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Elastic Stack vs syslog-ng comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 18, 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
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
syslog-ng
Ranking in Log Management
17th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
2.8
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Stack is 5.4%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of syslog-ng is 2.5%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Balamurali P - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
RyanVargas - PeerSpot reviewer
It's a user-friendly open-source solution that can replace or augment a commercial product in some cases
I rate syslog-ng 10 out of 10. It's free and easy to use. It has built-in tools that help us index the various logs sent to it. It's a solid log product. If you're looking for a SIEM solution, syslog-ng will work as a stopgap measure at beginning of the project. It can also work as an injector for a true SIEM solution. You can send all the logs to syslog-ng and forward all the data to the SIEM solution after you've cleaned up the data and got the pertinent information. It's a good front end for a commercial SIEM solution, which becomes more expensive as you load more data into it. I would highly recommend syslog-ng for that use case. However, if you lack the expertise, you might need to go with a cloud-based SIEM instead. You need some in-house expertise or an outside consultant to manage it and set it up.

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 scripting model in Elastic Stack allows me to query logs and then put the data into Grafana."
"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 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 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."
"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."
"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 machine learning capabilities are valuable."
"Syslog-ng has a separate config file in addition to the core configuration."
"For us, the most valuable feature is the use of compound search for searching logs at a specific time, by a specific user, or specific behavior."
"The ability to extract and store the logs is the most valuable feature of syslog-ng."
"Syslog-ng provides easy access to all my logs. It helps me show managers and other clients precisely where an incident occurred. I also like it because you can integrate syslog-ng with multiple solutions to allow real-time monitoring."
"Syslog-ng has built-in features that we can use to create alerts for a SIEM solution. It isn't a true SIEM solution, but it's sufficient for the time being."
 

Cons

"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."
"It should facilitate easier manual integration."
"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 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."
"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."
"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"The main issue related to Elastic Stack is in the area of its licensing."
"There is room for improvement in terms of observability."
"There is always the potential for additional integration and protocol extensions."
"It's hard to find people who know how to use syslog-ng. I often find problems with configurations, and solutions aren't integrated correctly with syslog-ng. For example, there might be data with extra decimals, or the collector agents are incorrectly named. It isn't a problem with the solution; it's a lack of professionals."
"Syslog-ng has built-in features that we can use to create alerts for a SIEM solution. It isn't a true SIEM solution, but it's sufficient for the time being."
"The filtering has room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."
"If I compare Elastic Stack to the other products in the market, I would say that the tool is available at a competitive price."
"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"We are using the open-source community version of the product."
"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"The product is expensive."
"Syslog-ng is a free open-source solution."
"Syslog-ng is open-source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 syslog-ng?
For us, the most valuable feature is the use of compound search for searching logs at a specific time, by a specific user, or specific behavior.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for syslog-ng?
The pricing is in the middle. I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with one being expensive and ten being cheap.
What needs improvement with syslog-ng?
There is room for improvement in terms of observability. Additionally, a possible new feature could be Kafka integration.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Tecnocom, University of Victoria, University of Exeter, Datapath
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Stack vs. syslog-ng and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.