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Graylog 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

Graylog
Ranking in Log Management
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Logstash
Ranking in Log Management
30th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Graylog is 6.6%, up from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Logstash is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Andrey Mostovykh - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time analysis, easy setup, and open source
We stopped using it for analytics because of its price, and at the moment, we are using it mostly for log centralization. If you use it with high traffic for analytical purposes, as well as for the logs, the infrastructure costs are unbelievable. Graylog is a great product backed by Elasticsearch as the storage and query engine. It is just an interface on top of Elasticsearch and some Elasticsearch management. The indexes that are kept in Elasticsearch are managed by Graylog software. Elasticsearch is a decent product, but it's very infrastructure-heavy. It requires lots of resources, and if you make a mistake with provisioning, you are likely to not get a cluster back. We had a couple of outages like that, and we hated that. So, we ended up over-provisioning resources just to avoid such situations from happening. If you have a whole team trying to fix the Graylog instance for two days, that's a bit too much. That may be my Norwegian take on it, but the engineering resources are expensive. It's better to just provision the infrastructure. Overall, the product is great, and the features are just fine, but the infrastructure cost is what is killing it. The infrastructure cost is the main issue. I like the rest. If the infrastructure costs could be lower, it would be fantastic. I'm not sure if they can improve the infrastructure cost with the way Elasticsearch is. If they keep using Elasticsearch, maybe there are some opportunities there, or they can support other backends with cheaper storage. They could have a different backend to replace Elasticsearch or do some tweaks to Elasticsearch to reduce the costs. There could be partial parsing of logs or parsing on demand so that when you write data through Graylog to Elasticsearch, it doesn't need to crunch in every detail requiring that much CPU.
Mustafa Husny - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to collect logs from various data sources, including hardware
I use Logstash primarily for connecting logs from hardware. This is the main use case. The second use case involves making correlations between logs from various sources.  I can collect logs from various data sources, including hardware. The product needs to improve its compatibility.  I rate…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This had increased productivity for the dev and support teams, because we are directly notifying them."
"Open source and user friendly."
"One of the most valuable features is that you are able to do a very detailed search through the log messages in the overview."
"I like the correlation and the alerting."
"The ability to write custom alerts is key to information security and compliance."
"I am very proud of how very stable the solution is."
"The product is scalable. The solution is stable."
"It is used as a log manager/SIEM. It provides visibility into the infrastructure and security related events."
"We have three or four Logstash servers for high availability."
"I can collect logs from various data sources, including hardware."
"Everything aligns well with improving our organization."
 

Cons

"More customization is always useful."
"The infrastructure cost is the main issue. I like the rest. If the infrastructure costs could be lower, it would be fantastic."
"I hope to see improvements in Graylog for more interactivity, user-friendliness, and creating alerts. The initial setup is complex."
"Lacks sufficient documentation."
"I would like to see some kind of visualization included in Graylog."
"Its scalability gets complicated when we have to update or edit multiple nodes."
"Graylog could improve the process of creating rules. We have to create them manually by doing parses and applying them. Other SIEM solutions have basic rules and you can create and get more events of interest."
"More complex visualizations and the ability to execute custom Elasticsearch queries would be great."
"We still have a problem with importing the log system."
"The product needs to improve its compatibility."
"Almost all the research can be very bad. We still have a problem with importing the log system."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​You get a lot out-of-the-box with the non-enterprise version, so give it a try first."
"Consider Enterprise support if you have atypical needs or setup requirements.​"
"It's open source and free. They have a paid version, but we never looked into that because we never needed the features of the paid version."
"We are using the free version of the product. However, the paid version is expensive."
"We're using the Community edition."
"Graylog is a free open-source solution. The free version has a capacity limitation of 2 GB daily, if you want to go above this you have to purchase a license."
"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."
"I use the free version of Graylog."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Insurance Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Graylog?
The product is scalable. The solution is stable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Graylog?
We are using the free version of the product. However, the paid version is expensive.
What needs improvement with Graylog?
Since it's a free tool, I don't have much to say. Troubleshooting is important to me. The initial setup is complex. I hope to see improvements in Graylog for more interactivity, user-friendliness, ...
What do you like most about Logstash?
I can collect logs from various data sources, including hardware.
What needs improvement with Logstash?
The product needs to improve its compatibility.
What is your primary use case for Logstash?
I use Logstash primarily for connecting logs from hardware. This is the main use case. The second use case involves making correlations between logs from various sources.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Graylog2
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Information Not Available
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