Elastic Stack vs Graylog comparison

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Elastic Stack

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Graylog and Elastic Stack compete in the data analysis and IT infrastructure management sector. Elastic Stack appears to have the upper hand due to its scalability and adaptability, making it a more comprehensive solution for extensive data analysis needs.

Features:Graylog provides real-time alerting, straightforward configuration, and intuitive navigation, which cater to smaller-scale deployments effectively. Elastic Stack offers comprehensive search capabilities, extensive visualization options, and scalability that enable detailed insights into larger data sets.

Room for Improvement:Graylog users suggest enhancing its data visualization tools, integrations with third-party applications, and expanding its feature set to accommodate larger deployments. Elastic Stack could improve by streamlining its complex setup process, reducing the steep learning curve, and offering better documentation to simplify user onboarding.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Graylog is highly regarded for quick setup times and effective support services. Elastic Stack, although challenging to deploy due to complexity, benefits from an active community and extensive resources, partially offsetting limited direct customer service.

Pricing and ROI:Graylog offers a cost-effective solution with lower setup costs, providing satisfactory ROI for its core functionalities. Elastic Stack, priced at a premium, delivers higher returns for enterprises when fully utilizing its advanced analytics and visualization features.

To learn more, read our detailed Elastic Stack vs. Graylog Report (Updated: July 2025).

Elastic Stack vs. Graylog

July 2025

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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

6th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Graylog

Ranking in Log Management

15th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Stack is 5.3%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Graylog is 6.4%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Log Management

Featured Reviews

Balamurali P

Solution Architect at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees

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.

Read full review

Ivan Kokalovic

DevOps Engineer at Proton Technologies

Facilitates backend service monitoring with efficient log retrieval and API flexibility

Graylog is valuable because it bridges technical knowledge to non-technical teams, presenting complex backend processes in a simple timeline. It boosts the knowledge of sales and customer support teams by allowing them to see the backend operations without needing to read the code. Its API is flexible for visualization, and its powerful search engine efficiently handles large volumes of log data. Moreover, its stability, fast search capabilities, and compatibility with languages like ANSI SQL enhance its utility in IT infrastructure.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It supports various integrations. It's open source and has excellent community support."

"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 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."

"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."

"The machine learning capabilities are valuable."

"I have experienced a return on investment from the use of the solution."

"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."

"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."

More Elastic Stack pros

"Open source and user friendly."

"It has data adapters and lookup tables that utilize HTTP calls to APIs."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its new interface."

"We run a containerized microservices environment. Being able to set up streams and search for errors and anomalies across hundreds of containers is why a log aggregation platform like Graylog is valuable to us."

"Real-time UDP/GELF logging and full text-based searching."

"We have scaled from a single machine installation (a VM with a Graylog + ES + MongoDB) to (2 Graylog + 2 ES + 3 MongoDB). This was done smoothly with a minimal impact on logging."

"Message forwarding through the in-built module."

"This had increased productivity for the dev and support teams, because we are directly notifying them."

More Graylog pros

Cons

"Elastic Stack should work on their dashboards and integration process."

"There could be better documentation."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The main issue related to Elastic Stack is in the area of its licensing."

"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."

"The stability of the solution is rated as three or four out of ten as we frequently encounter issues."

More Elastic Stack cons

"I would like to see a default dashboard widget that shows the topology of the clusters defined for the graylog install."

"Since container orchestration systems are popular and Graylog fits the niche well, perhaps they could officially support running in docker containers on Kubernetes as a StatefulSet as a use case. That way, the declarative nature of Kubernetes config files would document their best case deployment scenario-"

"I hope to see improvements in Graylog for more interactivity, user-friendliness, and creating alerts. The initial setup is complex."

"With technical support, you are on your own without an enterprise license."

"There should be some user groups and an auto sign-in feature."

"The biggest problem is the collector application, as we wanted to avoid using Graylog Collector Sidecar due to its architecture."

"When it comes to configuring the processing pipeline, writing the rules can be very tedious, especially since the documentation isn't extensive on how the functions provided for these rules work."

"Elasticsearch recommendations for tuning could be better. Graylog doesn't have direct support for running the system inside of Kubernetes, so it can be challenging to fill in the gaps and set up containers in a way that is both performant and stable."

More Graylog cons

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."

"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."

"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 pricing is reasonable."

"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."

"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."

"The product is expensive."

"You get a lot out-of-the-box with the non-enterprise version, so give it a try first."

"Having paid official support is wise for projects."

"There is an open source version and an enterprise version. I wouldn't recommend the enterprise version, but as an open source solution, it is solid and works really well."

"If you want something that works and do not have the money for Splunk or QRadar, take Graylog."

"I use the free version of Graylog."

"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"I am using a community edition. I have not looked at the enterprise offering from Graylog."

"Graylog is a free open-source solution. The free version has a capacity limitation of 2 GB daily, if you want to go above this you have to purchase a license."

More Graylog pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

17%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Government

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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?

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 a...

What do you like most about Graylog?

The product is scalable. The solution is stable.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Graylog?

I am not familiar with the pricing details of Graylog, as I was not responsible for that aspect. It was determined that we didn't need an enterprise plan, which is more suited for clients with less...

What needs improvement with Graylog?

An improvement I would suggest is in Graylog's user interface, such as allowing for font size adjustments. A potential enhancement could be the integration with Ollama to run large language models ...

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Product Reports

Download Elastic Stack product report

Elastic Stack

August 2025

Download Graylog product report

August 2025

Also Known As

No data available

Graylog2

Overview

Elastic Stack is a comprehensive tool for log management, observability, indexing, and security, widely adopted for managing logs, alert creation, SIEM, SOC, and threat analysis. It integrates with CloudStrike and Endpoint Security, enhancing search capabilities and Application Performance Monitoring.

Elastic Stack offers powerful solutions for logging, data storage, and visualization with Kibana. It allows MSSPs to efficiently manage security and assists companies with data analysis. It's known for its easy implementation, scalability, real-time monitoring, and extensive integrations. The open-source nature and community support add significant value, making it a popular choice across industries. While highly capable, there is a need for enhancement in dashboard implementation, data integration, and certain advanced features. Licensing, compatibility, and cost-related improvements can further elevate its efficacy.

What are the key features of Elastic Stack?

Powerful Search Capabilities: Offers robust, efficient searching across vast datasets
Scalability: Easily handles large volumes of data
Anomaly Detection: Identifies irregular patterns in data
Machine Learning: Enhances data analysis with intelligent insights
Real-Time Monitoring: Provides up-to-date monitoring of applications and systems
Extensive Integration: Supports diverse tools and solutions

What benefits should users consider?

Ease of Implementation: Quick setup and integration into existing systems
Robust Security: Comprehensive monitoring and analysis capabilities
Community Support: Ongoing improvements and guidance from a dedicated community
Hybrid Deployment: Flexibility in using both cloud and on-premise solutions

In healthcare, Elastic Stack enhances database search capabilities, aiding in patient record management and data retrieval. Managed Security Service Providers use it for comprehensive security management, integrating it with tools like firewalls and authentication systems. Companies benefit from its application in Application Performance Monitoring and its flexibility in adapting to hybrid environments.

Elastic

Graylog is purpose-built to deliver the best log collection, storage, enrichment, and analysis. Graylog is:

Considerably faster analysis speeds.
More robust and easier-to-use analysis platform.
Simpler administration and infrastructure management.
Lower cost than alternatives.
Full-scale customer service.
No expensive training or tool experts required.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur