ControlUp vs Elastic Observability comparison

ControlUp and Elastic are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. ControlUp is ranked #31 with an average rating of 8.0, while Elastic is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.5. ControlUp holds a 1.1% mindshare in IM, compared to Elastic’s 2.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ControlUp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Elastic users who would recommend it.

ControlUp

Read 12 ControlUp reviews

2,373 Views
1,234 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Elastic Observability

Read 28 Elastic Observability reviews

8,986 Views
3,684 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

ControlUp

Elastic Observability

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

ControlUp and Elastic Observability compete in the performance management and data analytics sector. Elastic Observability appears to have an edge in data analysis due to its open-source framework, while ControlUp excels in performance management and real-time analysis.

Features: ControlUp focuses on performance management with features like endpoint monitoring, real-time performance analysis, and integration with Netscaler and Scoutbees. Elastic Observability places emphasis on logging and analytics, using tools like Kibana for hybrid cloud environments, favoring extensive data analysis through its open-source capabilities.

Room for Improvement: ControlUp could improve integration capabilities, UI, and alerting systems, and develop a robust mobile application. Elastic Observability needs advancements in visualization, a simplified user experience to reduce manual operations, and enhanced infrastructure monitoring along with better cost transparency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: ControlUp offers flexible deployment across hybrid cloud and on-premises setups with responsive customer service noted for quick issue resolution. Elastic Observability primarily deploys on-premises, with a substantial setup requirement and a learning curve. While knowledgeable, their service could benefit from increased promptness and support in new technology adoption.

Pricing and ROI: ControlUp provides competitive pricing but users mention hidden charges. Despite a potentially higher cost, users value its capabilities. Elastic Observability is more affordable due to its open-source model, though large implementations might find pricing competitive for smaller enterprises. Both solutions report positive ROI, with ControlUp excelling in efficiency savings and Elastic offering cost-effective data analysis.

To learn more, read our detailed ControlUp vs. Elastic Observability Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ControlUp vs. Elastic Observability

September 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

ControlUp

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

31st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (5th)

Elastic Observability

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (7th), Log Management (14th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Observability is 2.9%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Elastic Observability	2.9%
ControlUp	1.1%
Other	96.0%

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Richasvi Tripathi

Solutions Developer at HCL Technologies

Used to monitor several devices, but most reports do not give information of all the devices

We have approximately 10 to 20 feature requests pending on the vendor side. Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices. In our case, we are monitoring 200000 devices. So, we need details for all those devices, but that is limited to 100, which they have improved to an extent in some reports. I'm thinking of one feature request for ISPs because the dashboard does not provide a detailed list of ISPs, and it provides the wrong list. I feel some firewall issues are blocking that, and the team cannot send that detail. That may be the case. One feature request pending on the vendor side is the data format change. Once you see a detail in the report, it is mentioned in some other format, which is hard to analyze sometimes.

Read full review

Adelina Craciun

Product Owner at Swisscom

Customization enables tailored monitoring and alerting across departments

The possibility to customize it has been quite useful. Whatever the other departments want to dream up, we implement. Whatever they want to monitor, the granularity of it, the changes in the threshold, and the anomalies that they want reported all require some development. So far, every single request has been fulfilled.

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 most valuable feature is the granularity of visibility into the resources that are in use by our applications."

"ControlUp is beneficial as it provides a web interface through which you can access all your infrastructure—servers, devices, and VDI infrastructure—all on the same platform. It supports gathering all infrastructure components in a single, unified dashboard. This helps you identify performance issues or high resource utilization, allowing quick troubleshooting. I appreciate the solid interface that ControlUp offers."

"It has a great career time monitoring tool."

"The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities."

"It shows you so many details of what's going on in that log-on that, if there's a problem, you can identify it in five minutes."

"ControlUp has an easy installation process."

"The most valuable features in ControlUp are endpoint monitoring and the many features that are available."

"ControlUp has some good functionalities, such as remotely pushing scripts in the device through the tool."

More ControlUp pros

"It is a powerful tool that allows users to collect and transform logs as needed, enabling flexible visualization and analysis."

"I have built a mini business intelligence system based on Elastic Observability."

"The most valued feature of Elastic is its log analytics capabilities."

"The architecture and system's stability are simple."

"Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning over a month from multiple data sources can be completed within seconds."

"It is very stable, and I would rate it ten out of ten based on my interaction with it."

"It's easy to deploy, and it's very flexible."

"It is scalable and supports multitenancy, which is beneficial for MSPs."

More Elastic Observability pros

Cons

"Integration is always a problem, and we feel that we are doing our best and the service provider thinks they are doing their best. I guess if ControlUp's system could be more capable or if people could understand the integration part, that would be better."

"We'd like to see the mobile app working again so that we can get alerts 24/7. This is especially useful for the person on call."

"The most common complaint that I have heard, at least within our organization, is about reporting. They have their own reporting. It's just that it doesn't yet include everything that you can look at within the application. You can only report on specific metrics or collections."

"It can be improved by including script-based scheduling."

"There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting. It could use some work in reporting."

"Solve is a quick and intuitive tool for quickly mapping data together, however, once you have the view of the data that you like, it is difficult to share this with colleagues."

"This solution be improved by including load throttling tools. For example, I can identify a service where we spend a lot of CPU but I cannot restrict the service from ControlUp. I have to use another tool like AppSense."

"The graphical user interface needs to be improved from version to version."

More ControlUp cons

"Elastic Observability needs to improve the retrieval of logs and metrics from all the instances."

"They need more skills in the market. There are not enough skills in the market. It is not pervasive enough on the market, in my opinion. In other words, there isn't a big enough user base."

"The only challenging aspect for new users is often writing the query language."

"Elastic Observability’s price could be improved."

"If we had some pre-defined templates for observability that we could start using right away after deploying it – instead of having to build or to change some of the dashboards – that would be helpful."

"There's a steep learning curve if you've never used this solution before."

"There is room for improvement regarding its APM capabilities."

"The solution needs to use more AI. Once the product onboards AI, users would more effectively be able to track endpoints for specific messages."

More Elastic Observability cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."

"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."

"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."

"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."

"Elastic Observability is cheaper than other similar solutions, such as Dynatrace. Its license calculation is based on various factors like data volume and physical infrastructure, particularly related to RAM capacity."

"We have been using the open-source version."

"The product is not that cheap."

"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."

"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."

"We will buy a premium license after POC."

"Elastic Observability's pricing could be better for small-scale users."

More Elastic Observability pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Healthcare Company

11%

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	16

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?

Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive. It is a cheap tool because it is deployed to many devices where I work.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ControlUp Real-time?

There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting. It could use some work in reporting.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?

My use cases include everything, and I don't mean that facetiously. I mean everything. We manage the servers, manage user sessions, manage everything. We monitor monitoring and take actual actions,...

See all answers

What do you like most about Elastic Observability?

Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?

The problem is their licensing model, which is a bit confusing. Many customers struggle to understand their total cost of ownership because Elastic licensing is not dependent on easy, quantifiable ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?

Out-of-the-box use cases have room for improvement in Elastic Observability. They don't invest a lot in building out-of-the-box observable use cases, and they are more focusing on giving a very fle...

See all answers

Comparisons

Nexthink vs ControlUp

Compared 25% of the time

Citrix uberAgent Monitoring vs ControlUp

Compared 21% of the time

Zscaler Digital Experience (ZDX) vs ControlUp

Compared 9% of the time

SysTrack vs ControlUp

Compared 7% of the time

eG Enterprise vs ControlUp

Compared 7% of the time

More ControlUp Competitors

Sentry vs Elastic Observability

Compared 13% of the time

New Relic vs Elastic Observability

Compared 11% of the time

Dynatrace vs Elastic Observability

Compared 10% of the time

Grafana vs Elastic Observability

Compared 8% of the time

Zabbix vs Elastic Observability

Compared 7% of the time

More Elastic Observability Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ControlUp

October 2025

Download ControlUp product report

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability

October 2025

Download Elastic Observability product report

Overview

ControlUp is a digital experience monitoring management platform that makes it possible for IT teams to deliver a work-from-anywhere experience for employees. The solution makes fixing and preventing issues easy, enabling IT teams to make smarter decisions. It also provides monitoring performance, availability, and useful productivity metrics.

The ControlUp platform supports:

Any digital workstyle
Physical endpoints
Virtual desktops
Apps
SaaS
Web apps
Unified communications tools

ControlUp Features

ControlUp has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Out-of-the-box device and performance metrics
Custom metric and device data collection
Non-intrusive, secure agents with offline mode
Custom reporting
Easy-to-use dashboards
Scalable SaaS infrastructure
Built-in troubleshooting & remediation actions
Remote assist
Custom script actions
Multiple scripting languages
Automation and alerting

ControlUp Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing ControlUp. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Wide range of platform options: ControlUp offers multiple platform options including Windows, macOS, Linux, and IGE, independent of device location.

Powerful analytics: With ControlUp, you can analyze across your entire infrastructure or you can collect detailed individual device performance.

Optimizes performance: The solution enables you to remediate issues and optimize performance with its support of both manual and automated actions.

Minimize user downtime: ControlUp helps you catch common issues that lead to workflow interruptions. Self-correcting capabilities and comprehensive early-warning systems address issues before they impact employee productivity.

Resolve issues faster: The solution enables you to spend less time on support calls and more time driving value via its real-time troubleshooting and remediation solutions.

Increased visibility of remote environments: Gain real-time visibility across your entire network and find new ways to deliver the best end-user experience possible.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the ControlUp solution.

A Chair, IEEE Consumer Technology Society - Dallas,Texas, USA at a non-profit says, “In terms of the public cloud, ControlUp's features make us feel very secure. Security, uptime, and reduced capital expenditures are the main reasons we use ControlUp. So basically, the money that we consume is based on the amount of time we are using a service. ControlUp offers a return-on-investment type of approach that helps us.”

A VP Virtualisation and Citrix Engineer at BlackRock mentions, “Solve is quickly becoming one of the most-used features. Its interface allows us to connect to all 54,000 monitored endpoints in real-time. The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities. Combined with the triggers, we have been growing their usage to fix things before they become an issue. Lastly, the controller view allows us to compare the configurations of settings side-by-side which is extremely helpful when tracking down the RCA of an issue.”

A Senior Citrix Remote Access Engineer at Rabobank comments, “The high-level view of the estate coupled with powerful administration tools has been great. We can see real-time performance and trends and can create triggers for common issues with associated scripts that can automate a lot of the previous manual remediation steps.”

ControlUp

Elastic Observability offers a comprehensive suite for log analytics, application performance monitoring, and machine learning. It integrates seamlessly with platforms like Teams and Slack, enhancing data visualization and scalability for real-time insights.

Elastic Observability is designed to support production environments with features like logging, data collection, and infrastructure tracking. Centralized logging and powerful search functionalities make incident response and performance tracking efficient. Elastic APM and Kibana facilitate detailed data visualization, promoting rapid troubleshooting and effective system performance analysis. Integrated services and extensive connectivity options enhance its role in business and technical decision-making by providing actionable data insights.

What are the most important features of Elastic Observability?

Centralized Logging: Streamlines the collection, analysis, and storage of log data.
Powerful Search: Provides robust search capabilities for quick access to relevant information.
Scalability: Supports growing data needs across diverse environments.
Real-time Telemetry: Ensures up-to-date insights and monitoring.
Platform Integration: Seamlessly connects with services like Teams and Slack.
Data Visualization: Enhances visibility with Elastic APM and Kibana.

What benefits and ROI should users explore in reviews?

Cost-effectiveness: Offers significant savings through efficient data management.
Rapid Incident Response: Minimizes downtime with quick troubleshooting tools.
Comprehensive Insights: Supports better business decisions with detailed data analysis.
Performance Tracking: Enables assessment of system effectiveness and improvements.

Elastic Observability is employed across industries for critical operations, such as in finance for transaction monitoring, in healthcare for secure data management, and in technology for optimizing application performance. Its data-driven approach aids efficient event tracing, supporting diverse industry requirements.

Elastic

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank

Buyer's Guide

ControlUp vs. Elastic Observability

September 2025

Free Report: ControlUp vs. Elastic Observability

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