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Cribl vs Grafana Loki comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 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

Cribl
Ranking in Log Management
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (14th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (13th), Observability Pipeline Software (1st)
Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Cribl is 1.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana Loki is 8.5%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Phanindra Ponnada - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good documentation and worth the investment
As of now, there are some environments where some organizations are still on legacy infrastructure, so they are still in virtual environments and are using old versions of devices. Some companies bought Splunk, while others bought Cribl for a very low-priced license. There are some protocols to connect from Cribl to Splunk. I understand Cribl has come into the market very recently, but the tool might have had a picture in its mind where organizations might also have some legacy infrastructure. In the future, with our protocols or our level of architecture, Cribl should not come and say that it is not compatible with them. If Cribl is the reason because I have to change my environment, then I will have to end up investing more. There are some organizations where the end machines have forwarders that forward the data to Cribl, and from it, the data is forwarded to Splunk. This is how general architecture works. There are two methods of connection between Cribl and Splunk. One is the S2S protocol, which collects logs from Cribl or sends data between Cribl and Splunk. There is another method called HTTP Event Collector (HEC) and HTTPS protocol. With Cribl, connecting to Splunk mostly uses the S2S protocol. The tool supports all the latest devices and platform devices, like all the latest operating systems. There are some organizations where there is legacy infrastructure or if they are still on the old platforms. Companies using old platforms have to consider HTTP Event Collector (HEC), and then they have to change their infrastructure setup in order to fulfill that setup. In order to have Google and Splunk set up in my organization, if I have to change my existing infrastructure connectivity or setup, that might incur more cost or more investment for me to have Cribl and Splunk. Cribl should provide compatibility, or else the tool's developers should speak to the people of such organizations and understand the challenges. Cribl could have developed some version that can give backward compatibility.
CarlosPimentel - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient log filtering enhances quick network troubleshooting
We use Grafana Loki for various verticals including manufacturing, finance, health, and aerospatial sectors. It primarily helps in monitoring security and access to devices. Grafana dashboards are used to track access success and failure and audit commands issued on devices Loki significantly…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"The platform's most valuable feature is the ability to transform data in real-time within the pipeline without sending it to a destination."
"The support team was very helpful and managed to get everything production-ready."
"Features such as Cribl Stream, Cribl LogStream, and Cribl Edge have been the most beneficial. The Cribl LogStream, in particular, is valuable for routing data, creating firewalls on pipelines, and putting security measures in place to ensure data reaches its destination without issues."
"My favorite option in Cribl is the Stream product."
"Cribl offers easy plugin configurations and source collection settings, allowing us to collect logs from any source."
"The product's most valuable features include the internal management of events, coding perspective, data processing, and serialization."
"The best feature of Grafana Loki is that it integrates well with our other tool."
"We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics."
"Grafana agent is very lightweight and does not cost significant resources of our cluster."
"The most valuable feature of Grafana Loki is the dashboards which are really simple to create."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the tool's GUI. The solution's GUI is very user-friendly."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source tool that is stable and flexible."
"The solution's stability has never been a problem. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine to ten out of ten."
"Loki also utilizes the same service discovery mechanism as used by Prometheus. So, whatever labeled metadata you see in Prometheus, you have the exact same metadata in the Loki system. Given this level of intricacy and the attempt to address these challenges, I firmly believe that Loki deserves praise for the work."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the documentation and knowledge base, particularly regarding configurations like sources where logs are being ingested"
"There is no alerting mechanism for the leader/worker nodes status."
"The sys logging could be enhanced to make it easier to identify errors, especially when dealing with multiple functions."
"There have been several administrative issues. Another point is that the browsing functions aren't very intuitive."
"Cribl could improve by offering easier integrations with enterprise products, similar to what Splunk provides."
"Perhaps more flexibility in terms of metrics would be helpful."
"Cribl should consider adding more features that are applicable to smaller firms, allowing broader access to their data migration through Cribl."
"Cribl doesn't have as many packs available"
"The Docker container partition feature needs improvement as they do not reuse the space and goes into a pending state."
"There is a need for some change in the alerting types of the product. In short, a few changes in the alert area are needed due to minor shortcomings."
"I do not see any areas for improvement at the moment."
"Enhancing speed could be a game-changer, and while it might vary depending on the application, it's a factor worth exploring."
"It's not intended for proprietary services, so you have to struggle with configuration a lot."
"The correlation of requests is not simple in Grafana Loki and can be improved."
"The solution's scalability depends on the team managing the Grafana instance."
"Visualization-wise, Grafana Loki's dashboard looks a little outdated compared to other open-source visualization tools like Chronograf."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Grafana Loki is an open-source solution."
"I use the open-source version of the product."
"I use the solution's open-source version. Grafana Loki is a completely free solution for me."
"The solution is open source."
"My company doesn't need to pay for the licensing cost of the solution."
"You can use the free version of Grafana Loki on-premises."
"Grafana Loki is a free, open-source solution."
"Since we are using the open-source version of Grafana Loki, we are not paying anything for the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cribl?
I am not aware of the pricing details, however, I know they use a credit format for billing.
What needs improvement with Cribl?
At the moment, I don't have specific feedback on what can be improved as I do not work with Cribl daily. Perhaps more flexibility in terms of metrics would be helpful.
What is your primary use case for Cribl?
I am using Cribl to have everything centralized in one tool in terms of data collection. We were working with different Splunk customers, and Cribl helps collect data and then send it to an S3 buck...
What do you like most about Grafana Loki?
We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana Loki?
We use the open-source version of Loki. The cloud version is competitively priced compared to other market solutions.
What needs improvement with Grafana Loki?
It would be beneficial if Loki could directly access Windows Server logs or events directly from the servers.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Cribl vs. Grafana Loki and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,485 professionals have used our research since 2012.