Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Chronosphere vs Cribl comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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

Chronosphere
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
32nd
Ranking in Log Management
30th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
AIOps (18th)
Cribl
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
9th
Ranking in Log Management
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (8th), Observability Pipeline Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Chronosphere is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cribl is 1.2%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cribl1.2%
Chronosphere0.7%
Other98.1%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Arvind Pant - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Engineer at DoorDash, Inc.
Monitors pipelines with real-time alerts and good documentation
It isn't very easy. It's not easy for everyone. It would be much easier if there could be a simpler version, like a data number version or an SQL version. It's hard to debug if you don't know the syntax. Also, I saw the Slack alerts feature, which is pretty cool, but I cannot customize my messages on the Slack alerts. It would be great if it were possible to tag people in the alerts. At DoorDash, we have hundreds of pipelines, and if something fails, I want to tag specific people so they can start working on the issue immediately.
Aman Verma - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Has helped reduce daily log volume significantly and streamline data routing across multiple destinations
Regarding complexity, as I mentioned before, Cribl is very simple to use. When I started 2.5 years ago, it was very easy to learn. I learned Cribl within a week, and even though I was a fresher at the time, it was easy to understand and not complex enough that someone would need to spend money on labs. It's not that complex to learn. Regarding cost efficiency, it's very good because nowadays the SIEM tools we use are too expensive on license, and SIEM tools base their license on how many logs get ingested. The unwanted logs, particularly firewall logs, represent a significant portion of unnecessary ingestion. Cribl saves our license by filtering out half of the firewall logs that are unwanted. Our main purpose for using Cribl is to save our license and save money. Currently, everyone is moving toward AI agents. We currently use regex, and AI agents could help us create those regex patterns to drop events or add raw data to events. Currently, we sit down, review the logs, and create regex patterns manually, which can be time-consuming. An AI agent could reduce this time. I read some articles indicating that Cribl Cloud has started using AI and considering MCPs and model context, but I'm not certain how far along they are. If Cribl asked me what they could improve, that would be my suggestion. The support is very good, and I had a few issues with Cribl where I raised support cases and received good responses, which is better than the quick response I didn't get from other SIEM tools and vendor tools I use. Compared to other SIEM tools, Cribl is cheaper than Splunk and DataDogs. However, it's still a bit expensive from my point of view, though I won't call it expensive. Overall, I think 99% of companies use Cribl before their SIEM tools, and compared to SIEM tools, Cribl is cheaper. Companies can use any SIEM tool such as Google, Splunk, or Cisco, and Cribl is cheaper than those SIEM tools. They might have a slight chance to reduce costs further, but I'm not the correct person to evaluate that since I'm more focused on the operational side. Regarding training, it was quite easy to grasp. It took me almost a week to understand the basic functionalities and what Cribl does. Getting more expertise took additional time, but basic functionalities and understanding what Cribl does took around four to five days. One point I want to mention is that Cribl could improve their labs or training materials in their Cribl Cloud or whatever portal they have.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The alerting features are good"
"Cribl's interface is user-friendly and easy to learn, making it simple to teach new users how to use it."
"Cribl is specifically designed to reduce the data costs associated with the destination platform, which is one of its core offerings."
"The capability to reduce logs in a user-friendly manner is a standout feature. Cribl allows us to view logs live as they are being processed, giving us quick feedback on the changes made."
"Cribl search has affected us greatly, and it has optimized our operations teams' time and efficiency; they're able to troubleshoot and find issues for our customers in a minimal amount of time."
"The best feature in Cribl, when getting logs from some custom application, is the ability to break up logs that pile up together and come as one event."
"The platform's most valuable feature is the ability to transform data in real-time within the pipeline without sending it to a destination."
"When it comes to the product's installation phase, it is not tough for people who have good knowledge...The tool is worth the investment."
"Enhancing those events to optimize, to add new fields or to remove the extra fields that are of no use helps us in log reduction by dumping the raw logs and only ingesting the interested fields, which helps us in 50 to 60% volume reduction."
 

Cons

"It's not easy for everyone."
"The sys logging could be enhanced to make it easier to identify errors, especially when dealing with multiple functions."
"When I explored the endpoint, I found myself wishing for clearer instructions presented in a sequential manner."
"One area that could be improved is the aggregation functionality within Cribl."
"Regarding Cribl's ability to contain data cost and complexity, if they can reduce their cost, that will make them more competitive."
"Currently, we sit down, review the logs, and create regex patterns manually, which can be time-consuming."
"I do not think that if the pricing is on the higher side, it could be suitable for all types of users, such as small or medium ones."
"It would be really nice to be able to see Cribl gain insights from the data as the data is in stream, in flight, on the way to wherever its final storage destination is."
"Cribl can improve by providing automated analytics and advanced parsing capabilities since it handles data at its core."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The product pricing is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"I would not say it is a cheaply priced tool as it has been doing wonders in the market. The tool has been budget-friendly for organizations."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Transportation Company
15%
Retailer
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Chronosphere?
It isn't very easy. It's not easy for everyone. It would be much easier if there could be a simpler version, like a data number version or an SQL version. It's hard to debug if you don't know the s...
What is your primary use case for Chronosphere?
I work as a data engineer, and we have many streaming pipelines. We use Chronosphere to monitor various metrics, such as how much data our pipeline is processing in each batch, the volume of incomi...
What advice do you have for others considering Chronosphere?
If you want to monitor pipelines and use something like Kafka or any streaming platform, Chronosphere is the best option for monitoring pipelines with real-time alerts. It is loosely coupled with y...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cribl?
I'm not sure of Cribl pricing because it has been procured as a package by our client, and we are not exposed to or do not have an idea of how much they have spent to get a license from Cribl. But ...
What needs improvement with Cribl?
I am not in a position to comment on how Cribl could be improved or enhanced because it is a good tool, and I have only used a small part of the entire Cribl product. As of now I am pretty happy wi...
What is your primary use case for Cribl?
My usual use cases for Cribl involve collecting logs from many endpoints, including user activities. We collect logs into either Log Analytical Workspace or Event Hub and redirect to Cribl so that ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunk and others in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.