need to build everything from scratch."
"Elastic Security is very customizable, and the dashboards are very easy to build."
"Just the ability to do a lot more than just up-down is nice, which a lot of people take for granted."
"ELK documentation is very good, so never needed to contact technical support."
"It's a good platform and the very best in the current market. We looked at the Forester report from December 2022 where it was said to be a leader."
"The most valuable feature is the machine learning capability."
"It is an extremely stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"All of the features on the solution are useful due to the fact that I have the full Stack, therefore I can collect and then visualize."
"The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports."
"Security Onion is the most mature solution in the market."
"Security Onion has positively impacted my organization by greatly improving our security posture, making alert triage easier to handle, simplifying the analysis of threats, and decreasing the cost of threat analysis and detection."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
 

Cons

"The setup process is complex. You need a solid working knowledge of networking, operating systems, and a little programming."
"I want to find an automatic security system in the tool, like a SOAR solution. I am looking forward to seeing a SOAR system in the tool."
"The tool needs to integrate with legacy servers. Big companies can have legacy servers that may not always be updated."
"Elastic sometimes does not correctly identify threats or anomalies. It might not classify an issue as malicious or critical accurately."
"I would like the process of retrieving archived data and viewing it in Kibana to be simplified."
"In terms of what could be improved with Elastic, in some use cases, especially on the advanced level, they are not ready made, so you'll have to write some scripts."
"I would like more ways to manage permissions and restrict access to certain users."
"The solution could also use better dashboards. They need to be more graphical, more matrix-like."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
"For Security Onion, setting up and configuring the system can be quite challenging for newcomers due to the need for a grasp of networking and security concepts."
"The product is not easy to learn."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to other products such as Dynatrace, this is one of the cheaper options."
"Elastic Stack is an open-source tool. You don't have to pay anything for the components."
"The base product is open-source but if you need advanced security features then you need to pay for the subscription. Elastic Security's price is reasonable in some cases and in other cases it's not."
"Elastic Security is free to use."
"It's a monthly cost with Elastic SIEM, but I am not sure of the exact cost."
"We are using the free, open-source version of this solution."
"There is no charge for using the open-source version."
"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."
"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is a free solution."
"It is an open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise15
No data available
 

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 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 needs improvement with Elastic Security?
I do not have any specific recommendations for improvements in Elastic Security, but I feel that the AI module should get more mature. These machine learning algorithms become better with time; as ...
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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. Security Onion and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.