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Elastic Observability vs FortiMonitor 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 IT Infrastructure Monitoring
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (7th), Log Management (16th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
FortiMonitor
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
15th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (14th), IT Alerting and Incident Management (7th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 3.3%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FortiMonitor is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

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.
JaimeVasquez - PeerSpot reviewer
Monitoring capabilities keep operations running smoothly and alerts enhance proactive system management
We use FortiMonitor to monitor the infrastructure of our customers. We check on what is happening with their operations, monitor bandwidth, ensure configurations are appropriate for the customer, and identify if anything is going wrong The most valuable features of FortiMonitor are its redundancy…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Elastic APM has plenty of features, such as the Elastic server for Kibana and many additional plugins. It's a comprehensive tool when used as a logging platform."
"Elastic provides built-in features for queries and report generation. It's a very good tool for monitoring integration capabilities."
"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."
"We use AppDynamics and Elastic. The reason why we're using Elastic APM is because of the license count. It's very favorable compared to AppDynamics. It's inexpensive; it's economical."
"It is a powerful tool that allows users to collect and transform logs as needed, enabling flexible visualization and analysis."
"The solution is open-source and helps with back-end logging. It is also easy to handle."
"I recommend Elastic Observability for its completeness of vision and wide ecosystem."
"I have built a mini business intelligence system based on Elastic Observability."
"FortiMonitor's dashboard is very informative and user-friendly."
"With FortiMonitor, you can get all the logs of the traffic information of the destination or the source."
"FortiMonitor is 100% stable."
"The most valuable feature of FortiMonitor is user monitoring. We are able to see if the user is following the policy or not from their system. Additionally, the solution integrates well with Fortinet FortiGate and has centralized management."
"The solution helps to see client infrastructure. It has many boxes and blinks green or red when the station goes up or down. We have different domains for the device groups that we monitor."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is what the devices are used for. We have big backups for our Cradlepoint solutions, but FortiMonitor is a great routing device and we love working with them."
"In FortiMonitor, we're linked up with our Netgear, CactusServer, and NOC. It's really valuable because everything's migrating to one dashboard for us system engineers. We can keep an eye on traffic, blocked sites, and the health of our hardware. That last part, about knowing if something's going to fail soon, is super important. It gives us time to sort things out before any big problems happen. As a system engineer, I need to keep tabs on everything – temperature, monitoring systems, and network operations. This data is really handy because it helps me ensure our site runs smoothly, whether it's turning systems on or off. Just last night, there was a system failure, but thanks to real-time monitoring, I quickly identified the problem and got the necessary replacement parts."
"The most valuable feature of FortiMonitor is the overall ability to monitor the health of the environment."
 

Cons

"In the future, Elastic APM needs a portfolio iTool. They can provide an easy way to develop the custom UI for Kibana."
"Elastic Observability is reactive rather than proactive. It should act as an ITSM tool and be able to create tickets and alerts on Jira."
"The auto-discovery isn't nearly as good. That's a big portion of it. When you drop the agent onto the JVM and you're trying to figure things out, having to go through and manually do all that is cumbersome."
"Elastic Observability is difficult to use. There are only three options for customization but this can be difficult for our use case. We do not have other options to choose the metrics shown, such as CPU or memory usage."
"Elastic Observability needs to have better standardization, logging, and schema."
"There is room for improvement regarding its APM capabilities."
"The tool's scalability involves a more complex implementation process. It requires careful calculations to determine the number of nodes needed, the specifications of each node, and the configuration of hot, warm, and cold zones for data storage. Additionally, managing log retention policies adds further complexity. The solution's pricing also needs to be cheaper."
"Elastic Observability is an excellent product for monitoring and visibility, but it lacks predictive analytics. Most solutions are aligned with the AIOps requirements, but this piece is missing in Elastic and should be included."
"Additionally, there are no AI features in FortiMonitor, which might be an area for enhancement."
"The solution's initial setup process is time-consuming."
"There are no AI features in FortiMonitor, which might be an area for enhancement."
"Sometimes, during high CPU usage, we cannot access FortiMonitor and must refresh it."
"FortiMonitor's monitoring could be much better. It should be like, in Palo Alto."
"FortiMonitor could be improved by making it more convenient for smaller workloads, such as when configuring a few branches."
". Enhancements in the dashboard, such as clearer alerting, maintenance window management, software version tracking, and better visualization, would be beneficial."
"FortiMonitor needs to improve its alert system."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."
"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."
"The product is not that cheap."
"The product’s pricing needs improvement."
"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."
"We have been using the open-source version."
"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."
"We will buy a premium license after POC."
"On a scale from one to ten, I rate the pricing a nine since it is a good solution that is available at a cheap price."
"We have a large customer base for Fortinet, and the additional buying power got us really great discounts."
"Compared to other solutions, FortiMonitor is a very expensive solution."
"There are additional costs needed for certain functionality, such as scalability."
"FortiMonitor's price is very high."
"The price of FortiMonitor is approximately $200 annually for 225 users. The price is competitive."
"The tool's pricing model in Vietnam is a bit high. I rate the product price as an eight out of ten."
"In terms of licensing, while it may not be the most expensive option on the market, it's relatively cost-effective. You can obtain licenses at a lower cost, with the calculation being straightforward. For example, if you onboard around 5,000 devices, you'll need approximately 5,000 licenses, as each device typically counts as one license."
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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
27%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Retailer
5%
 

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 is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have a clear bias because I work for Panopta. We aren't a fit for everyone, but I can confirm that Panopta is a lot less work to stand up and maintain. It's also a lot easier to use and onboard n...
What do you like most about FortiMonitor?
In FortiMonitor, we're linked up with our Netgear, CactusServer, and NOC. It's really valuable because everything's migrating to one dashboard for us system engineers. We can keep an eye on traffic...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiMonitor?
FortiMonitor does save time but not significantly on costs, as there are still expenses related to procurement, installation, and licensing.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Panopta
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
SONY, GoDaddy, HCL, ING, ARMOR, billboard
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. FortiMonitor and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.