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Graylog vs SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 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

Graylog
Ranking in Log Management
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server
Ranking in Log Management
25th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Graylog is 6.4%, up from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server is 1.7%, down from 2.1% 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.
Muhammad Anas - PeerSpot reviewer
Shows login failures and server issues but search functions and filters could be improved
Kiwi Syslog shows login failures and server issues. I'm using version 9.8.1. It's deployed on-premises. There are four people in my organization who are using this solution. They're all infrastructure engineers The best thing about Kiwi Syslog is that it filters logs into different levels. It's…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Graylog's search functionality, alerting functionality, user management, and dashboards are useful."
"The build is stable and requires little maintenance, even compared to some extremely expensive products."
"We run a containerized microservices environment. Being able to set up streams and search for errors and anomalies across hundreds of containers is why a log aggregation platform like Graylog is valuable to us."
"It has data adapters and lookup tables that utilize HTTP calls to APIs."
"Real-time UDP/GELF logging and full text-based searching."
"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."
"UDP is a fast and lightweight protocol, perfect for sending large volumes of logs with minimal overhead."
"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."
"The most valuable features of SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server include its ability to provide network mapping and deliver information to my customers about their networks through various methods."
"We are very happy with the stability of the solution."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server is its performance and management. Additionally, the solution integrates well."
"I appreciate that with Kiwi Syslog, we can segregate the logs based on the display, such as using different colors and fonts, which helps greatly in identifying logs by their severity."
"Simplicity is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the alerting based on the security logs."
"Overall, I rate SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server ten out of ten."
"I appreciate that with Kiwi Syslog, we can segregate the logs based on the display, such as using different colors and fonts, which helps greatly in identifying logs by their severity."
 

Cons

"It would be great if Graylog could provide a better Python package in order to make it easier to use for the Python community."
"More complex visualizations and the ability to execute custom Elasticsearch queries would be great."
"With technical support, you are on your own without an enterprise license."
"The biggest problem is the collector application, as we wanted to avoid using Graylog Collector Sidecar due to its architecture."
"There should be some user groups and an auto sign-in feature.​"
"Graylog needs to improve their authentication. Also, the fact that Graylog displays logs from the top down is just ridiculous."
"I would like to see a default dashboard widget that shows the topology of the clusters defined for the graylog install."
"When it comes to configuring the processing pipeline, writing the rules can be very tedious, especially since the documentation isn't extensive on how the functions provided for these rules work."
"The Windows log forwarder is not functioning properly."
"SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server could improve by reducing the price."
"The Windows log forwarder is not functioning properly. This is a significant concern, as it led to losing a deal due to the inability to provide Windows logs effectively."
"Technical support could definitely be better."
"I would like to see better search functions and better filters in the next release."
"SolarWinds pricing is perceived as very high in the market, which can be a barrier for many customers."
"There is a need for an on-premises solution, which could lead to easier sales in larger markets."
"I would like to have email notifications for emergency logs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is an open source version and an enterprise version. I wouldn't recommend the enterprise version, but as an open source solution, it is solid and works really well."
"I use the free version of Graylog."
"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."
"​You get a lot out-of-the-box with the non-enterprise version, so give it a try first."
"If you want something that works and do not have the money for Splunk or QRadar, take Graylog.​​"
"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."
"Having paid official support is wise for projects."
"I am using a community edition. I have not looked at the enterprise offering from Graylog."
"The price of SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server could improve."
"We subscribe and pay directly on the website."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Government
8%
University
7%
Government
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
When it comes to configuring the processing pipeline, writing the rules can be very tedious, especially since the documentation isn't extensive on how the functions provided for these rules work. P...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server?
SolarWinds pricing is perceived as very high in the market, which can be a barrier for many customers.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server?
The Windows log forwarder is not functioning properly. This is a significant concern, as it led to losing a deal due to the inability to provide Windows logs effectively. It should be more user-fri...
 

Also Known As

Graylog2
Kiwi Syslog Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Holy Cross Energy, West Texas A&M University, Medium Enterprise Industrial Manufacturing Company
Find out what your peers are saying about Graylog vs. SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,466 professionals have used our research since 2012.