No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Grafana Loki vs Logstash comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Logstash
Ranking in Log Management
31st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Grafana Loki is 4.1%, down from 8.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Logstash is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Grafana Loki4.1%
Logstash0.9%
Other95.0%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2350791 - PeerSpot reviewer
Regional Associate & Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Offers cost-effective log management with strong correlation features across observability tools
Grafana Loki's open-source capability is a significant benefit. Grafana has invested in making their enterprise tools competitive with other APM tools, facilitating cross-correlation with Mimir and Tempo for metrics and tracing. The tool offers good search functionality, and its on-premises capability is advantageous. The indexing performance is strong, making it a robust log management tool. Grafana Loki is notably cost-effective.
reviewer2727468 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Application Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Transforms logs for real-time insights and seamless reporting
Logstash is used for transforming logs, and you can use many plugins in Logstash. Logstash works with configuration files that contain three main parts: an input part, a filter part, and an output part. In the input part, we can take logs from many sources such as Beats, files, or Kafka. The filter part is used to filter the logs that are shipped from Beats. From my understanding and experience with Logstash, it is usually used for processing logic, meaning I can control what fields should be transferred to Elastic and what fields shouldn't be transferred. This is the main function I use Logstash for. Elastic is a famous open-source searching engine that helps operation teams speed up the investigation process and provides real-time insights for performance reporting.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's stability has never been a problem. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine to ten out of ten."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source tool that is stable and flexible."
"Grafana agent is very lightweight and does not cost significant resources of our cluster."
"The best feature of Grafana Loki is that it integrates well with our other tool."
"Grafana Loki's open-source capability is a significant benefit, and Grafana has invested in making their enterprise tools competitive with other APM tools, facilitating cross-correlation with Mimir and Tempo for metrics and tracing."
"There are new features like that pilot code and things like that for profiling."
"The product's most valuable features are ease of installation, management, and reporting. It has an efficient ability to set thresholds for alerts, as well."
"The tool can be used in multi-cluster environments."
"Logstash has numerous plugins for inputs and outputs, allowing it to work well in environments that do not contain other Elastic components."
"The transformation means we ship the logs in the way that we want them to be presented in Kibana, which is the main function we use Logstash for."
"Everything aligns well with improving our organization."
"The functionality of Logstash is quite easy to implement and the plugin ecosystem of Logstash is great, with plugins for shell script monitoring and SQL monitoring working well with the tool."
"We have three or four Logstash servers for high availability."
"I can collect logs from various data sources, including hardware."
 

Cons

"Improvements could be made in the enablement of the product, addressing the complexity of implementing these tools."
"Visualization-wise, Grafana Loki's dashboard looks a little outdated compared to other open-source visualization tools like Chronograf."
"There is a need for some change in the alerting types of the product. In short, a few changes in the alert area are needed due to minor shortcomings."
"My main concern is the recommended production-grade setup. They suggest using tools like Tanka or Jsonnet. They should simplify the process to increase adoption."
"Enhancing speed could be a game-changer, and while it might vary depending on the application, it's a factor worth exploring."
"In Grafana Loki, the creation of metrics is not so easy, making it an area that could be made easier."
"The solution's scalability depends on the team managing the Grafana instance."
"We encountered certain limitations when it came to alerting, particularly when dealing with specific data sources."
"An enhancement we could implement is the ability to cluster Logstash to exist in more than one node."
"We still have a problem with importing the log system."
"The product needs to improve its compatibility."
"There can be a UI to implement with Logstash. Currently, I have to work with config files and everything."
"Almost all the research can be very bad. We still have a problem with importing the log system."
"Elastic does not provide proper support for Logstash worldwide, and I rate their technical support as one out of ten."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is less than other paid services like CloudWatch."
"I find the licensing structure quite reasonable, as the free license effectively meets my requirements."
"I use the solution's open-source version. Grafana Loki is a completely free solution for me."
"You can use the free version of Grafana Loki on-premises."
"The solution is open source."
"My company doesn't need to pay for the licensing cost of the solution."
"We use a free version."
"Grafana Loki is a free, open-source solution."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.
886,510 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise4
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana Loki?
Since it is an open source tool, there are no charges or fees.
What needs improvement with Grafana Loki?
Improvements could be made in the enablement of the product, addressing the complexity of implementing these tools.
What advice do you have for others considering Grafana Loki?
A lot of our customers are service providers, internet service providers, government, defense contractors, and some enterprise software and finance organizations, so it spans across the board. Cost...
What needs improvement with Logstash?
Customization can be automated with Logstash, but it is at the developer's disposal. The developer has to do it, not the tool as such. There is scope for optimization, but that is all outside the t...
What is your primary use case for Logstash?
The purposes for which I am using Logstash largely include log aggregation and application monitoring.
What advice do you have for others considering Logstash?
I am using Logstash for log management and also implement it. Logstash can be deployed both on-cloud and on-premises. On a scale of 1-10, I rate Logstash an 8.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Grafana Loki vs. Logstash and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,510 professionals have used our research since 2012.