Elastic Observability vs ServiceNow Cloud Observability comparison

Elastic and ServiceNow are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Elastic is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.8, while ServiceNow is ranked #38 with an average rating of 8.0. Elastic holds a 2.4% mindshare in APM, compared to ServiceNow’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Elastic users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of ServiceNow users who would recommend it.

Elastic Observability

Read 29 Elastic Observability reviews

8,483 Views
6,702 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Read 4 ServiceNow Cloud Observability reviews

1,208 Views
1,160 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Elastic Observability

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

ServiceNow Cloud Observability and Elastic Observability both offer robust solutions in the observability category. ServiceNow Cloud Observability is noted for its customer support and pricing, while Elastic Observability stands out for its extensive features.

Features: ServiceNow Cloud Observability offers comprehensive integration capabilities, real-time monitoring, and streamlined management of complex cloud environments. Elastic Observability provides powerful search functionalities, customizable dashboards, and extensive visualization tools.

Room for Improvement: ServiceNow Cloud Observability needs enhancements in its analytics capabilities, more user training resources, and improved data handling. Elastic Observability could benefit from better performance with large datasets, a more streamlined setup process, and smoother integration with other tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: ServiceNow Cloud Observability is praised for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Elastic Observability, though more complex to deploy, offers extensive documentation and strong community support.

Pricing and ROI: ServiceNow Cloud Observability has competitive pricing suitable for enterprises with flexible budgets, delivering commendable ROI. Elastic Observability is perceived as expensive but offers high value through its extensive features and flexibility, justifying its cost.

To learn more, read our detailed Elastic Observability vs. ServiceNow Cloud Observability Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. ServiceNow Cloud Observability

February 2026

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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 Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (15th), Log Management (16th), Container Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (10th)

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

38th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 2.4%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Elastic Observability	2.4%
ServiceNow Cloud Observability	0.7%
Other	96.9%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Mohammed-Abdelalim

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.

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VinayKumar16

Senior DeliveryManager at ITC Infotech

Provides ease of use in areas like analytics and reporting

The feature of the tool that is more impactful for cloud performance stems from the area revolving around analytics and reporting. It is an easy-to-use tool. There is something known as performance analytics within ServiceNow that offers complete analytics, which offers end-to-end analytics along with the KPI metrics with what we have in place and so on. With the aforementioned aspects of the tool, I think we should be able to create a dashboard according to the operations view called the operation dashboard view, specifically for C-level executives.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ability to ensure that the data is searchable and maintainable is highly valuable for our purposes."

"The most valued feature of Elastic is its log analytics capabilities."

"I have built a mini business intelligence system based on Elastic Observability."

"Elastic provides built-in features for queries and report generation. It's a very good tool for monitoring integration capabilities."

"We can view and connect different sources to the dashboard using it."

"The solution has been stable in our usage."

"I think Elastic Observability is already in very good shape."

"I found Elk to be excellent for log analytics, security analytics, application code-level analytics, collaboration with DevOps teams, CI/CD, microservices, and Kubernetes, specifically cloud-native or cloud-specific tasks."

More Elastic Observability pros

"To a certain extent, it is possible to save on the costs of the product."

"The ability to create a stream based on different parameters, operation name, service name, URL, tags, and URI part, is one valuable feature."

"The solution Lightstep/ServiceNow has a couple of pretty advanced functionalities to help us investigate a deviation and help the development teams have better observability in the environment using distributed and complex services."

"The UI is very intuitive."

Cons

"Elastic Observability could improve asset discovery as the current requirement to push the agent is not ideal."

"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."

"The solution would be better if it was capable of more automation, especially in a monitoring capacity or for the response to abnormalities."

"More web features could be added to the product."

"If we had some pre-defined templates for observability that we could start using right away after deploying it – instead of having to build or to change some of the dashboards – that would be helpful."

"The cost must be made more transparent."

"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."

More Elastic Observability cons

"In terms of licensing, users would want the product to offer them the ability to tailor the tasks offered in the solution to suit their needs."

"The design of this solution is not very intuitive and probably could come with more friendly tips for beginners."

"The dashboard and graphics must be improved."

"The support team could be better. Because of the different versions of different tactics of integrating reactive code base, the documentation is not very clear if someone has to be onboard. I would rate the documentation of Lightstep a five out of ten. It could need improvement."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Elastic Observability is expensive."

"We will buy a premium license after POC."

"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."

"So far, there are just the standard licensing fees. Several of the components are embedded in the license or are even open source. They're even free depending on what you use, which makes it even more appealing to someone that is discussing pricing of the solution."

"The product’s pricing needs improvement."

"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."

"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."

"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."

More Elastic Observability pricing and cost advice

"The product is expensive. I rate the tool's pricing model an eight out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	16

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Elastic Observability?

Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning...

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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 ...

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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,...

See all answers

What needs improvement with LightStep?

There are a lot of workflows and connectors. In terms of licensing, users would want the product to offer them the ability to tailor the tasks offered in the solution to suit their needs.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for LightStep?

I use the solution in my company since it has multiple tenants available. Basically, what happens in business is that you have a hybrid setup model, and for that, you extensively use a cloud platfo...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering LightStep?

I recommend the product to others. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

See all answers

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Compared 11% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability

February 2026

Download Elastic Observability product report

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

January 2026

Download ServiceNow Cloud Observability product report

Also Known As

No data available

LightStep

Overview

Elastic Observability offers a comprehensive suite for log analytics, application performance monitoring, and machine learning. It integrates seamlessly with platforms like Teams and Slack, enhancing data visualization and scalability for real-time insights.

Elastic Observability is designed to support production environments with features like logging, data collection, and infrastructure tracking. Centralized logging and powerful search functionalities make incident response and performance tracking efficient. Elastic APM and Kibana facilitate detailed data visualization, promoting rapid troubleshooting and effective system performance analysis. Integrated services and extensive connectivity options enhance its role in business and technical decision-making by providing actionable data insights.

What are the most important features of Elastic Observability?

Centralized Logging: Streamlines the collection, analysis, and storage of log data.
Powerful Search: Provides robust search capabilities for quick access to relevant information.
Scalability: Supports growing data needs across diverse environments.
Real-time Telemetry: Ensures up-to-date insights and monitoring.
Platform Integration: Seamlessly connects with services like Teams and Slack.
Data Visualization: Enhances visibility with Elastic APM and Kibana.

What benefits and ROI should users explore in reviews?

Cost-effectiveness: Offers significant savings through efficient data management.
Rapid Incident Response: Minimizes downtime with quick troubleshooting tools.
Comprehensive Insights: Supports better business decisions with detailed data analysis.
Performance Tracking: Enables assessment of system effectiveness and improvements.

Elastic Observability is employed across industries for critical operations, such as in finance for transaction monitoring, in healthcare for secure data management, and in technology for optimizing application performance. Its data-driven approach aids efficient event tracing, supporting diverse industry requirements.

Elastic

ServiceNow Cloud Observability is a comprehensive platform designed to enhance visibility, control, and performance monitoring of your IT infrastructure and applications. It seamlessly integrates log management, trace management, metrics monitoring, and infrastructure monitoring in real-time, leveraging AI and machine learning for automated tasks and actionable insights. With benefits including improved visibility, faster incident resolution, enhanced application performance, simplified IT operations, and reduced costs, this cloud-native solution is ideal for businesses of all sizes with complex IT infrastructures. It integrates seamlessly with ServiceNow IT Operations Management (ITOM), supports OpenTelemetry standards, and provides AI-powered insights along with pre-built dashboards and reports.

ServiceNow

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank

InVision, Twilio, Lyft, Yext, DigitalOcean,

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. ServiceNow Cloud Observability

February 2026

Free Report: Elastic Observability vs. ServiceNow Cloud Observability

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