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Amazon CloudWatch vs Security Onion comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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

Amazon CloudWatch
Ranking in Log Management
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (13th), Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)
Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
19th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 2.1%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Security Onion is 4.5%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Amazon CloudWatch2.1%
Security Onion4.5%
Other93.4%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Rahul Kundu - PeerSpot reviewer
Proactively address issues with seamless monitoring while enhancing custom metrics functionality
We use CloudWatch for monitoring and logging. It helps us monitor our applications' performance, particularly in ensuring that every API hit returns a response within four seconds, which is our SLA. We also monitor invocation errors in Lambda and use CloudWatch alerts to notify us of any issues…
Jörg Kippe - PeerSpot reviewer
A mature and affordable solution that is easy to install and easy to update
The product takes time to learn, it's not that easy. In the beginning we had a lot of questions. If you want to use such a tool in an real (industrial) environment, you have to ask how to get the network data. Can we do a full packet capture? Can we provide agents to our end systems? There are no simple solutions to these questions. It's a general problem when running such systems in an industrial environment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I found most valuable in Amazon CloudWatch is that it gives you detailed information, which I found helpful because it can even provide you with data for the past one minute, which is quite granular. That was what helped me most in terms of finding the root causes. Task automation is another valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch."
"Scheduling is a valuable feature."
"The solution gives us very good real-time data."
"The monitoring features are valuable."
"You can automate actions or use AWS functionalities like auto-scaling, where you can configure the metrics to add more nodes if the threshold is exceeded."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is reliability."
"The tool enables live monitoring."
"CloudWatch provides essential monitoring capabilities that integrate seamlessly with other AWS services."
"The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
"Security Onion is the most mature solution in the market."
 

Cons

"Incorporating a straightforward method or a plug-and-play solution for integrating these databases with our systems, facilitating smooth data transfer, and enabling the creation of dashboards for monitoring and analysis would be beneficial."
"The solution should provide human-readable metrics."
"I would like to monitor inbound and outbound transfer. I would also like to control the traffic for load balancing."
"Amazon CloudWatch charges extra for custom metrics, which is a significant disadvantage."
"I think something that can be improved are the alerts and alerting mechanism based on no rejects. We want to have it more flexible and that is one of the key things that is required."
"We'd like the interface to be as easy as Datadog."
"The drill-down aspect on the dashboard of the solution needs improvement. We get a very good high-level overview, but when we drill down, it becomes a little less clear. We have given this feedback to AWS as well and hope they will improve this in the future."
"The solution's integration could be easier for laypersons."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
"The product is not easy to learn."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing model is pay-as-you-go so you have to be mindful of usage to manage costs."
"The price is okay for me."
"I consider it as a medium-priced solution."
"Amazon CloudWatch has very cheap pricing, and it hardly costs my company $25-$30 a month for fifty systems, so it's pretty affordable."
"We have monthly licensing costs. The licenses are probably in the vicinity of about $300 - $350/month."
"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable for detailed basic monitoring."
"It is a free-of-charge service."
"It’s an open-source solution."
"It is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is a free solution."
"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
4%
University
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise24
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudWatch?
Overall, the pricing of Amazon CloudWatch is very expensive.
What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?
Apart from traceability of network resources, Amazon CloudWatch needs to be more interoperable with other tools because many companies are starting to use AI-based dashboards. When using third-part...
What do you like most about Security Onion?
The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Security Onion?
Security Onion is an open-source solution. On a scale from one to ten, where ten is expensive and one is cheap, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten.
What needs improvement with Security Onion?
The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudWatch vs. Security Onion and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.