Elastic Beats vs Graylog Enterprise comparison

Elastic and Graylog are both solutions in the Log Management category. Additionally, 75% of Elastic users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Graylog users who would recommend it.

Elastic Beats

Read 2 Elastic Beats reviews

75% willing to recommend

Graylog Enterprise

Read 24 Graylog Enterprise reviews

7,856 Views
7,856 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Elastic Beats

Graylog Enterprise

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 8, 2025

Graylog Enterprise and Elastic Beats compete in data monitoring and analytics. Graylog Enterprise seems to have the upper hand with comprehensive log management and direct support options, essential for structured support needs.

Features: Graylog Enterprise offers extensive log management, real-time user monitoring, and flexible data visualization. Elastic Beats provides lightweight data shippers, seamless Elasticsearch integration, and efficient data capture.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Graylog Enterprise is noted for its simple setup and reliable support services, making deployment smoother. Elastic Beats benefits from easy configuration and strong community support, though direct support is limited.

Pricing and ROI: Graylog Enterprise incurs initial costs but provides substantial ROI with comprehensive features. Elastic Beats is free and open source, reducing upfront costs, but additional ELK stack components may increase expenses.

To learn more, read our detailed Log Management Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Log Management

January 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 882,410 peers since 2012

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

Elastic Beats

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Graylog Enterprise

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (8th)

Featured Reviews

it_user1269834

I.T. Manager at a healthcare company with 51-200 employees

A great addition to our security monitoring system

We haven't to this point had to scale very large, we want to continue to evolve, but it's a slow process for us. From what I've used so far, and my reading on it, I don't think we're going to have any problems scaling to really whatever size we need.

Read full review

NicolaeCIornii

Security Officer at JSC "Moldtelecom" S.A.

Log analysis has become clearer and faster but visualization and extensibility still need work

The problem was with the complexity and the cost to add extensions. We found this very expensive to buy another version with additional features. I think that Graylog Enterprise does not have customizable dashboards. I did not see them in Graylog Enterprise because most of the time we used the open source free version, which is limited. I think Graylog Enterprise should improve some things that they have in the paid version and perhaps provide users with a menu that gives examples of parsing logs and draws graphics so that people do not need to improve another system such as Grafana. This would be interesting. When it comes to functionalities, I found the log management in Graylog Enterprise acceptable. It is very simple to use and to collect logs. It has support for different protocols and different ports, and the sidecar is easy to use. However, in visualization, I think it needs to be much better.

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

"There's a whole spectrum of features on the solution that users can take advantage of. It's a very robust product."

"The security aspects in general have been very useful to use."

"It is easier to find some issues, and if I find some issues, then it is easier to resolve them."

"One of the most valuable features is that you are able to do a very detailed search through the log messages in the overview."

"This had increased productivity for the dev and support teams, because we are directly notifying them."

"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."

"UDP is a fast and lightweight protocol, perfect for sending large volumes of logs with minimal overhead."

"Storing logs in Elasticsearch means log retrieval is extremely fast, and full text search is available by default."

"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 solution's most valuable feature is its new interface."

More Graylog Enterprise pros

Cons

"The dashboard is not user-friendly. The solution, in general, isn't great from a user's perspective."

"At some level, the documentation, the information as far as the components, it's sometimes a little difficult to find the information necessary to implement aspects."

"The problem was with the complexity and the cost to add extensions."

"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."

"Graylog can improve the index rotation as it's quite a complex solution."

"Graylog needs to improve their authentication. Also, the fact that Graylog displays logs from the top down is just ridiculous."

"I hope to see improvements in Graylog for more interactivity, user-friendliness, and creating alerts. The initial setup is complex."

"There should be some user groups and an auto sign-in feature."

"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."

"We ran into problems with Elasticsearch throwing a circuit-breaking exception due to field data size being too large. It turned out that the heap size directly impacted this size in a high-throughput environment, causing unexplained instability in Graylog. We were able to troubleshoot on the Elasticsearch size, but we should have been able to reference some minimum requirements for Graylog to know that our settings weren't sufficient."

More Graylog Enterprise cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It wasn't cheap, but it was cost-effective compared to many of the other solutions."

"I use the free version of Graylog."

"If you want something that works and do not have the money for Splunk or QRadar, take Graylog."

"Consider Enterprise support if you have atypical needs or setup requirements."

"I am using a community edition. I have not looked at the enterprise offering from Graylog."

"Having paid official support is wise for projects."

"You get a lot out-of-the-box with the non-enterprise version, so give it a try first."

"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"We're using the Community edition."

More Graylog Enterprise pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

882,410 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

11%

University

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	9

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Graylog?

I am not familiar with the pricing details of Graylog, as I was not responsible for that aspect. It was determined that we didn't need an enterprise plan, which is more suited for clients with less...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Graylog?

I do not have any specific examples or numbers, such as time saved or incidents to share. Currently, I have no suggestions for how Graylog Enterprise can be improved, as there are no pain points or...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Graylog?

Graylog Enterprise is the logging and management tool we initially used, but later we stopped using it and switched to Loki, Grafana Loki for the logs. Eventually, we moved back to Graylog Enterpri...

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM Security QRadar vs Elastic Beats

Compared 100% of the time

More Elastic Beats Competitors

Grafana Loki vs Graylog Enterprise

Compared 22% of the time

Wazuh vs Graylog Enterprise

Compared 16% of the time

syslog-ng vs Graylog Enterprise

Compared 8% of the time

Security Onion vs Graylog Enterprise

Compared 5% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Graylog Enterprise

Compared 3% of the time

More Graylog Enterprise Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Log Management

January 2026

Download Elastic Beats product report

Buyer's Guide

Graylog Enterprise

February 2026

Download Graylog Enterprise product report

Also Known As

No data available

Graylog2

Overview

Beats is the platform for single-purpose data shippers. They install as lightweight agents and send data from hundreds or thousands of machines to Logstash or Elasticsearch.

Elastic

Graylog Enterprise, recognized for log collection, real-time search, and enriched data handling, offers an open-source framework that integrates seamlessly with Elasticsearch. Its user-centric interface streamlines data correlation and log aggregation, supporting both backend services and comprehensive monitoring needs.

Graylog Enterprise stands out for its stability and powerful log management capabilities, facilitating efficient log aggregation, real-time updates, and data analytics. Users benefit from its plugin-based alerting, user-friendly interface, and support for microservices, including Docker integration. The ability to search in detail, flexible API integration, and data enrichment features are highly valued. Challenges include collector application issues, desired visualization enhancements, and authentication integration improvements. Users seek advancements in UI customization, backup functions, and easier rule creation.

What are Graylog Enterprise's most important features?

Log Collection: Efficiently aggregates and handles diverse logs.
Real-Time Search: Provides immediate log data access.
Custom Alerts: Plugin-based alerting for tailored notifications.
Dashboard Enhancements: Improved visualization for data insights.
Data Enrichment: Adds value through detailed log analysis.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Audit Trail Support: Essential for compliance in financial sectors.
Security Event Correlation: Enables incident analysis and response.
Faster Issue Identification: Speeds up troubleshooting with detailed visualization.
API Flexibility: Seamless integration across systems and environments.
Comprehensive Monitoring: Centralized log management enhances oversight.

In industrial use, Graylog Enterprise is crucial for audit trailing in financial sectors, facilitating security event identification and error monitoring. Backend teams leverage real-time analytics for swift issue resolution, while developers appreciate the comprehensive log visualization enabled by Docker integration for microservice management.

Graylog

Sample Customers

Sprint

Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Find out what your peers are saying about Wazuh, Splunk, Datadog and others in Log Management. Updated: January 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

882,410 professionals have used our research since 2012.

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.