Graylog vs syslog-ng comparison

Graylog and One Identity are both solutions in the Log Management category. Graylog is ranked #15 with an average rating of 7.0, while One Identity is ranked #19 with an average rating of 10.0. Graylog holds a 6.7% mindshare in Log Management, compared to One Identity’s 2.5% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Graylog users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of One Identity users who would recommend it.

Graylog

Read 20 Graylog reviews

9,558 Views
8,433 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

syslog-ng

Read 5 syslog-ng reviews

4,443 Views
3,613 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Graylog

syslog-ng

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Graylog and syslog-ng are key players in the log management solutions category. While Graylog stands out for integration and scalability, syslog-ng has the upper hand with advanced filtering and protocol options.

Features: Graylog offers flexibility, scalability, and easy integration with third-party tools. Syslog-ng provides comprehensive protocol support, advanced log filtering, and extensive protocol options.

Room for Improvement: Graylog could benefit from faster search speeds, enhanced reporting features, and more intuitive navigation. Syslog-ng users want a more intuitive configuration process, better documentation, and a simplified user interface.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Graylog is known for straightforward deployment and responsive support. Syslog-ng, despite a more complex setup, offers strong community backing and comprehensive support materials.

Pricing and ROI: Graylog provides cost-effective options with excellent value. Syslog-ng, while more expensive, delivers significant ROI with its robust features. Graylog's pricing is manageable, while syslog-ng's higher price is justified by its capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Graylog vs. syslog-ng Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Graylog vs. syslog-ng

April 2025

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Helped 850,671 peers since 2012

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

15th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

syslog-ng

Ranking in Log Management

19th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Graylog is 6.7%, up from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of syslog-ng is 2.5%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Log Management

Featured Reviews

Ivan Kokalovic

DevOps Engineer at Proton Technologies

Facilitates backend service monitoring with efficient log retrieval and API flexibility

Graylog is valuable because it bridges technical knowledge to non-technical teams, presenting complex backend processes in a simple timeline. It boosts the knowledge of sales and customer support teams by allowing them to see the backend operations without needing to read the code. Its API is flexible for visualization, and its powerful search engine efficiently handles large volumes of log data. Moreover, its stability, fast search capabilities, and compatibility with languages like ANSI SQL enhance its utility in IT infrastructure.

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RyanVargas

Senior Director and Senior Systems Engineer (Dual Role), IT Infrastructure and Security at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has data adapters and lookup tables that utilize HTTP calls to APIs."

"The ability to write custom alerts is key to information security and compliance."

"Open source and user friendly."

"We have scaled from a single machine installation (a VM with a Graylog + ES + MongoDB) to (2 Graylog + 2 ES + 3 MongoDB). This was done smoothly with a minimal impact on logging."

"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."

"One of the most valuable features is that you are able to do a very detailed search through the log messages in the overview."

"This had increased productivity for the dev and support teams, because we are directly notifying them."

"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."

More Graylog pros

"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."

"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."

Cons

"More complex visualizations and the ability to execute custom Elasticsearch queries would be great."

"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."

"The infrastructure cost is the main issue. I like the rest. If the infrastructure costs could be lower, it would be fantastic."

"More customization is always useful."

"Dashboards, stream alerts and parsing could be improved."

"I would like to see a default dashboard widget that shows the topology of the clusters defined for the graylog install."

"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."

More Graylog cons

"There is room for improvement in terms of observability."

"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."

"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 filtering has room for improvement."

"There is always the potential for additional integration and protocol extensions."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"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."

"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."

"Consider Enterprise support if you have atypical needs or setup requirements."

"We are using the free version of the product. However, the paid version is expensive."

"I am using a community edition. I have not looked at the enterprise offering from Graylog."

"Having paid official support is wise for projects."

More Graylog pricing and cost advice

"Syslog-ng is a free open-source solution."

"Syslog-ng is open-source."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Educational Organization

Government

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with syslog-ng?

There is room for improvement in terms of observability. Additionally, a possible new feature could be Kafka integration.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Fortinet FortiAnalyzer vs Graylog

Compared 3% of the time

Seq vs Graylog

Compared 3% of the time

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SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server vs syslog-ng

Compared 25% of the time

Grafana Loki vs syslog-ng

Compared 13% of the time

Elastic Stack vs syslog-ng

Compared 5% of the time

Cribl vs syslog-ng

Compared 4% of the time

Logstash vs syslog-ng

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Graylog

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Log Management

April 2025

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Also Known As

Graylog2

No data available

Overview

Graylog is purpose-built to deliver the best log collection, storage, enrichment, and analysis. Graylog is:

Considerably faster analysis speeds.
More robust and easier-to-use analysis platform.
Simpler administration and infrastructure management.
Lower cost than alternatives.
Full-scale customer service.
No expensive training or tool experts required.

Graylog

Optimizing SIEM
syslog-ng is the log management solution that improves the performance of your SIEM solution by reducing the amount and improving the quality of data feeding your SIEM.

Rapid search and troubleshooting
With syslog-ng Store Box, you can find the answer. Search billions of logs in seconds using full text queries with Boolean operators to pinpoint critical logs.

Meeting compliance requirements
syslog-ng Store Box provides secure, tamper-proof storage and custom reporting to demonstrate compliance.

Big data ingestion
syslog-ng can deliver data from a wide variety of sources to Hadoop, Elasticsearch, MongoDB, and Kafka as well as many others.

Universal log collection and routing
syslog-ng flexibly routes log data from X sources to Y destinations. Instead of deploying multiple agents on hosts, organizations can unify their log data collection and management.

Secure data archive
syslog-ng Store Box provides automated archiving, tamper-proof encrypted storage, granular access controls to protect log data. The largest appliance can store up to 10TB of raw logs.

One Identity

Sample Customers

Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Tecnocom, University of Victoria, University of Exeter, Datapath

Buyer's Guide

Graylog vs. syslog-ng

April 2025

Free Report: Graylog vs. syslog-ng

Find out what your peers are saying about Graylog vs. syslog-ng and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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