Elastic Security vs syslog-ng comparison

Elastic and One Identity are both solutions in the Log Management category. Elastic is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.5, while One Identity is ranked #17 with an average rating of 10.0. Elastic holds a 2.9% mindshare in Log Management, compared to One Identity’s 2.3% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of Elastic users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of One Identity users who would recommend it.

Elastic Security

Read 66 Elastic Security reviews

10,861 Views
5,648 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

syslog-ng

Read 7 syslog-ng reviews

3,803 Views
3,803 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Elastic Security

syslog-ng

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Elastic Security and syslog-ng compete in the operational security category. Elastic Security seems to have the upper hand due to its robust security framework and advanced analytical features.

Features: Elastic Security provides advanced threat detection, a wide range of integration capabilities, and a comprehensive security framework. Syslog-ng focuses on effective log collection, high-performance data filtering, and efficient data processing.

Room for Improvement: Elastic Security could enhance scalability, reduce its resource-heavy nature, and improve performance optimization. Syslog-ng could benefit from more user-friendly settings, enhanced support documentation, and improved user accessibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Elastic Security requires significant deployment effort, often involving technical expertise and time, whereas syslog-ng offers a quicker setup but lacks robust customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Elastic Security is considered expensive, with mixed views on ROI due to its comprehensive features. Syslog-ng is generally viewed as cost-effective, providing a good balance between cost and functionality.

To learn more, read our detailed Elastic Security vs. syslog-ng Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Security vs. syslog-ng

September 2025

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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

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (16th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (8th)

syslog-ng

Ranking in Log Management

17th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

3.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 2.9%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of syslog-ng is 2.3%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Log Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Elastic Security	2.9%
syslog-ng	2.3%
Other	94.8%

Log Management

Featured Reviews

Laurentiu Popescu

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.

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RyanVargas

Senior Director and Senior Systems Engineer (Dual Role), IT Infrastructure and Security at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

It's a user-friendly open-source solution that can replace or augment a commercial product in some cases

I rate syslog-ng 10 out of 10. It's free and easy to use. It has built-in tools that help us index the various logs sent to it. It's a solid log product. If you're looking for a SIEM solution, syslog-ng will work as a stopgap measure at beginning of the project. It can also work as an injector for a true SIEM solution. You can send all the logs to syslog-ng and forward all the data to the SIEM solution after you've cleaned up the data and got the pertinent information. It's a good front end for a commercial SIEM solution, which becomes more expensive as you load more data into it. I would highly recommend syslog-ng for that use case. However, if you lack the expertise, you might need to go with a cloud-based SIEM instead. You need some in-house expertise or an outside consultant to manage it and set it up.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's functionality is good for overall security and incident response times."

"It's very stable and reliable."

"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."

"We've found the initial setup to be quite straightforward."

"Elastic Security is very easy to adapt."

"The solution's most valuable features are anomaly detection and connectivity reporting."

"Enables monitoring of application performance and the ability to predict behaviors."

"Elastic Security is cost-effective compared to Defender and CrowdStrike."

More Elastic Security pros

"Syslog-ng has built-in features that we can use to create alerts for a SIEM solution. It isn't a true SIEM solution, but it's sufficient for the time being."

"Syslog-ng provides easy access to all my logs. It helps me show managers and other clients precisely where an incident occurred. I also like it because you can integrate syslog-ng with multiple solutions to allow real-time monitoring."

"We chose syslog-ng because it is easy to install, easy to maintain, easy to update, and due to the fact that all data arrive in raw format, we can manipulate it as we want."

"The ability to extract and store the logs is the most valuable feature of syslog-ng."

"For us, the most valuable feature is the use of compound search for searching logs at a specific time, by a specific user, or specific behavior."

"Syslog-ng has a separate config file in addition to the core configuration."

Cons

"The biggest challenge has been related to the implementation."

"It's a little bit of a learning curve to understand the logic of searching for things and trying to find what you're looking for in Elastic Security."

"There is an area of improvement in the Logs list. The load list may need to be paginated as there are limits."

"The process of designing dashboards is a little cumbersome in Kibana. Unless you are an expert, you will not be able to use it. The process should be pretty straightforward. The authentication feature is what we are looking for. We would love to have a central authentication system in the open-source edition without the need for a license or an enterprise license. If they can give at least a simple authentication system within a company. In a large organization, authentication is very essential for security because logs can contain a lot of confidential data. Therefore, an authentication feature for who accesses it should be there."

"One limitation of Elastic Security is that it does not have built-in workflows for all tasks. For example, if you need a workflow for compliance, you will need to create a custom workflow."

"This type of monitoring is not very mature just yet. We need more real-time information in a way that's easier to manage."

"We'd like better premium support."

"The solution does not have a UI and this is one of the reasons we are looking for another solution."

More Elastic Security cons

"Syslog-ng has built-in features that we can use to create alerts for a SIEM solution. It isn't a true SIEM solution, but it's sufficient for the time being."

"There is room for improvement in terms of observability."

"In syslog-ng, I think a GUI would be beneficial. I am unsure if the premium module has a GUI to administer it."

"It's hard to find people who know how to use syslog-ng. I often find problems with configurations, and solutions aren't integrated correctly with syslog-ng. For example, there might be data with extra decimals, or the collector agents are incorrectly named. It isn't a problem with the solution; it's a lack of professionals."

"There is always the potential for additional integration and protocol extensions."

"The filtering has room for improvement."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Elastic Security is free to use."

"The product offers an amazing pricing structure. Price-wise, the product is very competitive."

"There is no charge for using the open-source version."

"Its price is fine. Its licensing works on a yearly basis. We have to renew the license every year. I also have a good experience with Darktrace. When we buy Darktrace, we get training free of cost, which is not there in Elastic. We have to pay extra for training. There is certainly room for improvement."

"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."

"I find it better than Splunk in terms of cost-effectiveness. For cost-effectiveness, I would rate it a nine out of 10."

"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."

"I can say that the product is cheaply priced."

More Elastic Security pricing and cost advice

"Syslog-ng is open-source."

"Syslog-ng is a free open-source solution."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

10%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Government

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	40
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

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...

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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 ...

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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.

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What needs improvement with syslog-ng?

We currently do not use that feature. We currently have just an open-source release, not a premium release. My boss has indicated that he wants to buy a premium syslog-ng version next month. I thin...

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What is your primary use case for syslog-ng?

In Italy, we have to be compliant with the Garante for privacy. We have to log every login, logout, or login failure made by a system administrator. We store all syslog data of the infrastructure. ...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering syslog-ng?

When it comes to parsing, I can parse both structured and unstructured data, though our data are only structured. Currently, we collect all data we receive as raw data. Each file is stored for each...

See all answers

Comparisons

Wazuh vs Elastic Security

Compared 13% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Elastic Security

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Security QRadar vs Elastic Security

Compared 7% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Elastic Security

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Elastic Security

Compared 5% of the time

More Elastic Security Competitors

Graylog Enterprise vs syslog-ng

Compared 29% of the time

SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server vs syslog-ng

Compared 21% of the time

Grafana Loki vs syslog-ng

Compared 8% of the time

Cribl vs syslog-ng

Compared 7% of the time

Elastic Stack vs syslog-ng

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Security

November 2025

Download Elastic Security product report

Buyer's Guide

syslog-ng

October 2025

Download syslog-ng product report

Also Known As

Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash

No data available

Overview

Elastic Security is a robust, open-source security solution designed to offer integrated threat prevention, detection, and response capabilities across an organization's entire digital estate. Part of the Elastic Stack (which includes Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana), Elastic Security leverages the power of search, analytics, and data aggregation to provide real-time insight into threats and vulnerabilities. It is a comprehensive platform that supports a wide range of security needs, from endpoint protection to cloud and network security, making it a versatile choice for organizations looking to enhance their cybersecurity posture.

Elastic Security combines the features of a security information and event management (SIEM) system with endpoint protection, allowing organizations to detect, investigate, and respond to threats in real time. This unified approach helps reduce complexity and improve the efficiency of security operations.

Additional offerings and benefits:

The platform utilizes advanced analytics, machine learning algorithms, and anomaly detection to identify threats and suspicious activities.
It offers extensive integration options with other tools and platforms, facilitating a more cohesive and comprehensive security ecosystem.
With Kibana, users gain access to powerful visualization tools and dashboards that provide real-time insight into security data.

Finally, Elastic Security benefits from a global community of users who contribute to its threat intelligence, helping to enhance its detection capabilities. This collaborative approach ensures that the solution remains on the cutting edge of cybersecurity, with up-to-date information on the latest threats and vulnerabilities.

Elastic

Optimizing SIEM
syslog-ng is the log management solution that improves the performance of your SIEM solution by reducing the amount and improving the quality of data feeding your SIEM.

Rapid search and troubleshooting
With syslog-ng Store Box, you can find the answer. Search billions of logs in seconds using full text queries with Boolean operators to pinpoint critical logs.

Meeting compliance requirements
syslog-ng Store Box provides secure, tamper-proof storage and custom reporting to demonstrate compliance.

Big data ingestion
syslog-ng can deliver data from a wide variety of sources to Hadoop, Elasticsearch, MongoDB, and Kafka as well as many others.

Universal log collection and routing
syslog-ng flexibly routes log data from X sources to Y destinations. Instead of deploying multiple agents on hosts, organizations can unify their log data collection and management.

Secure data archive
syslog-ng Store Box provides automated archiving, tamper-proof encrypted storage, granular access controls to protect log data. The largest appliance can store up to 10TB of raw logs.

One Identity

Sample Customers

Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care

Tecnocom, University of Victoria, University of Exeter, Datapath

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Security vs. syslog-ng

September 2025

Free Report: Elastic Security vs. syslog-ng

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