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Elastic Stack vs Grafana Loki 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 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
Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Stack is 3.5%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana Loki is 5.6%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Grafana Loki5.6%
Elastic Stack3.5%
Other90.9%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
reviewer2350791 - PeerSpot reviewer
Regional Associate & Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Offers cost-effective log management with strong correlation features across observability tools
Grafana Loki's open-source capability is a significant benefit. Grafana has invested in making their enterprise tools competitive with other APM tools, facilitating cross-correlation with Mimir and Tempo for metrics and tracing. The tool offers good search functionality, and its on-premises capability is advantageous. The indexing performance is strong, making it a robust log management tool. Grafana Loki is notably cost-effective.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The biggest strength of Elastic Stack is its brilliant archiving capabilities."
"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."
"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 performed admirably. The alerting system is excellent, and searching through logs is incredibly efficient. What's impressive is that all three products or options are integrated into one solution. This means I don't need separate logging, monitoring, or antivirus solutions."
"Elastic Stack has made a positive impact as we can now see our logs."
"I think the ecosystem is well supported, and for logs, it was faster compared to our previous previous log management."
"We can group a lot of alarms into one automation alarm supervision. The alarm supervision allows us to put the alarm under the same. It's quite helpful for us. We used that to suppress our alarms. Elastic already provides the agent. It is easy to integrate Elastic Stack with other devices and vendors."
"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."
"Grafana Loki's open-source capability is a significant benefit, with strong indexing performance, cost-effectiveness, and the ability to cross-correlate with Mimir and Tempo for metrics and tracing, making it a robust log management tool."
"Loki also utilizes the same service discovery mechanism as used by Prometheus. So, whatever labeled metadata you see in Prometheus, you have the exact same metadata in the Loki system. Given this level of intricacy and the attempt to address these challenges, I firmly believe that Loki deserves praise for the work."
"We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics."
"The product's most valuable features are ease of installation, management, and reporting. It has an efficient ability to set thresholds for alerts, as well."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the tool's GUI. The solution's GUI is very user-friendly."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source tool that is stable and flexible."
"There are new features like that pilot code and things like that for profiling."
"Grafana Loki's open-source capability is a significant benefit, and Grafana has invested in making their enterprise tools competitive with other APM tools, facilitating cross-correlation with Mimir and Tempo for metrics and tracing."
 

Cons

"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."
"Agent deployment is a little tough in the on-premise version."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Improvements are needed in the solution in areas like SOAR and TIP, where there are certain shortcomings."
"The stability of the solution is rated as three or four out of ten as we frequently encounter issues."
"Enhancing speed could be a game-changer, and while it might vary depending on the application, it's a factor worth exploring."
"The product must improve its UI."
"The correlation of requests is not simple in Grafana Loki and can be improved."
"There is a need for some change in the alerting types of the product. In short, a few changes in the alert area are needed due to minor shortcomings."
"Improvements could be made in the enablement of the product, addressing the complexity of implementing these tools."
"The solution's scalability depends on the team managing the Grafana instance."
"I would rate Grafana Loki a seven out of ten because it is open source, and sometimes there can be problems that are difficult to fix without official support."
"Improvements could be made in the enablement of the product, addressing the complexity of implementing these tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
"We are using the open-source community version of the product."
"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."
"The product is expensive."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"The pricing structure varies based on the number of users; there might be specific taxes to pay for it."
"My company doesn't need to pay for the licensing cost of the solution."
"Since we are using the open-source version of Grafana Loki, we are not paying anything for the solution."
"We use a free version."
"The cost is less than other paid services like CloudWatch."
"I use the solution's open-source version. Grafana Loki is a completely free solution for me."
"I find the licensing structure quite reasonable, as the free license effectively meets my requirements."
"I use the open-source version of the product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Grafana Loki?
We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana Loki?
Since it is an open source tool, there are no charges or fees.
What needs improvement with Grafana Loki?
Improvements could be made in the enablement of the product, addressing the complexity of implementing these tools.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Stack vs. Grafana Loki and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.