Elastic Stack vs Graylog comparison

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Elastic Stack

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Graylog and Elastic Stack compete in the data analysis and IT infrastructure management sector. Elastic Stack appears to have the upper hand due to its scalability and adaptability, making it a more comprehensive solution for extensive data analysis needs.

Features:Graylog provides real-time alerting, straightforward configuration, and intuitive navigation, which cater to smaller-scale deployments effectively. Elastic Stack offers comprehensive search capabilities, extensive visualization options, and scalability that enable detailed insights into larger data sets.

Room for Improvement:Graylog users suggest enhancing its data visualization tools, integrations with third-party applications, and expanding its feature set to accommodate larger deployments. Elastic Stack could improve by streamlining its complex setup process, reducing the steep learning curve, and offering better documentation to simplify user onboarding.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Graylog is highly regarded for quick setup times and effective support services. Elastic Stack, although challenging to deploy due to complexity, benefits from an active community and extensive resources, partially offsetting limited direct customer service.

Pricing and ROI:Graylog offers a cost-effective solution with lower setup costs, providing satisfactory ROI for its core functionalities. Elastic Stack, priced at a premium, delivers higher returns for enterprises when fully utilizing its advanced analytics and visualization features.

To learn more, read our detailed Elastic Stack vs. Graylog Report (Updated: April 2025).

Elastic Stack vs. Graylog

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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 Stack

Ranking in Log Management

12th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Graylog

Ranking in Log Management

16th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Stack is 5.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Graylog is 6.6%, up from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Log Management

Featured Reviews

Balamurali P

Solution Architect at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees

Advanced query capabilities enhance monitoring effectiveness

Elastic Stack should be more simplified with ready-to-use widgets. Also, incorporating AI capabilities is essential as monitoring and observability tools are now adding AI features. Ideally, it should evolve into a full-stack observability tool, similar to AppDynamics or DynaTrace, which offers a solution that includes ISP provider, API monitoring, and infrastructure monitoring.

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Andrey Mostovykh

Senior Data Architect at a non-tech company with 201-500 employees

Real-time analysis, easy setup, and open source

We stopped using it for analytics because of its price, and at the moment, we are using it mostly for log centralization. If you use it with high traffic for analytical purposes, as well as for the logs, the infrastructure costs are unbelievable. Graylog is a great product backed by Elasticsearch as the storage and query engine. It is just an interface on top of Elasticsearch and some Elasticsearch management. The indexes that are kept in Elasticsearch are managed by Graylog software. Elasticsearch is a decent product, but it's very infrastructure-heavy. It requires lots of resources, and if you make a mistake with provisioning, you are likely to not get a cluster back. We had a couple of outages like that, and we hated that. So, we ended up over-provisioning resources just to avoid such situations from happening. If you have a whole team trying to fix the Graylog instance for two days, that's a bit too much. That may be my Norwegian take on it, but the engineering resources are expensive. It's better to just provision the infrastructure. Overall, the product is great, and the features are just fine, but the infrastructure cost is what is killing it. The infrastructure cost is the main issue. I like the rest. If the infrastructure costs could be lower, it would be fantastic. I'm not sure if they can improve the infrastructure cost with the way Elasticsearch is. If they keep using Elasticsearch, maybe there are some opportunities there, or they can support other backends with cheaper storage. They could have a different backend to replace Elasticsearch or do some tweaks to Elasticsearch to reduce the costs. There could be partial parsing of logs or parsing on demand so that when you write data through Graylog to Elasticsearch, it doesn't need to crunch in every detail requiring that much CPU.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is an excellent tool for monitoring purposes."

"The biggest strength of Elastic Stack is its brilliant archiving capabilities."

"Elastic Stack is mainly used to monitor servers and APIs. It helps ensure the software's availability and sends notifications at the right time so the system is not down for a long time. The tool's stability and advanced features, such as anomaly detection, are the most valuable features. The benefit of using it is real-time monitoring."

"The only beneficial aspect of Elastic Stack is that it's open source."

"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."

"Elastic Stack has made a positive impact as we can now see our logs."

"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 detection rules in Elastic Stack are the most valuable feature. The search capabilities are excellent and fast. As we collect logs from workstations and devices, the detection rules run on top of the logs and detect any suspicious activity, raising alerts accordingly. Integration with Elastic Stack depends on the specific integration. Elastic provides some bridging integrations that make it easy, but require custom integration. Most integrations are simple, but customization can be challenging because we need to do some parsing. There's something called Elastic Common Schema, and we need to parse the source logs to match this schema, which can be a bit challenging."

More Elastic Stack pros

"What I like about Graylog is that it's real-time and you have access to the raw data. So, you ingest it, and you have access to every message and every data item you ingest. You can then build analytics on top of that. You can look at the raw data, and you can do some volumetric estimations, such as how big traffic you have, how many messages of data of a type you have, etc."

"We have scaled from a single machine installation (a VM with a Graylog + ES + MongoDB) to (2 Graylog + 2 ES + 3 MongoDB). This was done smoothly with a minimal impact on logging."

"Graylog is valuable because it bridges technical knowledge to non-technical teams, presenting complex backend processes in a simple timeline."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its new interface."

"One of the most valuable features is that you are able to do a very detailed search through the log messages in the overview."

"The build is stable and requires little maintenance, even compared to some extremely expensive products."

"It is used as a log manager/SIEM. It provides visibility into the infrastructure and security related events."

"The ability to write custom alerts is key to information security and compliance."

More Graylog pros

Cons

"Elastic Stack should be more simplified with ready-to-use widgets. Also, incorporating AI capabilities is essential as monitoring and observability tools are now adding AI features."

"Support could be improved. The error code is not helpful. We have to ask for it or pass it on to community forums."

"It lacks a clear NDR (Network Detection and Response) feature. If Elastic could enhance this aspect, it would significantly boost its capabilities."

"Improvements are needed in the solution in areas like SOAR and TIP, where there are certain shortcomings."

"Agent deployment is a little tough in the on-premise version."

"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 should be more simplified with ready-to-use widgets."

"There could be better documentation."

More Elastic Stack cons

"More complex visualizations and the ability to execute custom Elasticsearch queries would be great."

"When it comes to configuring the processing pipeline, writing the rules can be very tedious, especially since the documentation isn't extensive on how the functions provided for these rules work."

"More customization is always useful."

"We ran into problems with Elasticsearch throwing a circuit-breaking exception due to field data size being too large. It turned out that the heap size directly impacted this size in a high-throughput environment, causing unexplained instability in Graylog. We were able to troubleshoot on the Elasticsearch size, but we should have been able to reference some minimum requirements for Graylog to know that our settings weren't sufficient."

"Over six months, I had two similar issues where searches were performed on field "messages". It exhausted all the memory of the ES node causing an ES crash and a Graylog halt."

"Graylog could improve the process of creating rules. We have to create them manually by doing parses and applying them. Other SIEM solutions have basic rules and you can create and get more events of interest."

"I would like to see a date and time in the Graylog Grok patterns so that I can save time when searching for a log. I like how the streams and the search query work, but adding a date and time will allow me to pull out a log in a milli-second."

"Elasticsearch recommendations for tuning could be better. Graylog doesn't have direct support for running the system inside of Kubernetes, so it can be challenging to fill in the gaps and set up containers in a way that is both performant and stable."

More Graylog cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."

"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."

"If I compare Elastic Stack to the other products in the market, I would say that the tool is available at a competitive price."

"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."

"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"We are using the open-source community version of the product."

"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."

"I use the free version of Graylog."

"I am using a community edition. I have not looked at the enterprise offering from Graylog."

"There is an open source version and an enterprise version. I wouldn't recommend the enterprise version, but as an open source solution, it is solid and works really well."

"We are using the free version of the product. However, the paid version is expensive."

"We're using the Community edition."

"If you want something that works and do not have the money for Splunk or QRadar, take Graylog."

"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"Graylog is a free open-source solution. The free version has a capacity limitation of 2 GB daily, if you want to go above this you have to purchase a license."

More Graylog pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

18%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Government

Educational Organization

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?

I may not be able to answer as this is customer-paid Elastic Stack, and I didn't handle the payment.

What needs improvement with Elastic Stack?

What do you like most about Graylog?

The product is scalable. The solution is stable.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Graylog?

We are using the free version of the product. However, the paid version is expensive.

What needs improvement with Graylog?

When it comes to configuring the processing pipeline, writing the rules can be very tedious, especially since the documentation isn't extensive on how the functions provided for these rules work. P...

Security Onion vs Elastic Stack

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Elastic Stack

Download Elastic Stack product report

Download Graylog product report

Also Known As

No data available

Graylog2

Overview

Elastic Stack is a comprehensive tool for log management, observability, indexing, and security, widely adopted for managing logs, alert creation, SIEM, SOC, and threat analysis. It integrates with CloudStrike and Endpoint Security, enhancing search capabilities and Application Performance Monitoring.

Elastic Stack offers powerful solutions for logging, data storage, and visualization with Kibana. It allows MSSPs to efficiently manage security and assists companies with data analysis. It's known for its easy implementation, scalability, real-time monitoring, and extensive integrations. The open-source nature and community support add significant value, making it a popular choice across industries. While highly capable, there is a need for enhancement in dashboard implementation, data integration, and certain advanced features. Licensing, compatibility, and cost-related improvements can further elevate its efficacy.

What are the key features of Elastic Stack?

Powerful Search Capabilities: Offers robust, efficient searching across vast datasets
Scalability: Easily handles large volumes of data
Anomaly Detection: Identifies irregular patterns in data
Machine Learning: Enhances data analysis with intelligent insights
Real-Time Monitoring: Provides up-to-date monitoring of applications and systems
Extensive Integration: Supports diverse tools and solutions

What benefits should users consider?

Ease of Implementation: Quick setup and integration into existing systems
Robust Security: Comprehensive monitoring and analysis capabilities
Community Support: Ongoing improvements and guidance from a dedicated community
Hybrid Deployment: Flexibility in using both cloud and on-premise solutions

In healthcare, Elastic Stack enhances database search capabilities, aiding in patient record management and data retrieval. Managed Security Service Providers use it for comprehensive security management, integrating it with tools like firewalls and authentication systems. Companies benefit from its application in Application Performance Monitoring and its flexibility in adapting to hybrid environments.

Elastic

Graylog is purpose-built to deliver the best log collection, storage, enrichment, and analysis. Graylog is:

Considerably faster analysis speeds.
More robust and easier-to-use analysis platform.
Simpler administration and infrastructure management.
Lower cost than alternatives.
Full-scale customer service.
No expensive training or tool experts required.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Elastic Stack vs. Graylog