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Graylog Enterprise vs Logstash comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 2026

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

Graylog Enterprise
Ranking in Log Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Logstash
Ranking in Log Management
31st
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 June 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Graylog Enterprise is 2.8%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Logstash is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Graylog Enterprise2.8%
Logstash0.9%
Other96.3%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

NC
Security Officer at JSC "Moldtelecom" S.A.
Log analysis has become clearer and faster but visualization and extensibility still need work
The problem was with the complexity and the cost to add extensions. We found this very expensive to buy another version with additional features. I think that Graylog Enterprise does not have customizable dashboards. I did not see them in Graylog Enterprise because most of the time we used the open source free version, which is limited. I think Graylog Enterprise should improve some things that they have in the paid version and perhaps provide users with a menu that gives examples of parsing logs and draws graphics so that people do not need to improve another system such as Grafana. This would be interesting. When it comes to functionalities, I found the log management in Graylog Enterprise acceptable. It is very simple to use and to collect logs. It has support for different protocols and different ports, and the sidecar is easy to use. However, in visualization, I think it needs to be much better.
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

"Everything stands out as valuable, including the fact that I can quantify and qualify the logs, create pipelines and process the logs in any way I like, and create charts or data maps."
"It has data adapters and lookup tables that utilize HTTP calls to APIs."
"We're using the Community edition, but I know that it has really good dashboarding and alerts."
"The product does all the things it must do very well."
"The build is stable and requires little maintenance, even compared to some extremely expensive products."
"Open source and user friendly."
"This had increased productivity for the dev and support teams, because we are directly notifying them."
"We run a containerized microservices environment, and 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."
"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."
"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."
"We have three or four Logstash servers for high availability."
"I can collect logs from various data sources, including hardware."
"Everything aligns well with improving our organization."
 

Cons

"The problem was with the complexity and the cost to add extensions."
"I would like to see a date and time in the Graylog Grok patterns so that I can save time when searching for a log. I like how the streams and the search query work, but adding a date and time will allow me to pull out a log in a milli-second."
"If you have a whole team trying to fix the Graylog instance for two days, that's a bit too much."
"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."
"I would like to see a default dashboard widget that shows the topology of the clusters defined for the graylog install."
"More complex visualizations and the ability to execute custom Elasticsearch queries would be great."
"Graylog needs to improve their authentication. Also, the fact that Graylog displays logs from the top down is just ridiculous."
"There are many other applications in the market that influenced my rating reduction."
"The product needs to improve its compatibility."
"There can be a UI to implement with Logstash. Currently, I have to work with config files and everything."
"Almost all the research can be very bad. We still have a problem with importing the log system."
"An enhancement we could implement is the ability to cluster Logstash to exist in more than one node."
"Elastic does not provide proper support for Logstash worldwide, and I rate their technical support as one out of ten."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the free version of the product. However, the paid version is expensive."
"I use the free version of Graylog."
"Having paid official support is wise for projects."
"I am using a community edition. I have not looked at the enterprise offering from Graylog."
"Consider Enterprise support if you have atypical needs or setup requirements.​"
"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.​​"
"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise11
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Graylog?
I am not sure about the pricing, setup cost, and licensing because that was dealt with by a different team that handled the licensing and procurement.
What needs improvement with Graylog?
Graylog Enterprise performs well overall; however, the UI could be improved because the SOC team creates multiple dashboards based on their use cases, and creating dashboards is complex. If there w...
What is your primary use case for Graylog?
Graylog Enterprise is used primarily for log management and to perform security analytics. It helps the organization collect logs from different sources and centralize them in one place. We can sea...
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.
What advice do you have for others considering Logstash?
I am using Logstash for log management and also implement it. Logstash can be deployed both on-cloud and on-premises. On a scale of 1-10, I rate Logstash an 8.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Graylog2
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Graylog Enterprise vs. Logstash and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.