No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (19th), Cloud Monitoring Software (14th)
Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
29th
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 May 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 1.6%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Security Onion is 2.3%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon CloudWatch1.6%
Security Onion2.3%
Other96.1%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Azam S M - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Lead at Danat Fz LLC
Has provided reliable monitoring and alerting through extensive metric tracking and dashboard configuration
Amazon CloudWatch itself provides a lot of data. However, for visualization, we need to use third-party tools. We are in a process of integrating Grafana, Loki, and Prometheus to have better visualization on Amazon CloudWatch. We are also integrating Grafana with the application itself to get the application data and logs. Alternatively, there is AWS Kinesis and Glue where you can scrape the logs and have visualization, but a more easy option is Grafana. If you want to get a proper visual representation to see what is happening, then you need to integrate a third-party tool. Amazon CloudWatch has all the data, but to see what is happening, you need some third-party tool.
Jörg Kippe - PeerSpot reviewer
Scientist at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees
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

"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is intrusion prevention."
"The solution gives us very good real-time data."
"Every time we get an alarm or have an incident, CloudWatch is always there. We use it not only for resources we've spun up in the cloud, but also for some of our on-premises resources."
"I can put it in a simple term, its simplicity is always there."
"The portability that we have in Amazon is great."
"We use Amazon CloudWatch for logging."
"CloudWatch is good to use for infrastructure monitoring and workload monitoring on AWS."
"Amazon CloudWatch is a cheap and easy-to-use solution."
"Security Onion is the most mature solution in the market."
"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."
 

Cons

"Even though the product works well with most AWS, it is a nightmare to use with Snowflake."
"The pricing model can get very expensive as the project's scope grows."
"This product lacks some features: real-time data stream monitoring, application performance monitoring, mobile app monitoring, and live dashboards. Its workflows also need improvement."
"There could be further enhancements through CloudWatch's partnerships."
"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."
"Another area for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch is that it's slow in terms of log streaming; it requires an entire twenty-four hours for scanning, rather than just one hour."
"We'd like the interface to be as easy as Datadog."
"When connecting to Google Cloud, there is no visibility or traceability from Google Cloud into CloudWatch."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
"The product is not easy to learn."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is okay for me."
"We have monthly licensing costs. The licenses are probably in the vicinity of about $300 - $350/month."
"It’s an open-source solution."
"What's were using is the free service of Amazon CloudWatch, so they're not charging us. As for hidden fees, we're not aware of them because we're using what our clients provided us."
"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable for detailed basic monitoring."
"I consider it as a medium-priced solution."
"The pricing model is pay-as-you-go so you have to be mindful of usage to manage costs."
"Amazon CloudWatch is a cheap solution."
"It is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is a free solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Transportation Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
12%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

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 needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch itself provides a lot of data. However, for visualization, we need to use third-party tools. We are in a process of integrating Grafana, Loki, and Prometheus to have better visual...
What is your primary use case for Amazon CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch is a very small service that AWS provides. It is a monitoring service for applications within the AWS cloud, and we can integrate external applications using the APIs or SDK. The ...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.