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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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.0
Elastic Security provides satisfactory ROI and cost savings, though users experience varied support levels and payback periods.
Sentiment score
8.2
Security Onion offers cost-effective, open-source tools for enhanced threat detection and efficient incident response, benefiting organizations and learners.
It does not require hefty security budgets and can be deployed for enterprise security effectively.
Assistant Director at PTA
We achieve a return on investment through improved threat detection and faster incident response in log management and centralized visibility across the infrastructure.
Angular developer at Flourish software
With this kind of tool, students can save money by using open-source software while gaining experience in working with different logs and detection systems, leading to time savings during their studies.
BCGEU Faculty, Computer Information Systems Administration at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
We could save some cost while integrating Security Onion in our organization to help us manage some simplified threat detection alerts.
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Elastic Security support is inconsistent; users favor community and documentation, while premium users seek more responsive and personalized help.
Sentiment score
7.9
Security Onion's customer service is praised for responsiveness, helpful technical support, and robust community resources, even for free users.
Support is prompt and helpful.
Senior Cyber Security Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Most of the time when my team encounters issues, they receive responses within 24 hours.
Assistant Director at PTA
I have not faced any difficulties with Elastic Security, as we have a pretty good support service from them.
Cyber Security Lead at Orange
Customer support for Security Onion is very good
Angular developer at Flourish software
I rate the customer support nine out of ten.
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
I can give it nine to 9.5 or 10 points for support.
Network Engineer at Crisp System India Pvt Ltd
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Elastic Security offers scalable solutions adaptable to various environments, praised for flexibility and requiring careful planning for integration.
Sentiment score
7.4
Security Onion effectively scales for small to large environments, though API integration can be challenging; performance depends on system resources.
It allows us to think about specific use cases, such as gathering malicious IPs in a single view and analyzing threats based on geolocation.
Assistant Director at PTA
Elastic Security is quite scalable.
Cyber Security Lead at Orange
Security Onion is a highly scalable platform, making it suitable for medium to large-scale enterprises.
Angular developer at Flourish software
I would say it's scalable based on your license, the cost of implementation, and your own architecture as well.
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Elastic Security is generally stable and reliable but can face challenges with big data and requires careful configuration.
Sentiment score
8.3
Security Onion is reliable, performing well in VMware with occasional issues, mainly related to configuration, resources, or storage needs.
In terms of stability, I would rate Elastic a solid eight out of ten.
Senior Cyber Security Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Since using Security Onion, we have not faced any issues or downtime, which indicates it is very stable.
Angular developer at Flourish software
Security Onion is reliable and is a good product, having no glitches or latency problems.
Network Engineer at Crisp System India Pvt Ltd
Security Onion is pretty stable, with the only significant issue being that I had to increase the storage.
 

Room For Improvement

Elastic Security needs improvements in authentication, usability, automation, scalability, integration, and pricing, with user-friendly dashboards and documentation.
Security Onion needs a more intuitive setup, improved UI, enhanced documentation, and reduced complexity for better usability.
CrowdStrike and Defender have more established threat intelligence integration due to having a larger client base.
Senior Cyber Security Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
My security testing team continuously reports vulnerabilities, and we have to fix and update the versions frequently.
Assistant Director at PTA
Machine learning algorithms become better with time; as they ingest a huge volume of data, they become better.
Cyber Security Lead at Orange
The biggest challenges I have experienced with Security Onion are the learning curve and resource requirements, as it is not necessarily something you can install and immediately understand without networking and Linux knowledge.
A specific guideline for helping beginners understand the detection and investigation features of Security Onion would be beneficial.
BCGEU Faculty, Computer Information Systems Administration at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Security Onion could be improved by making the user interface more intuitive for new users and simplifying the initial setup and configuration process.
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Elastic Security provides a free open-source option, competitive pricing, and subscription plans, appealing to cost-conscious enterprises.
Security Onion provides cost-effective solutions with free core features, requiring hardware for deployment, and offers enterprise support.
The pricing is reasonable, especially for Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), making it a viable option for businesses building their security infrastructure.
Senior Cyber Security Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
This is beneficial for SMEs as they do not need extensive budgets for security solutions.
Assistant Director at PTA
Elastic Security is considered cost-effective, especially at lower EPS levels.
Performance Practice Specialist at a local government with 10,001+ employees
Security Onion does not require any cost, as it is open-source and free.
Angular developer at Flourish software
I do not have a license for Security Onion since I have the free version, meaning it does not cost me anything.
The enterprise version should be reasonably priced, not so expensive.
Network Engineer at Crisp System India Pvt Ltd
 

Valuable Features

Elastic Security provides scalable, customizable threat response with fast search, real-time analysis, and strong community support for actionable insights.
Security Onion integrates monitoring tools for threat detection, log management, and network analysis, offering accessible and cost-effective security.
Elastic Security offers good insight regarding alerts, reports, and cases.
Senior Cyber Security Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Elastic Security offers advanced features such as machine learning and integration with ChatGPT.
Performance Practice Specialist at a local government with 10,001+ employees
We require rapid processing speed for alerts and event data, and Elastic Security is very efficient at handling this level of data.
Assistant Director at PTA
One of the best features that Security Onion offers is that it is open source, free to install in a lab environment, and allows for monitoring network traffic and investigating potential attacks while integrating other tools such as Suricata, Zeek, and Elastic-based components that are useful for diving into the logs, along with its threat detection capabilities to see network activity, including port scans, unusual connections, and potential intrusion attempts.
BCGEU Faculty, Computer Information Systems Administration at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Tools such as Suricata and Zeek help identify suspicious network activity and provide detailed information for investigating and analyzing the potential threat which is coming to any organization.
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
The most valuable features of Security Onion are its threat detection capabilities, centralized log management system, and network security monitoring.
Angular developer at Flourish software
 

Categories and Ranking

Elastic Security
Ranking in Log Management
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (11th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (25th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (12th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (13th)
Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 3.4%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Security Onion is 1.5%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Security Onion1.5%
Elastic Security3.4%
Other95.1%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Laurentiu Popescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Lead at Orange
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.
CO
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Improved threat detection and incident response has revealed training and usability gaps
What I would like to add is that if the interface or if there is less to work on technical knowledge. For example, people with no technical knowledge cannot use this, so they need to have at least a deep or substantial level of technical knowledge to be able to use these tools. If there is a way there can be an optimization to accommodate those with no technical knowledge in the process using tools compared to tools such as Sentinel and Splunk, which also doesn't require much technical knowledge to be able to use. That would also help. I think Security Onion could be improved by making the user interface more intuitive for new users and simplifying the initial setup and configuration process. Security Onion needs to be simplified so that those with less technical knowledge can be able to come in and use it. Guidance on prioritizing alerts will also be helpful, especially in an environment where security analysts deal with a high volume of security events. I also would like to mention that it needs to be more straightforward integration with other security tools. There needs to be a handshake between Security Onion and other same tools to help in endpoint detection and protection against threats. Another improvement that could also enhance is the reporting and visualization of the key metrics such as detection time, the incident, the overall interface of the analysis, and the false rate, which will also give Security Onion a better view for security analysts to be able to use and understand it. I would like to see the interface to be more simplified. I also would like to see the visualization to be more improved. I also would like to see the support features to be something that junior analysts or those coming in to start up their careers can be able to use without needing deep technical knowledge.
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

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: September 2026.
919,919 professionals have used our research since 2012.