Elastic Security is very customizable, and the dashboards are very easy to build. It's a very, very, very fast tool. If I click on something on my other SIEM to drill down into that thing, it only drills down a little, but Elastic Security will filter everything that's on the screen.
Cyber Security Engineer II at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
A fast tool that has good usability and intuitiveness, but it's hard to build the tool
Pros and Cons
- "Elastic Security is very customizable, and the dashboards are very easy to build."
- "It's a little bit of a learning curve to understand the logic of searching for things and trying to find what you're looking for in Elastic Security."
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
It's a little bit of a learning curve to understand the logic of searching for things and trying to find what you're looking for in Elastic Security. You have to understand because it's not all formatted the same. My last SIEM had a whole drop-down where you literally could click on whatever data source you wanted to look at.
It's not like that in Elastic Security. Sometimes, it's a drop-down, and sometimes it's like a specific thing inside something else. You have to get in there and understand your environment to really know where your data is. Trying to find what you're looking for if you don't know the environment is extremely hard in Elastic Security.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Elastic Security's scalability is pretty easy. Since it's in the cloud, you have to watch your throughput to ensure you're staying within what you've bought. That being said, they have had to build scripts to understand that throughput because there is no easy way to see how much data you're actually pushing to the cloud. If you go over your cap, they'll bite you in the bill, and you wouldn't even know it.
How was the initial setup?
Elastic Security's initial setup is not easy. We've had to hire an entire team, and it's taken over a year and a half to set up the solution.
Buyer's Guide
Elastic Security
October 2025

Learn what your peers think about Elastic Security. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2025.
871,358 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Elastic Security, we evaluated Microsoft Sentinel.
What other advice do I have?
The learning curve for Elastic Security is heavy. It becomes easier once you get into it and start using it as a user. We had to hire a separate team to help build the back end. Elastic Security is not an easy product to set up.
Elastic Security has better user usability and intuitiveness. It's hard to build the tool, but it is quick and has easy dashboards. Elastic Security is great once you get it built, but the build is the hardest part.
Overall, I rate Elastic Security a six out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

System Administrator at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
It's helpful for looking at multiple data sources to find find patterns or anomalies
Pros and Cons
- "I can look at events from more than one source across multiple different locations and find patterns or anomalies. The machine learning capabilities are helpful, and I can create rules for notifications to be more proactive rather than responding after something has gone wrong."
- "Elastic Security has a steep learning curve, so it takes some time to tune it and set it up for your environment. There are some costs associated with logging things that don't have value. So you need to be cautious to only log things that make sense and keep them around for as long as you need. You shouldn't hold onto things just because you think you might need them."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use Elastic Security as a log aggregator, so we use it like a SIEM. It ingests all our logs and reports on them in aggregate.
How has it helped my organization?
We've used Elastic Security to solve some challenges involving various data sources. Things were being logged, but they were scattered around the organization. Elastic has sped up problem-solving. I can also imagine other use cases where we might use it for things that weren't system related. I use it for IT troubleshooting, but you could probably use it for sales forecasting or anything that I could make a data source out of.
What is most valuable?
Elastic Security gives us the ability to look at more than one source of data. For example, if a Windows client is doing something weird, I can grab all the Windows clients, then pivot to the firewall logs.
I can look at events from more than one source across multiple different locations and find patterns or anomalies. The machine learning capabilities are helpful, and I can create rules for notifications to be more proactive rather than responding after something has gone wrong.
What needs improvement?
Elastic Security has a steep learning curve, so it takes some time to tune it and set it up for your environment. There are some costs associated with logging things that don't have value. So you need to be cautious to only log things that make sense and keep them around for as long as you need. You shouldn't hold onto things just because you think you might need them.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Elastic Security for about a year.
How are customer service and support?
Elastic Security support is pretty good. Their support staff seems to know the product well. They provide answers but don't offer much training. They have lots of videos and documentation, but there's not a live person that tells you how to do things. They mostly refer you to the documentation.
How was the initial setup?
Setting up Elastic Security is complex in some ways. Getting the solution to ingest your logs is the most difficult part. If the logs are of little value or you're holding on to those events for too long, they're not really worth as much. They're not as actionable if they're a month or a year old.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Elastic Security nine out of 10. I can't speak to any of the other security features, but it works for logging and SIEM.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
Elastic Security
October 2025

Learn what your peers think about Elastic Security. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2025.
871,358 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Straightforward to set up and deploy with good reliability
Pros and Cons
- "It is scalable."
- "Technical support could respond faster."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for security purposes.
What is most valuable?
It works just fine. We haven't had any issues with it.
It is scalable.
Technical support has been good.
It is stable.
The product is fast to set up and very easy to deploy.
What needs improvement?
We aren't expecting any new features in the next release, We have everything we need.
Technical support could respond faster.
For how long have I used the solution?
I haven't been using the solution for too long. It's been only a few years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is quite scalable. I'd rate the ability to expand nine out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is quite helpful and responsive. However, it could always be faster.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did use a different solution. We decided to switch to this product as it fit our needs.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment is fast. It only takes a few seconds to get up and running.
What about the implementation team?
I was able to handle the initial setup myself.
What was our ROI?
We have not necessarily seen any ROI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is pretty good. We pay for a license annually. The cost is very good. We don't find it too expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I'm using the latest version of the solution.
I'd recommend the solution to others.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Consultant at SMRJ
Offers good security features but needs to make the implementation phase easy
Pros and Cons
- "The tool's functionality is good for overall security and incident response times."
- "I want to find an automatic security system in the tool, like a SOAR solution. I am looking forward to seeing a SOAR system in the tool."
What is our primary use case?
I use the tool for security operations.
What is most valuable?
Elastic Security is not good for my company. I also use Splunk. Splunk is better than Elastic Security. Elastic Security is used in our main security systems, and now we also use NetFlow. SPL is better than Elastic Security. SPL is better for creating dashboards. It is very good for creating dashboards.
What needs improvement?
I want to find an automatic security system in the tool, like a SOAR solution. I am looking forward to seeing a SOAR system in the tool.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Elastic Security for three years. I use Elastic Security 8.0. I am a customer of the tool.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I am a Splunk customer, but its usage is shrinking in our company. I have hands-on experience with Splunk for five to six years. As a basic enterprise system, Splunk is very good, and it also has many applications, making it a very useful tool. I am trying to find a managed security system. Splunk helps our organization monitor multiple cloud environments. It is not so easy to monitor multiple cloud environments with Splunk Enterprise Security's dashboards. With Splunk, it is very easy to find Azure and Azure API connections, but the versions vary. If the tool's version varies, the system won't work. Once we are able to set up the system, the tool will work fine.
Some application tools should be provided by the maker as they can be very beneficial to us.
Splunk's visibility into multiple environments is to manage the tool in the cloud. I have used the tool, and it has the capability to detect threats.
How was the initial setup?
The product's initial setup phase was done two years ago, and the whole process was not so good, even though it was created with the support team from the project team. My company has a number of servers in the system, but it is not good enough or easy to implement the tool.
I just had one requirement with the product and had to send it across to the tool vendors.
The solution is deployed with the help of Azure.
What about the implementation team?
The product's implementation phase was managed by IIJ, which is a system integrator. The help for Elasticsearch 7.0, but not so good for Elasticsearch 8.0.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of Elastic Security is not so bad compared to Splunk. I can say that the product is cheaply priced.
What other advice do I have?
In cyber security operations, I use the tool only for troubleshooting or checking the network traffic. I really didn't really use it for security operations.
I am facing trouble creating a security system using Elastic Search. I am also considering other solutions, like Splunk, but I know that small and medium firms don't contact IBM.
The tool's functionality is good for overall security and incident response times.
I have heard from people that the tool generates results.
I would not recommend the product to others. I would recommend Splunk to others.
I rate the tool a six to seven out of ten.
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Chief Technology Officer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Offers great capabilities to detect and respond to threats
Pros and Cons
- "It is an extremely stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
- "Elastic Security can be a bit difficult to use if a person only has experience in SMBs with tools like Zoho. The product can also be difficult for those who have never dealt with query language."
What is our primary use case?
The product is for use cases involving observability, visualization, dashboards, analytics, and security.
What needs improvement?
There is a constant evolution in the product. I think that the solution has a strong roadmap in place. I believe that the tool is going to be a leader in a lot of spaces, considering that it is evolving at a fast rate.
From an improvement perspective, the product should be easier to use for those who don't know query language and have experience with only some basic products in the market.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Elastic Security for more than three years. My company has a partnership with Elastic Security. My company operates as the solution's reseller, and we also manage the tool's implementation.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is an extremely stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is an extremely scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
Whether the product suits small, medium, or enterprise-sized businesses is something that would depend on how you quantify your risks. Elastic Security is an ideal solution for anybody and everybody because it offers a free version of the solution. Small or medium businesses can use the free version of the tool. The solution has very comprehensive capabilities in the free version itself. Enterprises, large corporations, and government organizations can use the tool's paid version because it supports a lot of features from an analytical perspective. The free version doesn't have many analytical features in it. People who want to have a cybersecurity solution in their environment, which may not be specifically Elastic Security, should know the roadmap and the vision, along with a plan on what they want and how they want to go about with the product they want in their company to see where they want to end up in their cybersecurity journey. Your investments will make a lot of sense if you have a clear vision in mind.
Elastic Security is not an ideal product if you are trying to do something very simple or basic with some check mark activities or an audit to show someone that there is some technology used in the company.
How are customer service and support?
I haven't had any single customer of my company telling me that the support of the product is not good. I believe that the product offers great support. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have experience with Elastic Security, Rapid7, and IBM.
How was the initial setup?
I rate the initial setup phase a six or seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.
The product's initial setup phase is neither easy nor difficult. It is easy to manage the setup phase if you know how to do it correctly. Complexity comes along as a part of the tool, especially if it is powerful and has a lot of capabilities. If it is very easy to manage the setup phase of a tool, then it is bound to have some limitations.
The solution is deployed on the cloud, on-premises model, or a hybrid cloud.
It can take a few days to get the product up and running. The time required to deploy the tool depends on the use cases of the user.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product offers an amazing pricing structure. Price-wise, the product is very competitive.
What other advice do I have?
The product has made amazing developments and has gone miles ahead in a short span of time when it comes to its enhanced threat detection and threat response capabilities.
The product has helped manage endpoint security since it serves as a single tool that provides all the functionalities together. After you deploy Elastic Security, you can do everything with it, and there is no need to buy separate products or licenses. Through the setup of Elastic ELK Stack, you can get all the functionalities like SIEM, SOC, threat detection, endpoint detection, user behavior analytics, data analytics, data lake analytics, virtualization, dashboarding, cross-referencing, and threat response.
Elastic Security's most beneficial for security needs steps from the tool's openness. The tool is a highly customizable product, allowing you to play with it as much as you want.
Speaking about real-time data analytics features in Elastic Security improve security posture, the real-time is not real-time natively. You need real-time streaming capabilities, for which you need something like Apache Kafka to stream data. The analytical power of Elastic Security is extremely high. If you can get me data in real-time, I can analyze data in real time with Elastic Security.
The product has introduced generative AI in the tool.
The product has covered all technological advancements a person can think of, and it also has a lot of roadmap for the future development of the solution. The tool is strong and capable.
Elastic Security offers one of the highest integration capabilities I have seen in any kit in the market. The tool offers a lot of out-of-the-box connectors and a lot of certification from a lot of providers across different areas. From a workflow perspective, if you are a customer using a proprietary tool with proprietary mechanisms to manage how work is done, then the integration offered by Elastic Security wouldn't be great. If you have an enterprise-grade product involving firewall solutions, SOC tools, endpoint tools, privilege access management solutions, or any other cybersecurity tools, Elastic Security's integration capabilities would work and help manage your workflows seamlessly.
One of my company's customers told me that the incident response time after the implementation of the product was reduced by half within the first few weeks of the rolling out of the solution in the company.
The product is very user-friendly since it offers generative AI in the dashboard. If you don't know how to do something on the dashboard, you can ask a question, and the solution will guide you. From a user perspective, I would say that the person using the product should be knowledgeable and should know what he wants. The product is not for someone who is a novice. The cybersecurity analyst working on the tool should have a fair understanding of what he wants to achieve with the product. It is okay if a cybersecurity analyst does not know how to write a query in the tool since the product offers help through generative AI. You can ask generative AI how to write a query, and it helps you. Elastic Security can be a bit difficult to use if a person only has experience in SMBs with tools like Zoho. The product can also be difficult for those who have never dealt with query language. It would be easy to move to Elastic Security for those who use Splunk, IBM QRadar, or other enterprise-grade tools.
I rate the overall tool a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Information Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Open-source with good machine learning but users need to be specialized
Pros and Cons
- "ELK is open-source, and it will give you the framework you need to build everything from scratch."
- "There isn't really a very good user experience. You need a lot of training."
What is most valuable?
Overall, the solution is good.
The machine learning aspect of the solution has been great.
The deployment is not that complicated.
ELK is open-source, and it will give you the framework you need to build everything from scratch.
What needs improvement?
The SIEM modules in Logstash, need more improvement. In the future, the modules could be more advanced as right now there are only very basic modules.
We are facing an issue with the engineers. In the region, there are not many available. Only a few people might be available in our particular region, which is a problem.
There isn't really a very good user experience. You need a lot of training. There is an interface with limited options. You need to work with the coding and you need to work with the scripts. It's not simple. If you want to configure something, for example, you need to be a proper programmer.
It would ideal if they had a dashboard. Right now, the only way to see what you need to see is to go through all of the logs.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for one and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the solution is good. However, it depends on the configurations. If the solution is configured properly from the beginning, it will be stable. However, if the solution is not configured from beginning properly, it will not be. This is due to the fact that ELK Elasticsearch gives you the framework only, and the customizations depend on the guys who will be coming to configure everything for the company.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is good, however, there is a certain level of skill that is needed. Due to the lack of trained engineers in the area, this could be a challenge.
How are customer service and support?
We've reached out to technical support in the past. We found that sometimes communication with them was difficult as there was a lack of understanding. This means that it takes a longer time to reach a resolution. However, in the end, when we have had issues, we were able to resolve them, even if it was a bit delayed.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've also worked with LogRhythm and there is no comparison. LogRhythm is the best solution for me. The use cases are better and are readily available. In contrast, with ELK, we need to deploy a lot of things. We need to program people and we need skills and training. We need a lot of things. Even the LogRhythm training is easier than ELK. With ELK, you need to build the customization, rules, everything, from scratch. WithLogRhythm, you just have to enable features.
If a company wants some more specific detailed use cases, then ELK would be better than LogRhythm, however, for a generic use case, LogRhythm is better.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is pretty simple and straightforward. It's not overly complex.
That said, it does require trained specialists, and there just aren't that many in our area.
Overall, I would rate the setup process at a two out of five.
The configuration must be done correctly, and that depends on who is configuring it. If the person configuring it, for example, only has an administrator background, he will configure the administrator stuff. If he has a security background, he will configure for security.
What other advice do I have?
We are a partner.
I'd advise others considering the solution that ELK is a good solution, however, it requires skills and capability. You need to be properly trained with it to get the most out of it.
I would rate the solution at a five out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Consultant at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Fast, highly scalable, and agents don't overload the terminals, but needs a simulation environment, a mobile app, and better documentation
Pros and Cons
- "It is very quick to react. I can set it to check anomalies or suspicious behavior every 30 seconds. It is very fast."
- "Elastic has a lot of beats, such as Winlogbeat and Filebeat. Beats are the agents that have to be installed on the terminals to send the data. When we install beats or Elastic agents on every terminal, they don't overload the terminals. In other SIEM solutions such as Splunk or QRadar, when beats or agents are installed on endpoints, they are very heavy for the terminals. They consume a lot of power of the terminals, whereas Elastic agents hardly consume any power and don't overload the terminals."
- "There should be a simulation environment to check whether my Elastic implementation is functioning perfectly fine. Other solutions have their own Android and iOS applications that I can install on my mobile so that I am continuously connected to the SIEM."
- "Its documentation should be a bit better. I have to spend at least a couple of hours to find the solution for a simple thing. When we buy Elastic, training is not included for free with Elastic. We have to pay extra for the training. They should include training in the price."
What is our primary use case?
There are around 150 pre-built use cases. One of the major use cases is when somebody tries to fiddle with logs, Elastic SIEM creates an alert because logs are the most critical things from the security aspect. For example, I have more than 1,000 terminals, which can be desktops, laptops, or any sort of servers. If somebody tries to delete Windows logs, Elastic SIEM immediately generates an alert indicating that somebody is trying to fiddle with the logs. Elastic SIEM sends me a pop-up message as well as an email.
What is most valuable?
It is very quick to react. I can set it to check anomalies or suspicious behavior every 30 seconds. It is very fast.
Elastic has a lot of beats, such as Winlogbeat and Filebeat. Beats are the agents that have to be installed on the terminals to send the data. When we install beats or Elastic agents on every terminal, they don't overload the terminals. In other SIEM solutions such as Splunk or QRadar, when beats or agents are installed on endpoints, they are very heavy for the terminals. They consume a lot of power of the terminals, whereas Elastic agents hardly consume any power and don't overload the terminals.
What needs improvement?
There should be a simulation environment to check whether my Elastic implementation is functioning perfectly fine. Other competitors provide a simulation environment so that I can simulate an IT attack and see how my solution is reacting or giving me alerts. I have not found any such feature in Elastic.
Other solutions have their own Android and iOS applications that I can install on my mobile so that I am continuously connected to the SIEM. This is something missing in Elastic. There is no mobile app.
Its documentation should be a bit better. I have to spend at least a couple of hours to find the solution for a simple thing. The documentation should be more precise and much better than what their counterparts are offering.
When we buy Elastic, training is not included for free with Elastic. We have to pay extra for the training. They should include training in the price.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is, for sure, reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is highly scalable. We at least have two dozen people who are using it. Some people may be using only a part of it, and some may be fully involved in it.
We have plans to increase its usage. We are ready with a running full-fledged server, and we can even handle data for potential customers. We are definitely planning to widen its usage.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have interacted with them. They are quite responsive, and they do respond within the SLA.
How was the initial setup?
I was not there when the deployment was done, but based on what I have heard, it was complex because of the server deployment and cluster formation, and it took at least two months.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Its price is fine. Its licensing works on a yearly basis. We have to renew the license every year.
I also have a good experience with Darktrace. When we buy Darktrace, we get training free of cost, which is not there in Elastic. We have to pay extra for training. There is certainly room for improvement.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I was not in this company when this was chosen.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise going for the latest version, but it may or may not be backward compatible. Nowadays, version 7.12 is the latest version, and I see that it is actually not compatible with the older versions.
I would rate Elastic SIEM a seven 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. Partner
Red Team Operator at Argentina Red Team
Makes data communication easier
Pros and Cons
- "Elastic Security makes data communication easier."
- "The solution should generate an automatic product that integrates with ELK Stack to use artificial intelligence."
What is most valuable?
Elastic Security makes data communication easier.
What needs improvement?
The solution should generate an automatic product that integrates with ELK Stack to use artificial intelligence.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is not expensive and costs around ten dollars a month.
What other advice do I have?
The solution allows you to generate alerts. You can automatically detect and configure mail in some addresses and automatically identify the identity that you have in your system. This is important for confidentiality in order to control the risks in identifying the users. The solution also uses artificial intelligence to identify anyone using your system.
We use the solution to monitor the activities of the people in the organization to prevent attacks in a controlled environment. We use the tool to observe the behavior of attacks and how to mitigate them. Today, security is more important than people know. You need to know who has access to your network, repository, or cell phone.
Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

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Updated: October 2025
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