We are using Elastic Enterprise Search for monitoring and alerting. It will look for any kind of possible error that is on the infrastructure side and give notifications.
Executive VP Operation Aqua + South East Asia at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Useful log searching, highly scalable, and reliable
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of Elastic Enterprise Search is the opportunity to search behind and between different logs."
- "Elastic Enterprise Search can improve by adding some kind of search that can be used out of the box without too much struggle with configuration. With every kind of search engine, there is some kind of special function that you need to do. A simple out-of-the-box search would be useful."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Elastic Enterprise Search is the opportunity to search behind and between different logs.
What needs improvement?
Elastic Enterprise Search can improve by adding some kind of search that can be used out of the box without too much struggle with configuration. With every kind of search engine, there is some kind of special function that you need to do. A simple out-of-the-box search would be useful.
In the next release, they could improve on the scheduling and alert features.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Elastic Enterprise Search for a couple of years.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Elastic Enterprise Search is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Everything is managed by Amazon AWS, making Elastic Enterprise Search highly scalable.
We have approximately eight engineers using this solution in my company.
How are customer service and support?
I have not contacted support.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Elastic Enterprise Search was straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
We did the implementation of Elastic Enterprise Search in-house with one person and it was up and running within a couple of days. There is detailed documentation that helped us.
There is fine-tuning needed, but that's never-ending because every time you add a new server, features, or tools inside you have to tune it a little bit better for the alerts.
What other advice do I have?
Elastic Enterprise Search is an open-source solution.
I rate Elastic Enterprise Search a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Great disaster recovery with good AI capabilities but needs more predictive analytics
Pros and Cons
- "It gives us the possibility to store and query this data and also do this efficiently and securely and without delays."
- "Dashboards could be more flexible, and it would be nice to provide more drill-down capabilities."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for log gathering, analyzing, and dashboard creation (with Kibana).
For example, several clients require the ability to store and search logs freely without the constrictions that would be in place if a traditional database was used.
Elasticsearch is perfect for these use cases since it is a non-SQL database with advanced querying capabilities based on the Lucene search engine.
There is excellent support and a large community that answers possible questions online in detail and very quickly. I was amazed at the help I got several times.
How has it helped my organization?
It gave us a tool to perform queries on unstructured data that had no fixed schema/form. This alone was a great asset, especially when dealing with clients that have large datasets from various sources that each follow their own format.
It gives us the possibility to store and query this data and also do this efficiently and securely and without delays.
Moreover, its learning curve was not steep. Therefore, no training was required - or at least no significant amount of time was consumed for training activities.
What is most valuable?
The ability to store unstructured data and perform fast searches that could be customized in detail is quite helpful. This is also a direct request from more and more customers. The Lucene search engine provides the needed speed. In larger projects with multiple nodes, disaster recovery and prevention is an asset (and it is needless to explain why).
AI and machine learning capabilities have also emerged as a direct result of requests from customers. The addition of these features is useful and also can provide advanced security capabilities (such as tracking unusual behavior detection in logs).
What needs improvement?
Dashboards could be more flexible, and it would be nice to provide more drill-down capabilities.
Although the discover function offers exploratory capabilities and one can search for various patterns in logs, the ability to do this from the dashboard function would be very useful. It would make the procedure more simple for the end user, and require less training. It would also be pretty much self-explanatory (drill down and explore specific parts of the diagram/dashboard).
Also, more predictive analytics would be a nice-to-have feature.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the product for about two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability can be impressive.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is very good.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is excellent!
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used Prometheus and Grafana. They do not offer the capabilities of ELK and their focus is different.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is straightforward - although Logstash needed extra care in Windows VM installations.
What about the implementation team?
We handled the setup in-house.
What was our ROI?
We have seen an ROI of 50% at least.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'd advise people to involve a team with people from different departments in order to predict the correct scale.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Loki seems to be an alternative with fewer capabilities.
What other advice do I have?
Logstash seems to have a very small capability to report errors, and that makes it difficult to troubleshoot. It would be nice to get some indication so as to save time.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Elastic Search
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Elastic Search. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
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Operations Manager at Cairo 3A for Agricultural and Animal Production
Useful user behavior analysis, reliable, but report templates could improve
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of Elastic Enterprise Search is user behavior analysis."
- "Elastic Enterprise Search could improve the report templates."
How has it helped my organization?
The solution satisfies our business needs.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Elastic Enterprise Search is user behavior analysis.
What needs improvement?
Elastic Enterprise Search could improve the report templates.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Elastic Enterprise Search for a while.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Elastic Enterprise Search is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of Elastic Enterprise Search is good.
How are customer service and support?
I have not contacted the support from the vendor.
How was the initial setup?
Elastic Enterprise Search is of a moderate range of difficulty, it is not difficult and not easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are paying $1,500 a month to use the solution. If you want to have endpoint protection you need to pay more.
I rate the price of Elastic Enterprise Search a three out of five.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others is for them to make sure this solution satisfies their business needs because there are many solutions and providers, with a lot of options. There are solutions that have a lot of features that the business might not need and it is not good for the business to waste money on features not used. It was recommended by many peers not to seek many options in a solution that you are not going to use, and to concentrate on what is needed.
I rate Elastic Enterprise Search a seven out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Program Manager - Enterprise Command Center at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Aggregates log/machine data into a searchable index, reduces time to identify issues
Pros and Cons
- "The ability to aggregate log and machine data into a searchable index reduces time to identify and isolate issues for an application. Saves time in triage and incident response by eliminating manual steps to access and parse logs on separate systems, within large infrastructure footprints."
- "Enterprise scaling of what have been essentially separate, free open source software (FOSS) products has been a challenge, but the folks at Elastic have published new add-ons (X-Pack and ECE) to help large companies grow ELK to required scales."
How has it helped my organization?
ELK has helped my team leverage a powerful and efficient capability that is comparable to more costly solutions.
What is most valuable?
The ability to aggregate log and machine data into a searchable index reduces time to identify and isolate issues for an application. Saves time in triage and incident response by eliminating manual steps to access and parse logs on separate systems, within large infrastructure footprints.
What needs improvement?
Enterprise scaling of what have been essentially separate, free open source software (FOSS) products has been a challenge, but the folks at Elastic have published new add-ons (X-Pack and ECE) to help large companies grow ELK to required scales.
For how long have I used the solution?
Three to five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No issues with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We encountered issues with scalability.
How are customer service and technical support?
Not applicable, for my team's experience with ELK. Being a FOSS, there is limited support from Elastic without a service – support, consulting, training. There is wealth of information on the web and a growing community of users to lean on for support, though.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Yes, we had a previous solution but we did not switch. We use multiple log analysis engines. Where we have funds to support commercial, off-the-shelf tools (COTS), we have seen more immediate benefits. Where we must go with low/no-cost FOSS, we use ELK.
How was the initial setup?
Initial setups were complex years ago, but they are more straightforward in the current offering. ELK is essentially a collection of products that each requires infrastructure and expertise to set up independently, and connecting them to gain a functional tool requires still more expertise.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
This is a free, open source software (FOSS) tool, which means no cost on the front-end. There are no free lunches in this world though. Technical skill to implement and support are costly on the back-end with ELK, whether you train/hire internally or go for premium services from Elastic.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Splunk, Sumo Logic, and IBM’s Operation Analytics.
What other advice do I have?
Try it out. There is little to lose but time.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Founder at Neokod ARGE Yazılım Ltd.Şti.
A highly scalable and powerful tool that provides excellent indexing features
Pros and Cons
- "Data indexing of historical data is the most beneficial feature of the product."
- "The solution must provide AI integrations."
How has it helped my organization?
We have data in different databases. One is a relational database, and another is NoSQL. They are different services. They host document-like data. We used Elastic to convert the data structurally. We used Elastic as a multi-service search engine. It is a good solution. It is too powerful.
What is most valuable?
I would advise anyone to use the product. It is good. Data indexing of historical data is the most beneficial feature of the product.
What needs improvement?
The solution must provide AI integrations. I could direct my data flow to my AI tools if I use Elastic for IoT data.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution since 2007.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the stability an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution provides powerful scalability. I rate the scalability a ten out of ten. Our clients are medium-sized businesses.
How are customer service and support?
I do not need technical support because the product works well.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was very easy. I rate the ease of setup an eight out of ten. The setup can be done within minutes.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I use the community version. The premium license is expensive. I rate the tool’s pricing an eight out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
With the power of Kibana, we can easily and dynamically analyze and summarize our log data. The internet has information about all the technical solutions. I bought some courses from Udemy for Elastic Search. I also got some documents from Elastic Search. The documentation for Java is very good. It was sufficient to learn as a developer.
I could integrate my products to Elastic Search easily. I use the default index for my solution, and it works very well. Elastic’s indexing policies are very good. I do not need any indexed operations for my solution. Overall, I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
IBM MQ Specialist / Administrator at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Useful log visualizations and highly stable
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of Elastic Enterprise Search is the Discovery option for the visualization of logs on a GPU instead of on the server."
- "Elastic Enterprise Search could improve its SSL integration easier. We should not need to go to the back-end servers to do configuration, we should be able to do it on the GUI."
What is our primary use case?
I am using Elastic Enterprise Search for the visualization of logs.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Elastic Enterprise Search is the Discovery option for the visualization of logs on a GPU instead of on the server.
What needs improvement?
Elastic Enterprise Search could improve its SSL integration easier. We should not need to go to the back-end servers to do configuration, we should be able to do it on the GUI.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Elastic Enterprise Search for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Elastic Enterprise Search has been a stable solution for me for the whole time I have been using it.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I am using Elastic Enterprise Search on-premise and it cannot scale. However, they do have a cloud option.
We have approximately 100 people using this solution in my organization. We use it on a daily basis.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have not used other similar solutions to Elastic Enterprise Search.
How was the initial setup?
The setup of Elastic Enterprise Search is not normally easy but I was running it on top of Docker which made it easy.
I rate the initial setup of Elastic Enterprise Search a three out of five.
What about the implementation team?
I have configured the solution myself and it has provided me with what I want. I do maintenance of the solution once every other week.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The version of Elastic Enterprise Search I am using is open source which is free. The pricing model should improve for the enterprise version because it is very expensive.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We chose Elastic Enterprise Search over other solutions because the interface was easy to use.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Elastic Enterprise Search a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Solution ingenier at Quipux S.A.S do Brasil
Flexible notifications and good alerts with good scalability
Pros and Cons
- "It is a stable and good platform."
- "New Relic could be more flexible, similar to Elasticsearch."
How has it helped my organization?
It has helped by notifying me when something happens. I deploy my team to the infrastructure to fix the application. However, receiving alerts before something happens would be more beneficial.
What is most valuable?
New Relic is very similar to Elasticsearch in functionality; it's easier to use.
What needs improvement?
New Relic could be more flexible, similar to Elasticsearch. It could improve on providing notifications before something happens instead of when something happens.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable and good platform.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's scalable. There's no need to worry about the environment. You just configure it, and it runs without issues.
How are customer service and support?
I haven't used their support, however, a colleague I talked to about this platform with has used it.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not complex. The only part that may require specific knowledge is communicating your cloud environment with New Relic and managing the cloud environment configurations.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Comparing the costs between New Relic and Elasticsearch is difficult as New Relic's cost is for processing metrics, whereas Elasticsearch's cost is for storage.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend New Relic, however, it depends on the specific use case you have. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: Sep 20, 2024
Flag as inappropriateFounder at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Offers good search interface and visualization capabilities with good stability
Pros and Cons
- "The initial setup is fairly simple."
- "Elastic Search should provide better guides for developers."
What is our primary use case?
We use Elasticsearch as an alternative to Splunk. It is basically for log monitoring.
What is most valuable?
It's probably a cost-efficient alternative to Splunk. The search interface is nearly the same. When it comes to visualizations, Elastic is a bit better than Splunk.
What needs improvement?
Elastic Search needs better guides for developers. Better guides for development.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's fairly scalable. I would rate the scalability of this solution a ten out of ten.
There are around five end users using it in my team.
How are customer service and support?
Till date, we did not have any issues with customer service and support. Like, initially, we had issues in accessing the portal. But that was the only issue, but it was resolved pretty quick.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is fairly simple. Initially, it was on-prem, but right now, it's on the cloud.
It is pretty easy to integrate as well.
What was our ROI?
It's like, when someone is buidling products for scale, it reduces the time to market.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with one being high price and ten being low price. It could be cheaper for certain use cases, but since it gets the job done, no complaints for the pricing.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten. I would definitely recommend it to other users.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Last updated: Sep 5, 2024
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