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Grafana Loki vs Logstash comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Logstash
Ranking in Log Management
27th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Grafana Loki is 5.1%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Logstash is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Grafana Loki5.1%
Logstash0.9%
Other94.0%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
reviewer2727468 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Application Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Transforms logs for real-time insights and seamless reporting
Logstash is used for transforming logs, and you can use many plugins in Logstash. Logstash works with configuration files that contain three main parts: an input part, a filter part, and an output part. In the input part, we can take logs from many sources such as Beats, files, or Kafka. The filter part is used to filter the logs that are shipped from Beats. From my understanding and experience with Logstash, it is usually used for processing logic, meaning I can control what fields should be transferred to Elastic and what fields shouldn't be transferred. This is the main function I use Logstash for. Elastic is a famous open-source searching engine that helps operation teams speed up the investigation process and provides real-time insights for performance reporting.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature of Grafana Loki is that it integrates well with our other 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 most valuable feature is the capability to set up alerts, which becomes necessary when we need to receive notifications for specific events."
"Loki significantly saves time in troubleshooting by quickly pinpointing network issues."
"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 most valuable part of Loki is the ability to filter logs by keywords and devices."
"Different types of integrations with various sources are the most helpful and useful features of Grafana Loki that I found for myself."
"We have three or four Logstash servers for high availability."
"Everything aligns well with improving our organization."
"The transformation means we ship the logs in the way that we want them to be presented in Kibana, which is the main function we use Logstash for."
"Logstash has numerous plugins for inputs and outputs, allowing it to work well in environments that do not contain other Elastic components."
"I can collect logs from various data sources, including hardware."
"The functionality of Logstash is quite easy to implement and the plugin ecosystem of Logstash is great, with plugins for shell script monitoring and SQL monitoring working well with the tool."
 

Cons

"In Grafana Loki, the creation of metrics is not so easy, making it an area that could be made easier."
"The solution has shortcomings regarding security monitoring-oriented features that need improvement."
"We face some bugs when we install the latest version of Grafana Loki."
"It's not intended for proprietary services, so you have to struggle with configuration a lot."
"The solution's scalability depends on the team managing the Grafana instance."
"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."
"The product must improve its UI."
"Improvements could be made in the enablement of the product, addressing the complexity of implementing these tools."
"An enhancement we could implement is the ability to cluster Logstash to exist in more than one node."
"There can be a UI to implement with Logstash. Currently, I have to work with config files and everything."
"The product needs to improve its compatibility."
"Almost all the research can be very bad. We still have a problem with importing the log system."
"We still have a problem with importing the log system."
"Elastic does not provide proper support for Logstash worldwide, and I rate their technical support as one out of ten."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"I use the open-source version of the product."
"Grafana Loki is a free, open-source solution."
"I find the licensing structure quite reasonable, as the free license effectively meets my requirements."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise4
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What do you like most about Logstash?
I can collect logs from various data sources, including hardware.
What needs improvement with Logstash?
Customization can be automated with Logstash, but it is at the developer's disposal. The developer has to do it, not the tool as such. There is scope for optimization, but that is all outside the t...
What is your primary use case for Logstash?
The purposes for which I am using Logstash largely include log aggregation and application monitoring.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Grafana Loki vs. Logstash and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.