Graylog vs Nagios Log Server comparison

Graylog and Nagios are both solutions in the Log Management category. Graylog is ranked #15 with an average rating of 7.0, while Nagios is ranked #43 with an average rating of 8.0. Graylog holds a 6.4% mindshare in Log Management, compared to Nagios’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Graylog users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Nagios users who would recommend it.

Graylog

Read 21 Graylog reviews

8,998 Views
8,998 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Nagios Log Server

Read 4 Nagios Log Server reviews

1,249 Views
1,249 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Graylog

Nagios Log Server

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Graylog and Nagios Log Server both compete in the monitoring solution category, each catering to specific user needs. Based on user satisfaction and feature set analysis, Graylog is perceived to have the upper hand in user satisfaction due to competitive pricing and support, while Nagios Log Server stands out with its robust feature set despite higher costs.

Features: Graylog is favored for its real-time data processing, intuitive setup, and flexible data parsing. It excels in advanced search functionalities and managing large data volumes. Nagios Log Server stands out for centralized management, extensive monitoring capabilities, and configurable alerts that provide control and compliance.

Room for Improvement: Users of Graylog suggest improvements in visualization tools, third-party integration, and scalability for enterprise environments. As for Nagios Log Server, there is a call for simpler configuration, enhanced automated alerting, and improved user guides for better usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Graylog is praised for its straightforward deployment and reliable customer support, which is beneficial for smaller teams. Nagios Log Server, despite a more complex setup, offers extensive documentation and helpful customer service, making it suitable for larger enterprises.

Pricing and ROI: Graylog is known for budget-friendly setup costs and significant ROI through resource allocation savings. It provides high value with its analytics capabilities. Nagios Log Server is seen as a worthwhile investment offering justified returns with its superior features, appealing to users with larger budgets.

To learn more, read our detailed Graylog vs. Nagios Log Server Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Graylog vs. Nagios Log Server

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

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

Nagios Log Server

Ranking in Log Management

43rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

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 Graylog is 6.4%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios Log Server is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Log Management

Featured Reviews

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.

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Syarul Idzuddin Adzmi

Operation Director at Digital Pulse Sdn Bhd

A scalable and affordable tool for monitoring data centers

Five engineers are needed for the maintenance of the product. I would definitely recommend the solution to those planning to use it. To increase the rating for the product, Nagios should offer remote support and offer more customization in reporting while making it easy for the customers to use it. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

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

"The Graylog features that have proven to be most beneficial for our data analysis in particular are that we tend to use it as a big data store, so we have the correlation rules that, if something matches under certain conditions, it raises an alarm."

"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."

"Storing logs in Elasticsearch means log retrieval is extremely fast, and full text search is available by default."

"We're using the Community edition, but I know that it has really good dashboarding and alerts."

"UDP is a fast and lightweight protocol, perfect for sending large volumes of logs with minimal overhead."

"Message forwarding through the in-built module."

"I like the correlation and the alerting."

"Allowing us to set up alerts and integrate with platforms we already use, such as Slack and OpsGenie to alert users of these errors proactively, is also a very useful feature."

More Graylog pros

"One of the most valuable features is the dashboard because the UI was effective and easy to use. The alert systems are good as well. We had no failovers and had high availability. We can search the queries fast as well in Nagios Log Server."

"The product is scalable."

"The initial setup of Nagios Log Server was easy and straightforward."

"A great feature of the solution involves its internal portal."

Cons

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

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

"It would be great if Graylog could provide a better Python package in order to make it easier to use for the Python community."

"I would like to see some kind of visualization included in Graylog."

"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-"

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

"Graylog needs to improve their authentication. Also, the fact that Graylog displays logs from the top down is just ridiculous."

"Graylog can improve the index rotation as it's quite a complex solution."

More Graylog cons

"As we are talking about a product which is open to the public, the pricing makes it challenging for us to profit off of its marketing."

"The configurations during initial setup could be improved. If they could be agentless, as in the case of the Ansible product, it would be better. I would like to be able to analyze the network bandwidth."

"The support could be better."

"The customization and dashboards have shortcomings and need to be improved to make the tool look more presentable."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"We're using the Community edition."

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

"I use the free version of Graylog."

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

"We are using the free version of the product. However, the paid version is expensive."

"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."

More Graylog pricing and cost advice

"For a single instance, the price is around $4,000."

"We found the pricing to be quite affordable."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap, I rate the pricing an eight or nine."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Government

University

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

University

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Graylog?

The product is scalable. The solution is stable.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Graylog

August 2025

Download Graylog product report

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Log Server

August 2025

Download Nagios Log Server product report

Also Known As

Graylog2

No data available

Overview

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.

Graylog

Nagios Enterprises delivers official products, services, and solutions for and around Nagios – the industry standard in enterprise-grade IT infrastructure monitoring. With millions of users worldwide, Nagios is the undisputed champion in the IT monitoring space. Our team of dedicated professionals works to ensure total customer satisfaction with all the services we provide. Our extensive network of partners helps extend Nagios services and solutions to new organizations and markets worldwide to meet a variety of business needs. Nagios Enterprises was founded in 2007 by Ethan Galstad. Ethan created what would later become known as Nagios in 1999, and currently serves as the President of Nagios Enterprises.

Nagios

Sample Customers

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

IBM, impulse, wipro, comteco

Buyer's Guide

Graylog vs. Nagios Log Server

July 2025

Free Report: Graylog vs. Nagios Log Server

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