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Elastic Stack vs Security Onion comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024
 

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
Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
19th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
AWS Marketplace (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Stack is 4.0%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Security Onion is 6.3%, up from 1.2% 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.
Jörg Kippe - PeerSpot reviewer
A mature and affordable solution that is easy to install and easy to update
The product takes time to learn, it's not that easy. In the beginning we had a lot of questions. If you want to use such a tool in an real (industrial) environment, you have to ask how to get the network data. Can we do a full packet capture? Can we provide agents to our end systems? There are no simple solutions to these questions. It's a general problem when running such systems in an industrial environment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It supports various integrations. It's open source and has excellent community support."
"I have experienced a return on investment from the use of the solution."
"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."
"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."
"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 machine learning capabilities are valuable."
"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."
"Security Onion is the most mature solution in the market."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
"The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports."
 

Cons

"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"The stability of the solution is rated as three or four out of ten as we frequently encounter issues."
"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 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."
"Improving integration capabilities, especially with authentication systems, firewalls, and security controls, is a crucial area for improvement in Elastic Stack. Additionally, enhancing functionality to handle large Yara queries more efficiently would be beneficial, as many EDR solutions can run such queries faster than Elastic Stack's current limitations."
"It lacks a clear NDR (Network Detection and Response) feature. If Elastic could enhance this aspect, it would significantly boost its capabilities."
"The main issue related to Elastic Stack is in the area of its licensing."
"It should facilitate easier manual integration."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
"The product is not easy to learn."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
12%
University
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 Security Onion?
The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Security Onion?
Security Onion is an open-source solution. On a scale from one to ten, where ten is expensive and one is cheap, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten.
What needs improvement with Security Onion?
The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Stack vs. Security Onion and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.