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Elastic Stack vs Grafana Loki comparison

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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
21st
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
12th
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 September 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Stack is 1.7%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana Loki is 2.3%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Grafana Loki2.3%
Elastic Stack1.7%
Other96.0%
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

"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"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 machine learning capabilities are valuable."
"The biggest strength of Elastic Stack is its brilliant archiving capabilities."
"Prior to the latest updates, data lake management was a standout feature. The hybrid capability for on-premise and cloud integration was also crucial. Now, with Elastic Defense, the agent simplifies security monitoring, making it a key asset."
"The most valuable feature of Grafana Loki is the dashboards which are really simple to create."
"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."
"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."
"Grafana Loki is easy to monitor and detect errors."
"Different types of integrations with various sources are the most helpful and useful features of Grafana Loki that I found for myself."
"The effectiveness of filters is pivotal for optimizing the search process and extracting the specific information we need from the extensive log data."
"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."
"Grafana agent is very lightweight and does not cost significant resources of our cluster."
 

Cons

"Improvements are needed in the solution in areas like SOAR and TIP, where there are certain shortcomings."
"There could be better documentation."
"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"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."
"Elastic Stack should work on their dashboards and integration process."
"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."
"Elastic Stack should be more simplified with ready-to-use widgets."
"Visualization-wise, Grafana Loki's dashboard looks a little outdated compared to other open-source visualization tools like Chronograf."
"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."
"My main concern is the recommended production-grade setup. They suggest using tools like Tanka or Jsonnet. They should simplify the process to increase adoption."
"We encountered certain limitations when it came to alerting, particularly when dealing with specific data sources."
"The Docker container partition feature needs improvement as they do not reuse the space and goes into a pending state."
"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."
"We face some bugs when we install the latest version of Grafana Loki."
"Enhancing speed could be a game-changer, and while it might vary depending on the application, it's a factor worth exploring."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."
"We are using the open-source community version of the product."
"If I compare Elastic Stack to the other products in the market, I would say that the tool is available at a competitive price."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"The product is expensive."
"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The solution is open source."
"The pricing structure varies based on the number of users; there might be specific taxes to pay for it."
"Grafana Loki is an open-source solution."
"I find the licensing structure quite reasonable, as the free license effectively meets my requirements."
"I use the solution's open-source version. Grafana Loki is a completely free solution for me."
"We use a free version."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
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: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.