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Elastic Observability vs Elastic Stack 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

Elastic Observability
Ranking in Log Management
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (7th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (11th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
Elastic Stack
Ranking in Log Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 1.3%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Stack is 5.3%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Adelina Craciun - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Balamurali P - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced query capabilities enhance monitoring effectiveness
Elastic Stack should be more simplified with ready-to-use widgets. Also, incorporating AI capabilities is essential as monitoring and observability tools are now adding AI features. Ideally, it should evolve into a full-stack observability tool, similar to AppDynamics or DynaTrace, which offers a solution that includes ISP provider, API monitoring, and infrastructure monitoring.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I found Elk to be excellent for log analytics, security analytics, application code-level analytics, collaboration with DevOps teams, CI/CD, microservices, and Kubernetes, specifically cloud-native or cloud-specific tasks."
"It's easy to deploy, and it's very flexible."
"We can view and connect different sources to the dashboard using it."
"It is scalable and supports multitenancy, which is beneficial for MSPs."
"The ability to ensure that the data is searchable and maintainable is highly valuable for our purposes."
"The most valuable feature of Elastic Observability is the text search."
"It is very stable, and I would rate it ten out of ten based on my interaction with it."
"The tool's most valuable feature is centralized logging. Elastic Common Search helps us to search for the logs across the organization."
"It is an excellent tool for monitoring purposes."
"I have experienced a return on investment from the use of the solution."
"It supports various integrations. It's open source and has excellent community support."
"We can group a lot of alarms into one automation alarm supervision. The alarm supervision allows us to put the alarm under the same. It's quite helpful for us. We used that to suppress our alarms. Elastic already provides the agent. It is easy to integrate Elastic Stack with other devices and vendors."
"The detection rules in Elastic Stack are the most valuable feature. The search capabilities are excellent and fast. As we collect logs from workstations and devices, the detection rules run on top of the logs and detect any suspicious activity, raising alerts accordingly. Integration with Elastic Stack depends on the specific integration. Elastic provides some bridging integrations that make it easy, but require custom integration. Most integrations are simple, but customization can be challenging because we need to do some parsing. There's something called Elastic Common Schema, and we need to parse the source logs to match this schema, which can be a bit challenging."
"Prior to the latest updates, data lake management was a standout feature. The hybrid capability for on-premise and cloud integration was also crucial. Now, with Elastic Defense, the agent simplifies security monitoring, making it a key asset."
"The machine learning capabilities are valuable."
"The centralized logging capabilities of Elastic Stack have helped me streamline my logging processes significantly because there are many open-source tools available, such as Filebeat and Logstash, to collect the logs."
 

Cons

"Elastic Observability could improve asset discovery as the current requirement to push the agent is not ideal."
"Elastic Observability’s price could be improved."
"More web features could be added to the product."
"I am familiar with Azure Monitor, which I find more user-friendly compared to Elastic, which is a very technical tool."
"The cost must be made more transparent."
"In the future, Elastic APM needs a portfolio iTool. They can provide an easy way to develop the custom UI for Kibana."
"The only challenging aspect for new users is often writing the query language."
"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."
"Elastic Stack should be more simplified with ready-to-use widgets."
"There could be better documentation."
"While Elastic Stack can manage vast amounts of data, if the mapping is not specified correctly, the indexing time can be slow, especially with many events per second."
"The main issue related to Elastic Stack is in the area of its licensing."
"The stability of the solution is rated as three or four out of ten as we frequently encounter issues."
"It should facilitate easier manual integration."
"Elastic Stack should be more simplified with ready-to-use widgets. Also, incorporating AI capabilities is essential as monitoring and observability tools are now adding AI features."
"Improvements are needed in the solution in areas like SOAR and TIP, where there are certain shortcomings."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Elastic Observability's pricing could be better for small-scale users."
"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."
"There are two types: cloud and SaaS. They charge based on data ingestion, ingest rate, hard retention, and warm retention. I believe it costs around $25,000 annually to ingest 30GB of data daily. That is the SaaS version. There is also a self-managed license where the customer manages their own infrastructure on-prem. In such cases, there are three license tiers that respectively cost $5,000 annually per node, $7,000 per node, and $12,500 per node."
"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."
"The product’s pricing needs improvement."
"We have been using the open-source version."
"The product is not that cheap."
"The price of Elastic Observability is expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."
"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
"We are using the open-source community version of the product."
"If I compare Elastic Stack to the other products in the market, I would say that the tool is available at a competitive price."
"The pricing is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?
The license for Elastic Observability is the same as for other uses; you pay for Elastic, and you can use it for various cases. Observability is actually cheaper compared to logs because you're not...
What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?
I think they are working on the AI-based features, which are currently in technical preview. The only challenging aspect for new users is often writing the query language. Basic searching is very e...
What do you like most about Elastic Stack?
The tool is huge, and it performs brilliantly. I tested it for malware, and within two weeks of launching, the product alerted me about a network intrusion. This was a tough test for it, but it per...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Stack?
My experience with Elastic Stack pricing indicates that it is node-based. While I do not have complete pricing details, they are available online. If I choose Elastic Cloud, it includes licensing a...
What needs improvement with Elastic Stack?
There are improvements needed for Elastic Stack. It is mostly based on Lucene, and the heart of Elastic Stack is Lucene, which has some limitations. Anything built on top of Lucene often feels an a...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
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Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. Elastic Stack and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
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