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AWS X-Ray vs Elastic Observability comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 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

AWS X-Ray
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
28th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Elastic Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (15th), Log Management (16th), Container Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of AWS X-Ray is 1.0%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Observability is 1.5%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Elastic Observability1.5%
AWS X-Ray1.0%
Other97.5%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Muhmad Tabrez A Deewanji - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Software Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Improving performance through efficient trace metrics and data insights
As an application developer and architect, I appreciate AWS X-Ray for checking latency and identifying bottlenecks. I use it for performance tuning, conducting performance testing on applications, getting real-time traces, and gaining data insights. It helps in improving throughput and tuning infrastructure. The trace metrics and data collected provide valuable insights.
Mohammed-Abdelalim - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Vice President at QualityKiosk Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Has provided powerful customization for unique monitoring needs but needs more out-of-the-box capabilities
In my opinion, the best features of Elastic Observability are their flexibility to integrate with other existing systems and the ability to build a unified monitoring tool that can integrate with existing ones and end-to-end user journeys which require a lot of customizations. The greatest feature in Elastic is the ability to customize. This is similar to my comments about customizable dashboards in Elastic because it's visible to the analyst. However, it's very great. Customizing these dashboards can meet the customer's specific use cases and specific stories that they have in their environment, their special environment that doesn't look like other environments. The dashboarding in Elastic is highly customizable to the level of logos. If the customer wants his company logo in the dashboard, it can be done.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most promising feature of AWS X-Ray is that you can debug the issues through the proper logs. You can also get an analysis out of the logs for some use cases, though I have yet to try all the features of AWS X-Ray."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"AWS X-Ray's endpoints and user monitoring are considered the most valuable features."
"The solution has made it easier for us to trace the problems that we have with our requests and to monitor the timing of each step in each request we do in our endpoints."
"AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process."
"AWS X-Ray shows us exactly when there are delays, helping us understand the depth of issues and what is happening point-to-point."
"The most beneficial feature is that it shows a dashboard for performance intervals, which reveals latencies."
"AWS X-RAY identifies bottlenecks in terms of stability and performance and how long certain data lives in terms of response time and duration."
"The solution has been stable in our usage."
"The solution allows us to track performance via metrics and we're able to see where latency is happening."
"The ability to ensure that the data is searchable and maintainable is highly valuable for our purposes."
"I recommend Elastic Observability for its completeness of vision and wide ecosystem."
"It is scalable and supports multitenancy, which is beneficial for MSPs."
"The product has connectors to many services."
"It has always been a stable solution."
"The price is very less expensive compared to the other solutions."
 

Cons

"They can improve how traces are sent to other providers."
"The challenges we faced with AWS X-Ray were that some of the AWS services we were using did not support it, which we discovered at a later stage."
"AWS X-Ray should improve its implementation process to make it easier for developers."
"Compared to other open-source tools, AWS X-Ray needs improvement in providing discounts."
"It should have X-Ray SDKs for different languages like Node.js, Python, or Java."
"Like most Amazon products, the user interface, configuration, and tuning aren't the easiest. That's the biggest reason why people tend to go to products like TerraForm and Terragrunt. We use TerraForm and Terragrunt. So, for setting things up and interacting with X-Ray, it's definitely the user interface that can be better."
"A significant downside is that it is very expensive."
"The user interface is sometimes kind of confusing to understand. It's not very user-friendly."
"I would advise others to use a different solution than Elastic APM."
"There could be more low-code features included in the product."
"I would have preferred built-in tools to manage the indexes on deployment for better visual representation, as the initial feedback regarding system performance and data storage was fairly primitive and lacking."
"When opening tickets, we cannot use our team mailbox."
"It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like network observability, package flow analysis, and device performance data on the infrastructure side."
"Improving code insight related to infrastructure and network, particularly focusing on aspects such as firewalls, switches, routers, and testing would be beneficial."
"Elastic Observability needs to improve the retrieval of logs and metrics from all the instances."
"Simplifying the parsing of logs and manual efforts would also be beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As you develop a relationship with Amazon, your pricing gets lower. You get credits for the amount of the system you use, and then if you're the government, you can get government pricing. For commercial users, there's a hump when you go from small to medium to big enterprise. Small businesses can live pretty easily off the free tier in a lot of cases, but when you go from a medium to a big enterprise, it becomes more expensive on a per-user basis. I'd like to see that curve going in a different way where pricing can be driven down while people are trying to adopt the technology."
"The pricing for AWS X-Ray is a six out of ten."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."
"We have been using the open-source version."
"Elastic Observability's pricing could be better for small-scale users."
"We will buy a premium license after POC."
"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."
"The product is not that cheap."
"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."
"The product’s pricing needs improvement."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS X-Ray?
While I have not compared it with GCP or Azure ( /products/microsoft-azure-reviews ), AWS generally offers cost-effective services. Some services, like Athena ( /products/odyssey-software-athena-eo...
What needs improvement with AWS X-Ray?
The challenges we faced with AWS X-Ray were that some of the AWS services we were using did not support it, which we discovered at a later stage. This was potentially a design consideration we shou...
What is your primary use case for AWS X-Ray?
I have been using AWS X-Ray for creating insights to our applications we have developed. It is used to correlate different services in AWS when a transaction happens, allowing us to see the flow of...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?
The problem is their licensing model, which is a bit confusing. Many customers struggle to understand their total cost of ownership because Elastic licensing is not dependent on easy, quantifiable ...
What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?
After careful consideration about areas for improvement in Elastic Observability, aspects such as pricing, customization, implementation, and scalability could be improved. As a user of the system,...
What is your primary use case for Elastic Observability?
My use case for Elastic Observability is observability, as we upload our customers' data, including logs, and when there is an issue, we can analyze what went wrong.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

COMCAST, ConnectWise, skyscanner, AirAsia, cookpad, cimpress, VTEX, zowdow
PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS X-Ray vs. Elastic Observability and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.