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Graylog pros and cons

Vendor: Graylog
4.0 out of 5
402 followers
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Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Message forwarding through the in-built module.
The ability to write custom alerts is key to information security and compliance.
Storing logs in Elasticsearch enables extremely fast log retrieval with full text search available by default.
Graylog is valuable because it bridges technical knowledge to non-technical teams, presenting complex backend processes in a simple timeline.
The integration capabilities with existing platforms like Slack and OpsGenie allow for proactive error alerts.

CONS

The collector application architecture is problematic, prompting users to avoid using Graylog Collector Sidecar.
Elasticsearch recommendations for tuning could be improved, and difficulties arise with Kubernetes support.
Users encounter issues with Elasticsearch due to field data size, affecting stability and resource management.
The initial setup is complex, and creating processing pipeline rules is tedious due to insufficient documentation.
Infrastructure costs are a significant concern, impacting the overall affordability.
 

Graylog Pros review quotes

Andrey Mostovykh - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 27, 2022
What I like about Graylog is that it's real-time and you have access to the raw data. So, you ingest it, and you have access to every message and every data item you ingest. You can then build analytics on top of that. You can look at the raw data, and you can do some volumetric estimations, such as how big traffic you have, how many messages of data of a type you have, etc.
SG
May 9, 2025
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.
Peter Malaty - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 30, 2022
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.
Learn what your peers think about Graylog. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user776922 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 22, 2017
The ability to write custom alerts is key to information security and compliance.
Jonas Leeb - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 22, 2022
One of the most valuable features is that you are able to do a very detailed search through the log messages in the overview.
Ivan Kokalovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 23, 2025
Graylog is valuable because it bridges technical knowledge to non-technical teams, presenting complex backend processes in a simple timeline.
AK
Jan 27, 2025
It has data adapters and lookup tables that utilize HTTP calls to APIs.
it_user995112 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 26, 2019
I am very proud of how very stable the solution is.
CN
Dec 7, 2020
Graylog's search functionality, alerting functionality, user management, and dashboards are useful.
it_user774168 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 16, 2017
Message forwarding through the in-built module.
 

Graylog Cons review quotes

Andrey Mostovykh - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 27, 2022
The infrastructure cost is the main issue. I like the rest. If the infrastructure costs could be lower, it would be fantastic.
SG
May 9, 2025
The area in Graylog that needs to be improved or enhanced would be the integrations.
Peter Malaty - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 30, 2022
Graylog needs to improve their authentication. Also, the fact that Graylog displays logs from the top down is just ridiculous.
Learn what your peers think about Graylog. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user776922 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 22, 2017
I would like to see a default dashboard widget that shows the topology of the clusters defined for the graylog install.
Jonas Leeb - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 22, 2022
It would be great if Graylog could provide a better Python package in order to make it easier to use for the Python community.
AK
Jan 27, 2025
When it comes to configuring the processing pipeline, writing the rules can be very tedious, especially since the documentation isn't extensive on how the functions provided for these rules work.
it_user995112 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 26, 2019
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.
CN
Dec 7, 2020
Graylog can improve the index rotation as it's quite a complex solution.
it_user774168 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 16, 2017
The biggest problem is the collector application, as we wanted to avoid using Graylog Collector Sidecar due to its architecture.
Lokesh Puthalapattu - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 21, 2022
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.