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Elastic Stack vs Grafana Loki 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 Stack
Ranking in Log Management
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Stack is 4.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana Loki is 7.0%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Mahesh Ramichetty - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable product that can be fine-tuned easily
Elastic Stack provides all sorts of things, so it provides Elasticsearch for the transformations into a specific format, and pipelines can be defined for distributed applications along with the logs that come in the JSON format, which is clean. It's only the enhancements or the security that the product lacks and needs to be enhanced. I don't think further enhancement of the features needs to be added to the solution because it is already equivalent to a monitoring or alerting system, like Dynatrace and other tools. Some developments in the area of AI, which Elastic Stack is currently working on, should be fine in terms of the enhancements. Whenever some critical issue happens, there should be some kind of a co-pilot that helps resolve the issue. The tool should learn from its own previous issues. If you take Databricks, you see that it provides a co-pilot for Python, so a similar kind of development in Elastic Stack would be a real asset for it. AI would be considered a good way to enable the tool further for more in 2024, and even a beta launch would be helpful. If you take any sort of cloud-native monitoring product, like Azure Monitor or AWS CloudWatch, you see that such products don't provide much of the insights. If you go with Azure Monitor for any sort of ML models to be there, Sentinel needs to be used from Azure, which is very costly. AI-enablement would be a big improvement in Elastic Stack. Everyone in the monitoring space, including Dynatrace and New Relic, has lately been discussing AI, but it doesn't seem to be coming out. If there is room for an ML model in Elastic Stack, then it would be good.
CarlosPimentel - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient log filtering enhances quick network troubleshooting
We use Grafana Loki for various verticals including manufacturing, finance, health, and aerospatial sectors. It primarily helps in monitoring security and access to devices. Grafana dashboards are used to track access success and failure and audit commands issued on devices Loki significantly…

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 most powerful aspect is its search engine capability. It's a highly effective and powerful solution for searching. We use it in professional and student projects at universities, and it delivers promising results."
"Elastic Stack has made a positive impact as we can now see our logs."
"The tool is huge, and it performs brilliantly. I tested it for malware, and within two weeks of launching, the product alerted me about a network intrusion. This was a tough test for it, but it performed admirably. The alerting system is excellent, and searching through logs is incredibly efficient. What's impressive is that all three products or options are integrated into one solution. This means I don't need separate logging, monitoring, or antivirus solutions."
"It supports various integrations. It's open source and has excellent community support."
"Prior to the latest updates, data lake management was a standout feature. The hybrid capability for on-premise and cloud integration was also crucial. Now, with Elastic Defense, the agent simplifies security monitoring, making it a key asset."
"The biggest strength of Elastic Stack is its brilliant archiving capabilities."
"I think the ecosystem is well supported, and for logs, it was faster compared to our previous previous log management."
"We can group a lot of alarms into one automation alarm supervision. The alarm supervision allows us to put the alarm under the same. It's quite helpful for us. We used that to suppress our alarms. Elastic already provides the agent. It is easy to integrate Elastic Stack with other devices and vendors."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source tool that is stable and flexible."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the tool's GUI. The solution's GUI is very user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature of Grafana Loki is the dashboards which are really simple to create."
"Loki also utilizes the same service discovery mechanism as used by Prometheus. So, whatever labeled metadata you see in Prometheus, you have the exact same metadata in the Loki system. Given this level of intricacy and the attempt to address these challenges, I firmly believe that Loki deserves praise for the work."
"The effectiveness of filters is pivotal for optimizing the search process and extracting the specific information we need from the extensive log data."
"The product's most valuable features are ease of installation, management, and reporting. It has an efficient ability to set thresholds for alerts, as well."
"Loki significantly saves time in troubleshooting by quickly pinpointing network issues."
"I appreciate the capability to process logs from microservices and seamlessly integrate them into Grafana."
 

Cons

"It lacks a clear NDR (Network Detection and Response) feature. If Elastic could enhance this aspect, it would significantly boost its capabilities."
"The stability of the solution is rated as three or four out of ten as we frequently encounter issues."
"AI-enablement would be a big improvement in Elastic Stack...If there is room for an ML model in Elastic Stack, then it would be good."
"The solution is expensive, particularly the training and certification. If customers want to increase their use of Elastic Stack, they should consider reducing the cost of certification and training."
"The implementation of dashboards in the solution needs to be made easier...I had some issues with the ports and configuration since it was kind of complex to implement with Docker."
"Elastic Stack's search capabilities can be challenging, especially when searching for precise data from past years, such as two or ten years ago. Its indexing performance for exact data retrieval may decrease as the data volume grows. Therefore, I believe there is room for improvement in the product's search functionality. It needs to improve its pricing as well."
"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"There could be better documentation."
"The solution's scalability depends on the team managing the Grafana instance."
"My main concern is the recommended production-grade setup. They suggest using tools like Tanka or Jsonnet. They should simplify the process to increase adoption."
"The correlation of requests is not simple in Grafana Loki and can be improved."
"The Docker container partition feature needs improvement as they do not reuse the space and goes into a pending state."
"We face some bugs when we install the latest version of Grafana Loki."
"We encountered certain limitations when it came to alerting, particularly when dealing with specific data sources."
"The product must improve its UI."
"It's not intended for proprietary services, so you have to struggle with configuration a lot."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"If I compare Elastic Stack to the other products in the market, I would say that the tool is available at a competitive price."
"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."
"We are using the open-source community version of the product."
"The product is expensive."
"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."
"My company doesn't need to pay for the licensing cost of the solution."
"The pricing structure varies based on the number of users; there might be specific taxes to pay for it."
"You can use the free version of Grafana Loki on-premises."
"We use a free version."
"Grafana Loki is an open-source solution."
"I use the open-source version of the product."
"I use the solution's open-source version. Grafana Loki is a completely free solution for me."
"Grafana Loki is a free, open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Elastic Stack?
The tool is huge, and it performs brilliantly. I tested it for malware, and within two weeks of launching, the product alerted me about a network intrusion. This was a tough test for it, but it per...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Stack?
We use Elastic Stack's open source version, so it is free for us.
What needs improvement with Elastic Stack?
Elastic Stack needs more features similar to other SIEM tools such as Sentinel or the ability to create automations. Additionally, it should facilitate easier manual integration.
What do you like most about Grafana Loki?
We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana Loki?
We use the open-source version of Loki. The cloud version is competitively priced compared to other market solutions.
What needs improvement with Grafana Loki?
It would be beneficial if Loki could directly access Windows Server logs or events directly from the servers.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Stack vs. Grafana Loki and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.