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Elastic Security vs syslog-ng 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)
syslog-ng
Ranking in Log Management
15th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
5
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 syslog-ng is 2.7%, up from 2.4% 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.
RyanVargas - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is the best open-source product for people working in SO, managing and analyzing logs."
"It is very quick to react. I can set it to check anomalies or suspicious behavior every 30 seconds. It is very fast."
"Elastic Security is very easy to adapt."
"Elastic Security offers advanced features such as machine learning and integration with ChatGPT."
"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."
"It is scalable."
"It's open-source and free to use."
"The most valuable feature for me is Discover."
"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 has a separate config file in addition to the core configuration."
"The ability to extract and store the logs is the most valuable feature of syslog-ng."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"The problem with ELK is it's difficult to administer. When you have a problem, it can be very, very difficult to rebuild indexes."
"The solution could also use better dashboards. They need to be more graphical, more matrix-like."
"Email notification should be done the same way as Logentries does it."
"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."
"Better integration with third-party APMs would be really good."
"An area for improvement in Elastic Security is the pricing. It could be better. Right now, when you increase the volume of logs to be collected, the price also increases a lot."
"Their visuals and graphs need to be better."
"We're using the open-source edition, for now, I think maybe they can allow their OLED plugin to be open source, as at the moment it is commercialised."
"There is always the potential for additional integration and protocol extensions."
"The filtering has room for improvement."
"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 room for improvement in terms of observability."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I find it better than Splunk in terms of cost-effectiveness. For cost-effectiveness, I would rate it a nine out of 10."
"Compared to other tools, Elastic Security is a cheaper solution."
"We use the open-source version, so there is no charge for this solution."
"It's a monthly cost with Elastic SIEM, but I am not sure of the exact cost."
"This is an open-source product, so there are no costs."
"The solution is not expensive and costs around ten dollars a month."
"Elastic Security is free to use."
"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."
"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
16%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
7%
Government
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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 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 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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for syslog-ng?
The pricing is in the middle. I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with one being expensive and ten being cheap.
What needs improvement with syslog-ng?
There is room for improvement in terms of observability. Additionally, a possible new feature could be Kafka 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
Tecnocom, University of Victoria, University of Exeter, Datapath
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Security vs. syslog-ng and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.