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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
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
8
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.
BL
Network Engineer at Crisp System India Pvt Ltd
Centralized security toolkit has simplified network traffic analysis and customized threat detection
The biggest advantage I found when using Security Onion was that it has a combined set of tools, which is beneficial, as having one place with multiple tools is advantageous. I have used Elastic Stack for data visualization, last using it maybe a couple of months back. Elastic Stack was helpful for my security operations as it is an open-source tool, allowing me to use multiple tools in one place instead of using them all separately. I have also tried Zeek, but I do not use it multiple times. I did not have enough time to understand if Zeek was effective or not, and I did not see much benefit from it. I find the intrusion detection capabilities of Suricata beneficial. With Suricata, we can write different rules for different signatures, which allows for customized use cases. It was helpful to aggregate all the events and traffic in one place with Security Onion, so it is beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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 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 biggest strength of Elastic Stack is its brilliant archiving capabilities."
"The scripting model in Elastic Stack allows me to query logs and then put the data into Grafana."
"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."
"I think the ecosystem is well supported, and for logs, it was faster compared to our previous previous log management."
"The only beneficial aspect of Elastic Stack is that it's open source."
"Security Onion is reliable and is a good product, having no glitches or latency problems."
"Security Onion brings these tools together in one platform, making it easier to investigate security events and understand what's happening across the network."
"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."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
"Security Onion is the most mature solution in the market."
"The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports."
"Security Onion is a completely open-source and free platform, making it a cost-effective solution that works smoothly and effectively for our organization."
"What I appreciate most about Security Onion is that it combines multiple security monitoring tools into one platform."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Elastic Stack should be more simplified with ready-to-use widgets."
"When people try to move the data from another source to Elastic Stack for visualization, they face challenges when connecting to Elastic Stack from such different sources."
"It should facilitate easier manual integration."
"Elastic Stack should work on their dashboards and integration process."
"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."
"Security Onion also has an enterprise version and support available; sometimes the community version is not capable enough to solve the purpose, so the enterprise edition can help."
"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."
"One way Security Onion could improve is by making the initial setup and configuration easier, especially for new users."
"The product is not easy to learn."
"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."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The product is expensive."
"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 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."
"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
"It is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is a free 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
7%
 

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 Enterprise8
 

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.
919,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.