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Cribl vs Logstash comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (12th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (10th), Observability Pipeline Software (1st)
Logstash
Ranking in Log Management
24th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Cribl is 2.5%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Logstash is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cribl2.5%
Logstash0.7%
Other96.8%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Manoj Gowda J - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps reduce log ingestion cost by dropping unnecessary events and customizing pipelines
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. Cribl has a feature called JSON Unroll or Unroll function that allows you to differentiate the events; each event will come ingested as a single log instead of piling it up with multiple events. This is critical as this generally happens in CrowdStrike. This feature helps us significantly. When the ingestion is high from unwanted logs, logs not related to security purposes can be dropped by writing the parser function. By dropping events that are not required for security purpose monitoring, we can reduce the ingestion, which drastically reduces the cost as well. Cribl gives another option where I can store some logs, and when needed, I can pick them up from there. The interface is very handy and not very complicated, yet there are many functions you can perform. You can play around with numerous functions, parse there, and add UDMs to SecOps, which makes it really easy. To simplify the pipeline, when we go to the pipelines, there are vast options. We can make it specific requirements based on the customers. I would prefer a customized or simplified version. Cribl is a very good platform to work with, with lots of features that other platforms don't provide.
PRANIL CHANDARKAR - PeerSpot reviewer
Open-source accessibility and ease of implementation empower adaptable log management
As both a customer and an integrator, I think the best features in Logstash are that people prefer it because it is open to all, as it is an open-source version. The functionality of Logstash is quite easy to implement. I can say that the plugin ecosystem of Logstash is great. I have used some plugins for shell script monitoring and for SQL monitoring, and these are all working well with Logstash. The real-time processing capabilities of Logstash are also pretty fine with the tool. When I use the community edition, I have to do many things manually. If I am using enterprise Elastic, then that is taken care of by the Elastic native machine learning.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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 offers other valuable features. For instance, you can replay data from an edge device, store your daily data in a stream, and replay specific event data into Splunk if a security incident occurs"
"The product's most valuable features include the internal management of events, coding perspective, data processing, and serialization."
"The support team was very helpful and managed to get everything production-ready."
"Cribl definitely helps with the complexity because you don't have to push for deployment—they provide the interface where you can mimic what the output will look like, and you can see that in real time when setting up the Cribl configuration, which definitely helps considerably."
"Logstash has numerous plugins for inputs and outputs, allowing it to work well in environments that do not contain other Elastic components."
"The transformation means we ship the logs in the way that we want them to be presented in Kibana, which is the main function we use Logstash for."
"We have three or four Logstash servers for high availability."
"I can collect logs from various data sources, including hardware."
"Everything aligns well with improving our organization."
 

Cons

"Perhaps more flexibility in terms of metrics would be helpful."
"There is room for improvement in the documentation and knowledge base, particularly regarding configurations like sources where logs are being ingested"
"Cribl should consider adding more features that are applicable to smaller firms, allowing broader access to their data migration through Cribl."
"When I explored the endpoint, I found myself wishing for clearer instructions presented in a sequential manner."
"We encountered some issues with the syslog data stream, particularly with handling large databases and extensive data logs."
"Cribl doesn't have as many packs available"
"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."
"The product needs to improve its compatibility."
"An enhancement we could implement is the ability to cluster Logstash to exist in more than one node."
"Almost all the research can be very bad. We still have a problem with importing the log system."
"We still have a problem with importing the log system."
"Elastic does not provide proper support for Logstash worldwide, and I rate their technical support as one out of ten."
"There can be a UI to implement with Logstash. Currently, I have to work with config files and everything."
 

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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
9%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cribl?
Cribl is very inexpensive, with enterprise pricing around 30 cents per GB, which is really decent. Organizations looking to ingest terabytes or petabytes of data each day find it quite an inexpensi...
What needs improvement with Cribl?
They've already done many good things with the product, but perhaps they could implement a temporary SIEM solution where we could store logs and display them as a SIEM, though I think that's not th...
What is your primary use case for Cribl?
Our main use case for Cribl was SIEM migration, where we merged multiple SIEM solutions to a single SIEM solution. SIEM migration was the most major use case we were looking for. The second use cas...
What do you like most about Logstash?
I can collect logs from various data sources, including hardware.
What needs improvement with Logstash?
Customization can be automated with Logstash, but it is at the developer's disposal. The developer has to do it, not the tool as such. There is scope for optimization, but that is all outside the t...
What is your primary use case for Logstash?
The purposes for which I am using Logstash largely include log aggregation and application monitoring.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Cribl vs. Logstash and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.