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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
9th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (14th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (8th)
Elastic Stack
Ranking in Log Management
11th
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 February 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 2.9%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Stack is 3.5%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Elastic Security2.9%
Elastic Stack3.5%
Other93.6%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Laurentiu Popescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Product Officer at ClusterPower
Has improved threat detection with deep log analysis and streamlined investigation workflows
The most useful features I find in Elastic Security are the forensic ones that allow us to carry deeper analysis into the logs for in-depth investigations, and the dashboards, with the reporting dashboard being quite user-friendly. Elastic Security is quite good at identifying threats, as it is part of the deep investigation tool that I mentioned before. Unless we need to look further into a certain log, we can carry out a deeper analysis and forensics on those particular logs. I can assess the impact of Elastic Security's real-time data analysis on our threat response efficiency as working pretty good. We are looking for real-time analysis because we have a continuous inflow of logs from different sources: from our cloud, from Active Directory, from our network. So it works pretty well.
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 most valuable features are the speed, detail, and visualization. It has the latest standards."
"It is very quick to react. I can set it to check anomalies or suspicious behavior every 30 seconds. It is very fast."
"It is scalable."
"It is the best open-source product for people working in SO, managing and analyzing logs."
"The indexes allow you to get your results quickly. The filtering and log passing is the advantage of Logstash."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the prevention methods and the incident alerts."
"Elastic Security is very easy to adapt."
"It is an extremely stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The biggest strength of Elastic Stack is its brilliant archiving capabilities."
"Elastic Stack has made a positive impact as we can now see our logs."
"It is a very scalable solution...I didn't face any problem with this scalability part of the solution since we only have a few pieces of equipment in our company."
"I have benefited from the security features provided by X-Pack in Elastic Stack, particularly the SIEM capability, which is very good for checking security issues."
"I think the ecosystem is well supported, and for logs, it was faster compared to our previous previous log management."
"Elastic Stack is mainly used to monitor servers and APIs. It helps ensure the software's availability and sends notifications at the right time so the system is not down for a long time. The tool's stability and advanced features, such as anomaly detection, are the most valuable features. The benefit of using it is real-time monitoring."
"The scripting model in Elastic Stack allows me to query logs and then put the data into Grafana."
"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."
 

Cons

"The initial configuration and setup are complicated and not straightforward."
"This solution is very hard to implement."
"There isn't really a very good user experience. You need a lot of training."
"The problem with ELK is it's difficult to administer. When you have a problem, it can be very, very difficult to rebuild indexes."
"I want to find an automatic security system in the tool, like a SOAR solution. I am looking forward to seeing a SOAR system in the tool."
"The solution's query building is not that intuitive compared to other solutions."
"Elastic sometimes does not correctly identify threats or anomalies. It might not classify an issue as malicious or critical accurately."
"They don't provide user authentication and authorisation features (Shield) as a part of their open-source version."
"Support could be improved. The error code is not helpful. We have to ask for it or pass it on to community forums."
"Elastic Stack should be more simplified with ready-to-use widgets."
"Improvements are needed in the solution in areas like SOAR and TIP, where there are certain shortcomings."
"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."
"It should facilitate easier manual integration."
"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."
"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"Elastic Stack's search capabilities can be challenging, especially when searching for precise data from past years, such as two or ten years ago. Its indexing performance for exact data retrieval may decrease as the data volume grows. Therefore, I believe there is room for improvement in the product's search functionality. It needs to improve its pricing as well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to other tools, Elastic Security is a cheaper solution."
"The solution is free."
"We are using the free, open-source version of this solution."
"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."
"The solution is not expensive and costs around ten dollars a month."
"The product offers an amazing pricing structure. Price-wise, the product is very competitive."
"When compared to other products, the price is average or on the low side."
"We use the open-source version, so there is no charge for this solution."
"We are using the open-source community version of the product."
"The product is expensive."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."
"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
 

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?
I am satisfied with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing cost. It is a pure 10.
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?
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...
 

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: December 2025.
881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.