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Graylog Enterprise vs VMware Aria Operations for Logs comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 14, 2025

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
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Operations for ...
Ranking in Log Management
19th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Graylog Enterprise is 5.0%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Logs is 1.5%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Graylog Enterprise5.0%
VMware Aria Operations for Logs1.5%
Other93.5%
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.
reviewer2668767 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Solution Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Dashboard personalization enhances troubleshooting capabilities
A valuable feature of VMware Aria Operations for Logs is its ability to allow personalization of dashboards and requests. This personalization capability is crucial because it helps tailor the tool to specific needs. It also has many effective features for log analysis, making it a competent tool despite not having a comprehensive comparison with other tools.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Real-time UDP/GELF logging and full text-based searching."
"The build is stable and requires little maintenance, even compared to some extremely expensive products."
"Open source and user friendly."
"I like the correlation and the alerting."
"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."
"The product is scalable. The solution is stable."
"Graylog's search functionality, alerting functionality, user management, and dashboards are useful."
"One of the most valuable features is that you are able to do a very detailed search through the log messages in the overview."
"The virtualization solution supports data center virtualization, network and security."
"The trace log is the solution's most valuable feature. It's very helpful in troubleshooting problems."
"We are using it because we have a VMware product. It has its own built in dashboards for VMware products, and that's a good thing."
"We use the on-premises version of this solution for log analysis and to find details about certain issues."
"The system's management and its alerts are the most valuable aspects of the solution."
"What I like is that you can have different storage locations for different applications."
"It is a very useful tool if you have a VMware environment."
"I rate the overall solution a ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"The area in Graylog that needs to be improved or enhanced would be the integrations."
"Graylog needs to improve their authentication. Also, the fact that Graylog displays logs from the top down is just ridiculous."
"We ran into problems with Elasticsearch throwing a circuit-breaking exception due to field data size being too large. It turned out that the heap size directly impacted this size in a high-throughput environment, causing unexplained instability in Graylog. We were able to troubleshoot on the Elasticsearch size, but we should have been able to reference some minimum requirements for Graylog to know that our settings weren't sufficient."
"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-"
"Graylog could improve the process of creating rules. We have to create them manually by doing parses and applying them. Other SIEM solutions have basic rules and you can create and get more events of interest."
"The biggest problem is the collector application, as we wanted to avoid using Graylog Collector Sidecar due to its architecture."
"There should be some user groups and an auto sign-in feature.​"
"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."
"Customer service and support have declined. Six months ago, I would have rated it as an eight or nine. Currently, it feels more like a four, five, or six."
"What I'd like to improve in vRealize Log Insight is the licensing model. VMware provides vRealize Log Insight along with the VMware Cloud Foundation, but customers who would like to go for the native VMware would have to procure vRealize Log Insight separately. Today, vRealize Log Insight is offered on two different licenses, one is based on the number of VMs, and the other is based on the number of physical codes on the machine. If VMware can provide a bundle offer for customers who procure more than ten licenses, where you can have an option to run, for example, three hundred machines on vRealize Log Insight with no extra cost, this would encourage more people to adopt the solution. What I'd like to see in the next release of vRealize Log Insight is for a cloud option to be available, which would be a pay-as-you-go licensing model that would allow me to pick and choose what I'll monitor. For example, I have one thousand and three hundred critical servers, and the seven hundred servers for basic development, I don't want to monitor on vRealize Log Insight today, so I should be able to pick what I need to monitor on the solution and only pay for that specific instance. If VMware can apply these changes, it would help VMware customers to procure more or adopt more of vRealize Log Insight even in smaller projects."
"From an improvement perspective, the tool needs to be made more user-friendly."
"In vRealize login files, we have limitations regarding log partitions."
"The dashboard needs to be improved because this is what I need to monitor my infrastructure."
"The tool could benefit from improved filter settings and dashboarding."
"The product's price falls on the higher end of the spectrum, making it an area of concern."
"Log Insight should be better at dealing with audits and security logs. We use another product called QRadar for that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."
"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."
"Having paid official support is wise for projects."
"Consider Enterprise support if you have atypical needs or setup requirements.​"
"It's open source and free. They have a paid version, but we never looked into that because we never needed the features of the paid version."
"​You get a lot out-of-the-box with the non-enterprise version, so give it a try first."
"I use the free version of Graylog."
"We are using the free version of the product. However, the paid version is expensive."
"I am not sure what the exact cost is. However, I believe the vRealize suite costs $2,500.00 per year."
"I rate the product's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"Pricing could always be lower. If it were free, I would be more satisfied."
"The product's price is reasonable, but when it comes to SQL licensing, it's a bit expensive."
"The license cost for any other monitoring tool is too high compared to this product."
"The licensing cost for vRealize Log Insight is a little higher, so in terms of cost, it all depends upon what kind of environment you have. If you have a complete virtualized environment, or at least you're using a ninety-five percent virtualized environment, then vRealize Log Insight will play a very good role because it is a VMware component, so it has very tight integration with other VMware components and systems. This means you don't have to procure any other monitoring and management tool, and you don't need a separate automation tool. vRealize Log Insight will have an upper hand if your environment is purely virtualized on VMware. If you're using a mix of physical and virtual components, for example, a 50:50 ratio, then you need to have a third-party component to manage overall monitoring."
"Pricing is good because it is part of the suite package. It comes in a bundle for us."
"I think it is a reasonably priced product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
University
8%
Government
8%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

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?
I do not have any specific examples or numbers, such as time saved or incidents to share. Currently, I have no suggestions for how Graylog Enterprise can be improved, as there are no pain points or...
What is your primary use case for Graylog?
Graylog Enterprise is the logging and management tool we initially used, but later we stopped using it and switched to Loki, Grafana Loki for the logs. Eventually, we moved back to Graylog Enterpri...
What do you like most about vRealize Log Insight?
The events are notably more descriptive, aiding in security and event analysis. We've also integrated Sky Collector, providing valuable insights and solutions for troubleshooting.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for vRealize Log Insight?
The cost of using VMware Aria Operations for Logs was very high, around two to three million dollars, although the exact figure is uncertain. The price was proving to be too much, especially with t...
What needs improvement with vRealize Log Insight?
VMware Aria Operations for Logs is not a cost-effective tool. Changing any telemetry requires creating a new template, such as changes to the VM disk size. Always having to create a new template ma...
 

Also Known As

Graylog2
vRealize Log Insight
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Wildlands Adventure Zoo, Medic Mobile, IBM, Seventy Seven Energy, Baystate Health, Osis, Oxford University, Columbia University, Siemens, Cardinal Health, Ashdod Port, Vasakronan, Sydney Adventist Hospital, University of Derby
Find out what your peers are saying about Graylog Enterprise vs. VMware Aria Operations for Logs and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.