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Graylog vs Security Onion comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Graylog
Ranking in Log Management
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
23rd
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
AWS Marketplace (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Graylog is 6.4%, up from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Security Onion is 6.1%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Peter Malaty - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 30, 2022
I can create pipelines, charts, and data maps anyway I like, but the solution needs a better live logging display and improved authentication
Graylog needs to improve their authentication. Their AD integration is really bad. When it comes to ACL's, access control lists, where you want to have different group memberships and control who gets access to what, it really could use major improvements. It seems like a beta authentication version that they came up with in a hurry and said, "Hey guys, we've got something going for you. Use it until we think of something later on." I believe their enterprise version has improved some of these features, but I use the open source version. The second thing would be the way they handle live logging. The fact that Graylog displays logs from the top down is just ridiculous. I've never seen anything that logs this way except for Graylog. I believe this is an issue because they have the selector going in that direction, so it would make sense that they have to implement it that way, but it's definitely not cool. When you're looking at Graylog's live logging, whether it's doing a one-second or five-second pull, you'll notice that new log lines are placed at the top of the screen, not the bottom of the screen. I find this ridiculous because normally when you're looking at logs anywhere, on Linux, even in Windows, you're going to see that the logs are generated at the bottom. That's one thing that Graylog definitely needs to improve. Graylog also needs to invest some time to improve the performance and how they handle the maintenance of Elasticsearch. An added feature I would like to see is the capacity to delegate most of the backend maintenance to the frontend UI. When you have somebody from the service desk working on the solution or somebody who's not a technical person, they could run some of the maintenance stuff directly from the UI. Another thing is something that I saw in LogDNA, where you could have a color based on log regex. For example, it would color the timestamps next to the log lines orange, make the source of the log purple, and then make the actual log content black. That would be very nice to see in Graylog.
Jörg Kippe - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 18, 2024
A mature and affordable solution that is easy to install and easy to update
The solution is used to learn how the tools work. It enables us to do consulting and demonstrate solutions. We develop attacks, detect them, and demonstrate how it works. The customers are interested in seeing how and what these tools can do We are only working with open-source products. The tool…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ability to write custom alerts is key to information security and compliance."
"Message forwarding through the in-built module."
"Graylog's search functionality, alerting functionality, user management, and dashboards are useful."
"Everything stands out as valuable, including the fact that I can quantify and qualify the logs, create pipelines and process the logs in any way I like, and create charts or data maps."
"Allowing us to set up alerts and integrate with platforms we already use, such as Slack and OpsGenie to alert users of these errors proactively, is also a very useful feature."
"I am very proud of how very stable the solution is."
"What I like about Graylog is that it's real-time and you have access to the raw data. So, you ingest it, and you have access to every message and every data item you ingest. You can then build analytics on top of that. You can look at the raw data, and you can do some volumetric estimations, such as how big traffic you have, how many messages of data of a type you have, etc."
"Storing logs in Elasticsearch means log retrieval is extremely fast, and full text search is available by default."
"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."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
 

Cons

"I would like to see some kind of visualization included in Graylog."
"Graylog needs to improve their authentication. Also, the fact that Graylog displays logs from the top down is just ridiculous."
"With technical support, you are on your own without an enterprise license."
"Its scalability gets complicated when we have to update or edit multiple nodes."
"There should be some user groups and an auto sign-in feature.​"
"Elasticsearch recommendations for tuning could be better. Graylog doesn't have direct support for running the system inside of Kubernetes, so it can be challenging to fill in the gaps and set up containers in a way that is both performant and stable."
"Over six months, I had two similar issues where searches were performed on field "messages". It exhausted all the memory of the ES node causing an ES crash and a Graylog halt."
"Dashboards, stream alerts and parsing could be improved."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
"The product is not easy to learn."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​You get a lot out-of-the-box with the non-enterprise version, so give it a try first."
"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're using the Community edition."
"Consider Enterprise support if you have atypical needs or setup requirements.​"
"I use the free version of Graylog."
"We are using the free version of the product. However, the paid version is expensive."
"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."
"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 is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is a free solution."
"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
11%
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 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 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

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Graylog vs. Security Onion and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.