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Elastic Stack vs syslog-ng comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 18, 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
syslog-ng
Ranking in Log Management
15th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 syslog-ng is 3.1%, up from 2.2% 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.
RyanVargas - PeerSpot reviewer
It's a user-friendly open-source solution that can replace or augment a commercial product in some cases
I rate syslog-ng 10 out of 10. It's free and easy to use. It has built-in tools that help us index the various logs sent to it. It's a solid log product. If you're looking for a SIEM solution, syslog-ng will work as a stopgap measure at beginning of the project. It can also work as an injector for a true SIEM solution. You can send all the logs to syslog-ng and forward all the data to the SIEM solution after you've cleaned up the data and got the pertinent information. It's a good front end for a commercial SIEM solution, which becomes more expensive as you load more data into it. I would highly recommend syslog-ng for that use case. However, if you lack the expertise, you might need to go with a cloud-based SIEM instead. You need some in-house expertise or an outside consultant to manage it and set it up.

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."
"The biggest strength of Elastic Stack is its brilliant archiving capabilities."
"I have experienced a return on investment from the use of the solution."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"For us, the most valuable feature is the use of compound search for searching logs at a specific time, by a specific user, or specific behavior."
"Syslog-ng has built-in features that we can use to create alerts for a SIEM solution. It isn't a true SIEM solution, but it's sufficient for the time being."
"The ability to extract and store the logs is the most valuable feature of syslog-ng."
"Syslog-ng provides easy access to all my logs. It helps me show managers and other clients precisely where an incident occurred. I also like it because you can integrate syslog-ng with multiple solutions to allow real-time monitoring."
"Syslog-ng has a separate config file in addition to the core configuration."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Improvements are needed in the solution in areas like SOAR and TIP, where there are certain shortcomings."
"The main issue related to Elastic Stack is in the area of its licensing."
"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 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 work on their dashboards and integration process."
"The filtering has room for improvement."
"Syslog-ng has built-in features that we can use to create alerts for a SIEM solution. It isn't a true SIEM solution, but it's sufficient for the time being."
"There is always the potential for additional integration and protocol extensions."
"It's hard to find people who know how to use syslog-ng. I often find problems with configurations, and solutions aren't integrated correctly with syslog-ng. For example, there might be data with extra decimals, or the collector agents are incorrectly named. It isn't a problem with the solution; it's a lack of professionals."
"There is room for improvement in terms of observability."
 

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."
"The product is expensive."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"Syslog-ng is open-source."
"Syslog-ng is a free 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
13%
Government
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
7%
 

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 syslog-ng?
For us, the most valuable feature is the use of compound search for searching logs at a specific time, by a specific user, or specific behavior.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for syslog-ng?
The pricing is in the middle. I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with one being expensive and ten being cheap.
What needs improvement with syslog-ng?
There is room for improvement in terms of observability. Additionally, a possible new feature could be Kafka integration.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Tecnocom, University of Victoria, University of Exeter, Datapath
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Stack vs. syslog-ng and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.