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

Elastic Security 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 Security
Ranking in Log Management
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (15th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (6th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (8th)
Elastic Stack
Ranking in Log Management
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 3.3%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Stack is 5.2%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

SyedAli17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralized monitoring improves security posture through rapid data processing
The processing part of Elastic Security ( /products/elastic-security-reviews ) is very interesting for us since we handle almost 7,000 to 8,000 alerts per minute. We require rapid processing speed for alerts and event data, and Elastic Security is very efficient at handling this level of data. Additionally, Elastic Security helps improve the security posture of Pakistan through centralized visibility and real-time processing.
Balamurali P - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced query capabilities enhance monitoring effectiveness
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. Ideally, it should evolve into a full-stack observability tool, similar to AppDynamics or DynaTrace, which offers a solution that includes ISP provider, API monitoring, and infrastructure monitoring.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The indexes allow you to get your results quickly. The filtering and log passing is the advantage of Logstash."
"The performance is good and it is faster than IBM QRadar."
"It is an extremely stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The visualization is very good."
"It is very quick to react. I can set it to check anomalies or suspicious behavior every 30 seconds. It is very fast."
"Just the ability to do a lot more than just up-down is nice, which a lot of people take for granted."
"I like the indexing of the logs."
"Elastic Security offers advanced features such as machine learning and integration with ChatGPT."
"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."
"The scripting model in Elastic Stack allows me to query logs and then put the data into Grafana."
"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."
"It is an excellent tool for monitoring purposes."
"I think the ecosystem is well supported, and for logs, it was faster compared to our previous previous log management."
"I have experienced a return on investment from the use of the solution."
"The detection rules in Elastic Stack are the most valuable feature. The search capabilities are excellent and fast. As we collect logs from workstations and devices, the detection rules run on top of the logs and detect any suspicious activity, raising alerts accordingly. Integration with Elastic Stack depends on the specific integration. Elastic provides some bridging integrations that make it easy, but require custom integration. Most integrations are simple, but customization can be challenging because we need to do some parsing. There's something called Elastic Common Schema, and we need to parse the source logs to match this schema, which can be a bit challenging."
"Elastic Stack has made a positive impact as we can now see our logs."
 

Cons

"We are paying dearly for the guy who is working on the ELK Stack. That knowledge is quite rare and hard to come by. For difficulty and availability of resources, I would rate it a five out of 10."
"Its documentation should be a bit better. I have to spend at least a couple of hours to find the solution for a simple thing. When we buy Elastic, training is not included for free with Elastic. We have to pay extra for the training. They should include training in the price."
"The solution could also use better dashboards. They need to be more graphical, more matrix-like."
"With Elastic, you have to build the use cases for the specific requirement. Other products have a simple integration and more use cases to integrate out-of-the-box solutions for SIEM."
"If the documentation were improved and made more clear for beginners, or even professionals, then we would be more attracted to this solution."
"Continuous upgrades can be quite inconvenient. My security testing team continuously reports vulnerabilities, and we have to fix and update the versions frequently."
"It is difficult to anticipate and understand the space utilization, so more clarity there would be great."
"Elastic has one problem. In the past, Elastic Security was free. Now, they currently only offer the basic license or a certain period of time."
"Improving integration capabilities, especially with authentication systems, firewalls, and security controls, is a crucial area for improvement in Elastic Stack. Additionally, enhancing functionality to handle large Yara queries more efficiently would be beneficial, as many EDR solutions can run such queries faster than Elastic Stack's current limitations."
"Support could be improved. The error code is not helpful. We have to ask for it or pass it on to community forums."
"There could be better documentation."
"Improvements are needed in the solution in areas like SOAR and TIP, where there are certain shortcomings."
"When people try to move the data from another source to Elastic Stack for visualization, they face challenges when connecting to Elastic Stack from such different sources."
"AI-enablement would be a big improvement in Elastic Stack...If there is room for an ML model in Elastic Stack, then it would be good."
"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."
"The implementation of dashboards in the solution needs to be made easier...I had some issues with the ports and configuration since it was kind of complex to implement with Docker."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no charge for using the open-source version."
"Affordable but with additional costs"
"The tool's pricing is flexible and comes at unit cost. You don't have to pay for everything."
"The solution is not expensive and costs around ten dollars a month."
"Elastic Stack is an open-source tool. You don't have to pay anything for the components."
"The solution is free."
"The pricing is in the middle. I think it is not an expensive experience if we compare it with big names, for example, QRadar, and also Oxide. I think Elastic Security is quite cheap. I would rate the pricing of this solution a five out of ten."
"It's a monthly cost with Elastic SIEM, but I am not sure of the exact cost."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."
"The product is expensive."
"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."
"If I compare Elastic Stack to the other products in the market, I would say that the tool is available at a competitive price."
"We are using the open-source community version of the product."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
What do you like most about Elastic Security?
Elastic provides the capability to index quickly due to the reverse indexes it offers. This data is crucial as it contains critical information. The reverse index allows fast data indexing because ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
Since Elastic Security is community-based, it does not require significant costs. This is beneficial for SMEs as they do not need extensive budgets for security solutions.
What do you like most about Elastic Stack?
The tool is huge, and it performs brilliantly. I tested it for malware, and within two weeks of launching, the product alerted me about a network intrusion. This was a tough test for it, but it per...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Stack?
I may not be able to answer as this is customer-paid Elastic Stack, and I didn't handle the payment.
What needs improvement with Elastic Stack?
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. Ideally, it sho...
 

Also Known As

Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Security vs. Elastic Stack and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.