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Elastic Stack 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Elastic Stack
Ranking in Log Management
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
22nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Stack is 1.6%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Security Onion is 1.6%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Elastic Stack1.6%
Security Onion1.6%
Other96.8%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

LB
Senior Consultant at Skillfield
Offers robust out-of-the-box integrations and streamlines logging processes effortlessly
There are improvements needed for Elastic Stack. It is mostly based on Lucene, and the heart of Elastic Stack is Lucene, which has some limitations. Anything built on top of Lucene often feels an add-on, and that includes vector databases. Elastic Stack can store vector embeddings as well and perform AI and machine learning tasks out of the box without excessive configuration. The main improvements involve increasing speed and compression capabilities; I have seen databases that claim to achieve significantly better compression. While Elastic Stack can manage vast amounts of data, if the mapping is not specified correctly, the indexing time can be slow, especially with many events per second. Improper mapping usually means that every document received gets indexed for all fields, which is not desired. Elastic consultants typically optimize this, but out of the box, as data volume increases, scaling becomes necessary. They are working on these improvements in new versions.
MS
Hands-on monitoring has built my threat detection skills and now supports my graduate research
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. I actually encountered an HTTP 500 error with the management interface recently, which required troubleshooting and expanding my storage, showing me how important storage planning and system maintenance are when running Security Onion. What I would improve about Security Onion is probably the documentation around troubleshooting common issues, particularly storage management, and making the interface more approachable for new users. Having documentation of what works best would help, especially since you can have nodes or have it all built-in one as a standalone. If you use nodes, you have to have several different Security Onion instances downloaded, then have a manager and connect all of them together.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The biggest strength of Elastic Stack is its brilliant archiving capabilities."
"Elastic Stack has made a positive impact as we can now see our logs."
"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."
"It is an excellent tool for monitoring purposes."
"The solution's technical support is good...Elastic Stack offers good value for value for money based on the product's features and what they offer."
"The machine learning capabilities are valuable."
"I have experienced a return on investment from the use of the solution."
"It is a very scalable solution...I didn't face any problem with this scalability part of the solution since we only have a few pieces of equipment in our company."
"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 has positively impacted my organization by enabling students to analyze logs, understand network traffic, comprehend intrusion detection, and utilize threat hunting and incident response skills in a practical environment, which are best practices we have implemented with the students."
"The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports."
"Security Onion is the most mature solution in the market."
"Security Onion brings these tools together in one platform, making it easier to investigate security events and understand what's happening across the network."
"What I appreciate most about Security Onion is that it combines multiple security monitoring tools into one platform."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
 

Cons

"Elastic Stack should be more simplified with ready-to-use widgets."
"The main issue related to Elastic Stack is in the area of its licensing."
"Support could be improved. The error code is not helpful. We have to ask for it or pass it on to community forums."
"I would rate the technical support by Elastic as five or six out of ten. They should improve their response time and first-level support, particularly knowledge, which is very important for using Elasticsearch."
"It should facilitate easier manual integration."
"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"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 product is not easy to learn."
"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."
"One way Security Onion could improve is by making the initial setup and configuration easier, especially for new users."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
"One of the improvements for Security Onion could be to address the issue of many logs and false positive alerts by reducing the number of false positives, as storage management is very hard sometimes due to a lack of storage space for logs, and they could implement methods to expand storage."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is reasonable."
"The product is expensive."
"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."
"If I compare Elastic Stack to the other products in the market, I would say that the tool is available at a competitive price."
"We are using the open-source community version of the product."
"Security Onion is a free solution."
"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
"It is an open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
12%
University
11%
Government
10%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Stack?
My experience with Elastic Stack pricing indicates that it is node-based. While I do not have complete pricing details, they are available online. If I choose Elastic Cloud, it includes licensing a...
What needs improvement with Elastic Stack?
I would like to improve Elastic Stack by addressing the current big problem we face with importing logs and log files, such as syslogs. To import these log files, we need to design the ingest pipel...
What is your primary use case for Elastic Stack?
Elastic Stack is primarily used for everything related to security, including security systems, checking the security system, and also servers and networks.
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Stack vs. Security Onion and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,884 professionals have used our research since 2012.