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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
14th
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
7th
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 May 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Stack is 2.5%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana Loki is 3.5%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Grafana Loki3.5%
Elastic Stack2.5%
Other94.0%
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

"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."
"It supports various integrations. It's open source and has excellent community support."
"The biggest strength of Elastic Stack is its brilliant archiving capabilities."
"The scripting model in Elastic Stack allows me to query logs and then put the data into Grafana."
"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 have experienced a return on investment from the use of the solution."
"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 machine learning capabilities are valuable."
"Different types of integrations with various sources are the most helpful and useful features of Grafana Loki that I found for myself."
"The most valuable part of Loki is the ability to filter logs by keywords and devices."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the tool's GUI. The solution's GUI is very user-friendly."
"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."
"We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics."
"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."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source tool that is stable and flexible."
"The best feature of Grafana Loki is that it integrates well with our other tool."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"It should facilitate easier manual integration."
"Improvements are needed in the solution in areas like SOAR and TIP, where there are certain shortcomings."
"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"We face some bugs when we install the latest version of Grafana Loki."
"The product must improve its UI."
"Improvements could be made in the enablement of the product, addressing the complexity of implementing these tools."
"We had a well-structured dashboard with a functional query. However, an issue arose when the Kubernetes pod restarted. The statistics from our Grafana query would reset, dropping to zero and starting anew. This was particularly noticeable with linear graphs, which are expected to show consistent growth."
"I do not see any areas for improvement at the moment."
"We encountered certain limitations when it came to alerting, particularly when dealing with specific data sources."
"It would be beneficial if Loki could directly access Windows Server logs or events directly from the servers."
"In Grafana Loki, the creation of metrics is not so easy, making it an area that could be made easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."
"You can use the free version of Grafana Loki on-premises."
"My company doesn't need to pay for the licensing cost of the solution."
"I use the open-source version of the product."
"The solution is open source."
"Since we are using the open-source version of Grafana Loki, we are not paying anything for the solution."
"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."
"We use a free version."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
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 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.
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.
What advice do you have for others considering Grafana Loki?
A lot of our customers are service providers, internet service providers, government, defense contractors, and some enterprise software and finance organizations, so it spans across the board. Cost...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Stack vs. Grafana Loki and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.