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Elastic Observability vs Elastic Stack comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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

Elastic Observability
Ranking in Log Management
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (11th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (13th), Container Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)
Elastic Stack
Ranking in Log Management
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Stack is 1.9%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Elastic Stack1.9%
Elastic Observability1.2%
Other96.9%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
LB
Senior Consultant at Skillfield
Offers robust out-of-the-box integrations and streamlines logging processes effortlessly
There are improvements needed for Elastic Stack. It is mostly based on Lucene, and the heart of Elastic Stack is Lucene, which has some limitations. Anything built on top of Lucene often feels an add-on, and that includes vector databases. Elastic Stack can store vector embeddings as well and perform AI and machine learning tasks out of the box without excessive configuration. The main improvements involve increasing speed and compression capabilities; I have seen databases that claim to achieve significantly better compression. While Elastic Stack can manage vast amounts of data, if the mapping is not specified correctly, the indexing time can be slow, especially with many events per second. Improper mapping usually means that every document received gets indexed for all fields, which is not desired. Elastic consultants typically optimize this, but out of the box, as data volume increases, scaling becomes necessary. They are working on these improvements in new versions.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The customizable dashboards in Elastic Observability allow us to group relevant data to specific aspects of our solution, giving us around 20 interlinked dashboards which provide an overview, and if one aspect shows weird behavior, we can focus on that specific aspect of our software with a dedicated dashboard."
"It is scalable and supports multitenancy, which is beneficial for MSPs."
"Elastic provides built-in features for queries and report generation. It's a very good tool for monitoring integration capabilities."
"We use AppDynamics and Elastic. The reason why we're using Elastic APM is because of the license count. It's very favorable compared to AppDynamics. It's inexpensive; it's economical."
"The price is very less expensive compared to the other solutions."
"The architecture and system's stability are simple."
"The product has connectors to many services."
"Its diverse set of features available on the cloud is of significant importance."
"The centralized logging capabilities of Elastic Stack have helped me streamline my logging processes significantly because there are many open-source tools available, such as Filebeat and Logstash, to collect the logs."
"It supports various integrations. It's open source and has excellent community support."
"Prior to the latest updates, data lake management was a standout feature. The hybrid capability for on-premise and cloud integration was also crucial. Now, with Elastic Defense, the agent simplifies security monitoring, making it a key asset."
"The machine learning capabilities are valuable."
"The solution's technical support is good...Elastic Stack offers good value for value for money based on the product's features and what they offer."
"I think the ecosystem is well supported, and for logs, it was faster compared to our previous previous log management."
"The biggest strength of Elastic Stack is its brilliant archiving capabilities."
"The tool's most powerful aspect is its search engine capability. It's a highly effective and powerful solution for searching. We use it in professional and student projects at universities, and it delivers promising results."
 

Cons

"Elastic support really struggles in complex situations to resolve issues."
"The cost must be made more transparent."
"The tool's scalability involves a more complex implementation process. It requires careful calculations to determine the number of nodes needed, the specifications of each node, and the configuration of hot, warm, and cold zones for data storage. Additionally, managing log retention policies adds further complexity. The solution's pricing also needs to be cheaper."
"They need more skills in the market. There are not enough skills in the market. It is not pervasive enough on the market, in my opinion. In other words, there isn't a big enough user base."
"There's a steep learning curve if you've never used this solution before."
"When opening tickets, we cannot use our team mailbox."
"The solution would be better if it was capable of more automation, especially in a monitoring capacity or for the response to abnormalities."
"Elastic Observability needs to improve the retrieval of logs and metrics from all the instances."
"There could be better documentation."
"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"The solution is expensive, particularly the training and certification. If customers want to increase their use of Elastic Stack, they should consider reducing the cost of certification and training."
"I would rate the technical support by Elastic as five or six out of ten. They should improve their response time and first-level support, particularly knowledge, which is very important for using Elasticsearch."
"Elastic Stack should be more simplified with ready-to-use widgets. Also, incorporating AI capabilities is essential as monitoring and observability tools are now adding AI features."
"Support could be improved. The error code is not helpful. We have to ask for it or pass it on to community forums."
"Agent deployment is a little tough in the on-premise version."
"It should facilitate easier manual integration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not that cheap."
"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."
"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."
"The product’s pricing needs improvement."
"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."
"Elastic Observability is cheaper than other similar solutions, such as Dynatrace. Its license calculation is based on various factors like data volume and physical infrastructure, particularly related to RAM capacity."
"There are two types: cloud and SaaS. They charge based on data ingestion, ingest rate, hard retention, and warm retention. I believe it costs around $25,000 annually to ingest 30GB of data daily. That is the SaaS version. There is also a self-managed license where the customer manages their own infrastructure on-prem. In such cases, there are three license tiers that respectively cost $5,000 annually per node, $7,000 per node, and $12,500 per node."
"We have been using the open-source version."
"We are using the open-source community version of the product."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The product is expensive."
"If I compare Elastic Stack to the other products in the market, I would say that the tool is available at a competitive price."
"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."
"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Stack?
My experience with Elastic Stack pricing indicates that it is node-based. While I do not have complete pricing details, they are available online. If I choose Elastic Cloud, it includes licensing a...
What needs improvement with Elastic Stack?
I would like to improve Elastic Stack by addressing the current big problem we face with importing logs and log files, such as syslogs. To import these log files, we need to design the ingest pipel...
What is your primary use case for Elastic Stack?
Elastic Stack is primarily used for everything related to security, including security systems, checking the security system, and also servers and networks.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. Elastic Stack and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.