We compared Amazon CloudWatch and Graylog based on our users' reviews in five categories. We reviewed all of the data and you can find the conclusion below.
Features: Amazon CloudWatch users liked the solution’s simplicity, intuitive interface, and ability to handle large workloads. Users also praised CloudWatch’s comprehensive monitoring and alerts. Graylog stands out with its exceptional search functions, seamless integration with Elasticsearch, and real-time data access. Some reviews mentioned that Amazon CloudWatch could improve performance and dashboard visualization. Others noted that the solution lacked compatibility with some databases. Graylog could benefit from additional customization options and an improved rule-creation process.
Service and Support: Customers generally have positive opinions about Amazon's customer service. They commended the support team for its availability and timely issue resolution. Graylog's customer service is generally well-regarded, with reviewers noting effective solutions and satisfactory experiences. While response times may differ, Graylog's support is considered superior compared to that of other products.
Ease of Deployment: Amazon CloudWatch is generally described as easy to set up. Some Graylog users said the setup was easy. Other reviewers faced challenges, but these were easily resolved with help from the vendor’s support staff. Graylog is easier to set up in smaller environments, but it could get complicated in large clusters.
Pricing: Amazon CloudWatch offers a flexible pricing structure based on usage and processing, without any separate licensing cost. Some users said that scaling up can be costly due to the need for additional storage space. Graylog offers an enterprise edition and an open-source option with a daily capacity restriction. Some users said that data costs can be expensive.
ROI: Amazon CloudWatch offers a return on investment by minimizing the need for manual monitoring. Graylog can offer some cost savings. The precise ROI may vary depending on the organization’s size and use case.
"Monitoring time and ensuring ease in it is the most valuable feature."
"Amazon CloudWatch's best feature stems from its ability to monitor app performance."
"The alarms are one thing I love about AWS CloudWatch. It has alerts that notify us when resource use is approaching the limit."
"The monitoring features are valuable."
"It is a stable solution...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"It offers direct integrations with various storage providers, making it convenient to push logs from CloudWatch to these external platforms."
"The solution gives us very good real-time data."
"We use Amazon CloudWatch for logging."
"Real-time UDP/GELF logging and full text-based searching."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its new interface."
"The build is stable and requires little maintenance, even compared to some extremely expensive products."
"I am very proud of how very stable the solution is."
"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."
"The product is scalable. The solution is stable."
"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."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in terms of stability."
"CloudWatch doesn’t monitor disk throughput by default."
"I would like to monitor inbound and outbound transfer. I would also like to control the traffic for load balancing."
"The dashboard and the UI could improve in Amazon CloudWatch. Additionally, they should focus on visibility inside the servers with AI and machine learning integrations. This would allow users who are using the solution to see what is happening within the system better."
"Amazon CloudWatch needs improvement. The main thing is we have noticed missing logs."
"There's a learning curve with Amazon CloudWatch since we have to learn to write the queries to extract the keys and logs."
"It is hard to configure; it is not a straightforward tool."
"The product's configuration has some challenges. The solution needs to be more user-friendly."
"The biggest problem is the collector application, as we wanted to avoid using Graylog Collector Sidecar due to its architecture."
"With technical support, you are on your own without an enterprise license."
"More complex visualizations and the ability to execute custom Elasticsearch queries would be great."
"Lacks sufficient documentation."
"Over six months, I had two similar issues where searches were performed on field "messages". It exhausted all the memory of the ES node causing an ES crash and a Graylog halt."
"Graylog needs to improve their authentication. Also, the fact that Graylog displays logs from the top down is just ridiculous."
"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 some kind of visualization included in Graylog."
Amazon CloudWatch is ranked 12th in Log Management with 40 reviews while Graylog is ranked 11th in Log Management with 18 reviews. Amazon CloudWatch is rated 8.0, while Graylog is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Amazon CloudWatch writes "Instantaneous response when monitoring logs and KPIs". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Graylog writes "Great detailed search features and easy Java integration, but needs improvement in integration with Python". Amazon CloudWatch is most compared with Zabbix, Datadog, Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) and Dynatrace, whereas Graylog is most compared with Grafana Loki, Wazuh, syslog-ng, Splunk Enterprise Security and Fortinet FortiAnalyzer. See our Amazon CloudWatch vs. Graylog report.
See our list of best Log Management vendors.
We monitor all Log Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
