Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users
Consultant at RIPEN
Real User
Straightforward to set up, and has a good search capability, in particular, its way of writing the search query and the speed of searching for results
Pros and Cons
  • "What customers found most valuable in Elastic Security feature-wise is the search capability, in particular, the way of writing the search query and the speed of searching for results."
  • "An area for improvement in Elastic Security is the pricing. It could be better. Right now, when you increase the volume of logs to be collected, the price also increases a lot."

What is our primary use case?

My customers use Elastic Security for security monitoring, threat hunting, and threat identification.

What is most valuable?

What customers found most valuable in Elastic Security feature-wise is the search capability, in particular, the way of writing the search query and the speed of searching for results.

What needs improvement?

An area for improvement in Elastic Security is the pricing. It could be better. Right now, when you increase the volume of logs to be collected, the price also increases a lot.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with Elastic Security for four to five years now.

Buyer's Guide
Elastic Security
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Elastic Security. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
816,562 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Elastic Security is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

In terms of scalability, Elastic Security is pretty scalable.

How are customer service and support?

I haven't escalated any issues with the Elastic Security technical support team.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

In comparison with other similar solutions in the market, customers go with Elastic Security because of its scalability and its good performance. The solution has a good search feature, especially when a large volume of logs needs to be collected. Elastic Security also gives you pretty good results compared to other solutions.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup for Elastic Security is quite straightforward. For the cloud version of the solution, it's easy because it requires no installation. If you're setting up the on-premises version of Elastic Security, then it would take around three to four days to complete.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing cost of Elastic Security is based on the daily ingestion rate. I can't recall the exact figure, but for 10GB of log action daily, it would cost around $20,000.

What other advice do I have?

I've had customers for Elastic Security in the last twelve months.

Elastic Security requires maintenance, especially in a scaled-up environment, because you have multiple machines that work in a cluster environment, so you'll need some advanced skills to maintain that cluster. The solution becomes harder to maintain once it's scaled up.

Elastic Security is a pretty straightforward solution I'd recommend to others, though you'd need a person who'll pick up the query or search language because Elastic Security requires a lot of query language, so you can search for data on it. There's a special search query pattern you have to remember before you can do the search or for you to do a better search. You can always do a normal search on Elastic Security, but if you want to have better search results or more accurate results, you need to learn the query language first.

My rating for Elastic Security is eight out of ten because of its good performance and scalability. Its good search feature is very important for the use cases of my customers, but I deducted two points because the pricing for Elastic Security could still be improved.

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
PeerSpot user
reviewer1569672 - PeerSpot reviewer
Devops/SRE tech lead at a transportation company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Scalable with good logging functionality and good stability
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is quite stable. The performance has been good."
  • "The problem with ELK is it's difficult to administer. When you have a problem, it can be very, very difficult to rebuild indexes."

What is our primary use case?

We do not use monitoring due to the fact that we use Prometheus for monitoring. We don't use APM and so on. We use ELK only for logging.

What is most valuable?

The solution has very good logging functionality. 

The aggregation capability is quite useful. 

The solution is quite stable. The performance has been good.

The solution scales well.

The solution has gotten easier to deploy since the 2019 version.

What needs improvement?

Using ELK the first time there was a lack of security. We had to buy the paid version due to the fact that we needed to secure access to Kubernetes.

The problem with ELK is it's difficult to administer. When you have a problem, it can be very, very difficult to rebuild indexes. In fact, you have to monitor the stack and it's very, very difficult. Sometimes we lose indexes or we have nothing on the dashboard.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for about two years at this point. It hasn't been an extremely long amount of time.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. It's reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution can scale. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so pretty easily.

We use the solution for quite a small team. Ten people work on it.

How are customer service and technical support?

Due to the fact that we have a paid version of the product, technical support has been fine. We've been satisfied with the level of service provided to us. They are quite helpful and responsive.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, we were on Datadog, Kubernetes Logs. It was not very easy to debug incidents and so on. If I had to compare, I'd say that Datadog is very easy to implement and it's such a fast solution.

How was the initial setup?

The first time, it was very hard to deploy on Kubernetes. However, as we reached version seven, they are now an operator. Now it's very easy to deploy. We no longer have any issues.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is a bit expensive. I don't know the pricing of Datadog, which is what we used to use, however, it's my understanding that it is very expensive also. 

What other advice do I have?

We are a customer and an end-user. We do not have a business relationship with ELK.

The solution is deployed on Kubernetes in Azure.

I would advise other companies and users not to mix monitoring and logging. It's not the same purpose. Many people do monitoring by scanning logs. It's not a good idea. The good idea is to monitor separately. In case of incidents, you have to monitor metrics and logins for the root cause. It's important to separate this, and not treat them as the same thing.

I'd rate the solution at an 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?

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Elastic Security
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Elastic Security. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
816,562 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1269834 - PeerSpot reviewer
I.T. Manager at a healthcare company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Analyses your security data quickly and effectively
Pros and Cons
  • "Just the ability to do a lot more than just up-down is nice, which a lot of people take for granted."
  • "The biggest challenge has been related to the implementation."

What is our primary use case?

We plan to use it to analyze the data that we're pumping into it from Active Directory and from firewalls, then we'll pass that information onto our own external SOC.

What is most valuable?

We really haven't had any significant SIEM solutions, so it's all new to us, other than a simple up-down solution. Just the ability to do a lot more than just up-down is nice, which a lot of people take for granted.

What needs improvement?

The biggest challenge has been related to the implementation. It's a very complex product which, without a lot of knowledge or a lot of training, it's very difficult to get into and make use of. They try and make a lot of the general features very simple to access; a lot of the dashboards are very simple to use and so forth, but a lot of the refined capabilities take serious skills. They're not necessarily the easiest to implement.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been trying to implement it and get it up and going for a good three to four months now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Elastic SIEM is pretty stable. I did have a problem during one of the upgrades, but customer support was able to resolve it for me quickly. Other than that, it's been very reliable and stable.

How are customer service and technical support?

The customer service is great; not a whole lot of back-and-forth going on.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was pretty straightforward.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's a monthly cost with Elastic SIEM, but I am not sure of the exact cost.

What other advice do I have?

In our case, being a medium-sized business, it takes a lot of resources to learn how to properly use and implement it — you need to have a good understanding. They give you a very good framework and a very good solution to work with, but there's a lot of intuition that's required to actually make it work well. It requires a lot more effort than they would lead you to believe or that you would even expect.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of eight. This is based on my experiences from the past as we're still implementing it.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Technical Team Lead at Quester
Real User
Simplifies process of bug identification and tracking using application log files
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature for me is Discover."
  • "I would like the process of retrieving archived data and viewing it in Kibana to be simplified."

What is our primary use case?

I was using this product up until recently when I changed companies, but I have been asked to implement logging in my new role and this is one of the options that I am considering.

It was used in conjunction with Kibana to examine our logs and perform debugging. When a user complained about misbehavior in an application, we would research the logs, test, and try to find out where the bug is.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature for me is Discover. I have not used all of the features, so I can't say that this will be best for everyone.

What needs improvement?

I would like the process of retrieving archived data and viewing it in Kibana to be simplified.

We ran into trouble once or twice regarding problems with timestamps that came about because of issues with memory. Consequently, the correct data was not logged and it had to be done again.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used this product for about eight months, up until about two months ago.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We were using this solution once or twice every couple of weeks when we encountered a bug. I found that it was stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have not tested scalability. In my previous company, there were 20 people on the team, but only the backend developers were using ELK Logstash. This was perhaps 10 users.

How are customer service and technical support?

We hosted this solution ourselves, so there was no technical support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have used Graylog in the past, but it was self-hosted and the experience wasn't great.

How was the initial setup?

I did not do the initial setup myself.

What about the implementation team?

My colleague deployed this solution for me.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

This is an open-source product, so there are no costs.

What other advice do I have?

When my colleague set up this application, it was configured such that every seven days, the data is archived into long-term storage. When I needed something from the archived logs, it was easy to retrieve and I could look through them again. This is something that I would suggest doing.

My suggestion for anybody who is implementing ELK Logstash is to make sure that the entire team knows how to use it. If only one person knows it and takes care of it, then it is not a very productive experience. On the other hand, if everybody is familiar with it, the experience will be much better.

This is definitely a product that I recommend using.

I would rate this solution an 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?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Junior System Engineer at Efficom-lille
Real User
Enables us to retrieve data from various servers and sources so we can detect errors
Pros and Cons
  • "I use the stack every morning to check the errors and it's just so clear. I don't see any disadvantage to using Logstash."
  • "One thing they could add is a quick step to enable users who don't have a solid background to build a dashboard and quickly search, without difficulty."

What is our primary use case?

We use Logstash to retrieve data from our servers, from different sources, to our Elastic Stack. There, Elastic Search allows us to search it, and we can visualize the data with Kibana.

What is most valuable?

I use the stack every morning to check the errors and it's just so clear. I don't see any disadvantage to using Logstash.

What needs improvement?

Our system architect has noticed a slowdown of the solution, but I don't see a slowdown.

One thing they could add is a quick step to enable users who don't have a solid background to build a dashboard and quickly search, without difficulty.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Elastic Stack for about three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. We also monitor the Elastic Stack health and it's been a while since we have had an issue. The stability doesn't cause any problems. It's good. We haven't had any major issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

For now, we haven't had any problems. I'm just a user. I'm not the one responsible for the total solution. I use Kibana for the dashboard to detect any errors in our servers.

But for the future, perhaps we will need to scale our solution because we deploy new components and we implement new servers on Azure. 

How are customer service and technical support?

The solution is maintained by dedicated architects who provide us with a solid platform. There is no direct support from Elastic Stack. We don't have any issue or any problem which requires support.

How was the initial setup?

I'm a system engineer. The architects who set up these solutions did it before I worked here.

I learned how to use it by doing searches and finding information about it.  I learned to use it very quickly. The documentation is very simple to use, as long as you have some technical background in computers.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Elastic Stack is an open-source tool. You don't have to pay anything for the components.

What other advice do I have?

Think carefully about how you will build the solution so that it is a high-availability solution. That is the trick when using Elastic Stack. Examine what your needs are.

I would rate Logstash at eight out of 10. I think the solution is really complete, with the components it has. It is a good solution. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Saad Leghari - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Enterprise Architect at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 20
A flexible and open solution that supports varieties of integrations
Pros and Cons
  • "The product has huge integration varieties available."
  • "The tool needs to integrate with legacy servers. Big companies can have legacy servers that may not always be updated."

What is most valuable?

The product has huge integration varieties available. 

What needs improvement?

The tool needs to integrate with legacy servers. Big companies can have legacy servers that may not always be updated. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with the solution for the last eight months. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable and flexible. My company has 20 users for the product. 

How are customer service and support?

We had relied on in-house support initially. However, we understand now that there are a few areas where we need to have vendor support. So we have contacted a few different companies and contractors for it. In the beginning, it may be possible to do support in-house. However, if you have a lot of commercial production environment services, then it is very hard to do without vendor support. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We decided to use the solution because it was a very promising tool and other alternatives had limitations. The tool has availability, data infrastructure, data uptime, etc. The solution is quite flexible in terms of cost. You don't need to buy a license for each and everything. Whenever you require a license, you can just buy it. I think these are the two main drivers. The product is quite open in terms of integration with machine learning which helps us with proactive monitoring. 

How was the initial setup?

The product's initial setup is very easy. I think the most important point is how you design your infrastructure because the solution is quite open. So you have to design it based on the nature of the data. You also need to get a life cycle so that there is no load on the storage. The solution's flexibility depends on how you design it. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The tool's pricing is flexible and comes at unit cost. You don't have to pay for everything. 

What other advice do I have?

I would rate the product an eight out of ten. You should use the solution if you want to have a very detailed machine-learning artificial intelligence. However, for certain production licenses, you need to prepare. It is open to different configurations and can just fit according to your requirements. This is one of the solution's good parts. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Cloud Engineer at GARR
Real User
A stable solution for collecting authentication information from service providers
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the ability to collect authentication information from service providers."
  • "Anything that supports high availability or ease of deployment in a highly available environment would help to improve this solution."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use of this solution is to gather authentication information and use it to determine which identity provider is breaking on which service provider. We store it as anonymized session information for each user.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the ability to collect authentication information from service providers.

What needs improvement?

Configuring the server is difficult and can be improved.

I would like to have a high availability set up that is easy to configure. Anything that supports high availability or ease of deployment in a highly available environment would help to improve this solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

I had been using Logstash for about three years. I am no longer using it but the people that I used to work with are.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We did not have any issues in terms of stability or performance.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability was not a problem for us.

How are customer service and technical support?

We did not have to contact technical support.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

Our deployment took quite some time but it was not because of Logstash issues. It was a more complex situation because we didn't have access to all of the nodes that we wanted to forward. So, it took between 10 and 15 months to deploy, although it was for administrative reasons as opposed to technical ones.

What about the implementation team?

I had my own team for working with this solution but it was not for a single company. Our team was associated with a European partner and it was distributed around European cities.

What other advice do I have?

My advice for anybody who is implementing this system is to set it up so that you can manage it remotely.

Overall, this product does what it is supposed to do, although there is always room for improvement.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Sudeera Mudugamuwa - PeerSpot reviewer
Co-Founder at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 5
It's a scalable REST API-based solution
Pros and Cons
  • "We like Elastic Security because it's a REST API-based solution. That's the primary reason we use it."
  • "I would like more ways to manage permissions and restrict access to certain users."

What is our primary use case?

We use Elastic Security to manage logs and time series data. More recently, we have used it for NetFlow data. 

What is most valuable?

We like Elastic Security because it's a REST API-based solution. That's the primary reason we use it. 

What needs improvement?

I would like more ways to manage permissions and restrict access to certain users. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We started using Elastic Security four years ago. 

How was the initial setup?

The setup is comparable to similar products. It isn't too easy or hard. We deployed it in-house. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We tried Graylog and a few other things, but I found Elastic Security is easier to understand. There's a lot of documentation available, and their forums are great. Another advantage is greater scalability. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Elastic Security nine out of 10. 

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.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Elastic Security Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: November 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Elastic Security Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.