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Elastic Security vs Security Onion comparison

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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
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (12th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (23rd), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (12th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (13th)
Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
22nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 3.5%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Security Onion is 1.7%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Elastic Security3.5%
Security Onion1.7%
Other94.8%
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.
Hiten Nandasana - PeerSpot reviewer
Angular developer at Flourish software
Centralized monitoring has strengthened threat detection and supports faster incident investigations
Security Onion is a completely open-source and free platform, making it a cost-effective solution that works smoothly and effectively for our organization. Security Onion integrates well with our existing tools, primarily using Linux systems in our organization, allowing us to monitor logs and manage threat detection and operations in the public cloud effectively. Security Onion is very helpful in meeting compliance requirements and supports regular standards for our environment. I advise organizations that use Linux or have network security knowledge to consider Security Onion, as it satisfies requirements such as threat detection and log management systems. I would rate this review eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's simple and easy to use."
"I would say that, on average, a good ROI can be seen within one and a half to two years after deploying Elastic Security."
"Elastic Security is cost-effective compared to Defender and CrowdStrike."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to collect authentication information from service providers."
"The most valuable thing is that this solution is widely used for work management and research. It's easy to jump into the security use case with the same technology."
"The best part about this solution is that it is open-source and free to use."
"This solution enables us to monitor application performance from Elasticsearch and we can predict some behaviors for applications using ELK."
"It's not very complicated to install Elastic."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
"Security Onion is a completely open-source and free platform, making it a cost-effective solution that works smoothly and effectively for our organization."
"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."
 

Cons

"There isn't really a very good user experience. You need a lot of training."
"The solution's query building is not that intuitive compared to other solutions."
"I do not have any specific recommendations for improvements in Elastic Security, but I feel that the AI module should get more mature."
"Elastic Security has a steep learning curve, so it takes some time to tune it and set it up for your environment. There are some costs associated with logging things that don't have value. So you need to be cautious to only log things that make sense and keep them around for as long as you need. You shouldn't hold onto things just because you think you might need them."
"We had issues with scalability. Logstash was not scaling and aggregation was getting delayed. We moved to Fluentd making our stack from ELK to EFK."
"There is an area of improvement in the Logs list. The load list may need to be paginated as there are limits."
"The Integration module could be improved. It is a pain to build integration with any product. We have to do parking and so on. It's not like other commercial solutions that use profile integration. I would also see more detection features on the SIEM side."
"There should be a simulation environment to check whether my Elastic implementation is functioning perfectly fine. Other solutions have their own Android and iOS applications that I can install on my mobile so that I am continuously connected to the SIEM."
"The product is not easy to learn."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
"Security Onion can be made easier to set up initially, as it is somewhat difficult at the start, but once configured, it becomes a great tool to use."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is free."
"Compared to other tools, Elastic Security is a cheaper solution."
"Elastic Security is free to use."
"Affordable but with 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."
"I find it better than Splunk in terms of cost-effectiveness. For cost-effectiveness, I would rate it a nine out of 10."
"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
"It is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is a free solution."
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911,994 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
12%
University
12%
Government
9%
Construction 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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Security Onion?
Security Onion does not require any cost, as it is open-source and free.
What needs improvement with Security Onion?
Security Onion can be made easier to set up initially, as it is somewhat difficult at the start, but once configured, it becomes a great tool to use. I assigned a rating of eight out of ten because...
What advice do you have for others considering Security Onion?
Security Onion is a completely open-source and free platform, making it a cost-effective solution that works smoothly and effectively for our organization. Security Onion integrates well with our e...
 

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: August 2026.
911,994 professionals have used our research since 2012.