Elastic Observability vs Grafana comparison

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13,163 views|10,536 comparisons
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7,544 views|4,263 comparisons
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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Elastic Observability and Grafana based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Performance Management (APM) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Elastic Observability vs. Grafana Report (Updated: May 2023).
708,544 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The solution has been stable in our usage.""It's easy to deploy, and it's very flexible.""Machine learning is the most valuable feature of this solution.""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.""Good design and easy to use once implemented.""The Elastic User Interface framework lets us do custom development when needed. You need to have some Javascript knowledge. We need that knowledge to develop new custom tests.""The solution allows us to dig deep into data.""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."

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"The integration between Loki and Tempo is valuable.""It gives us the visibility we need. I like that when we add deployment markers or release markers, we know exactly when an issue arises. For instance, if there is an increased usage of CPU, we can link it directly to the deployment that might have caused the issue. It increases productivity and observability. We can now easily tell when a certain issue arises. It's way easier to debug because it can point you to certain things based on these markers, and we can debug easier.""The best feature was the creation of graphs and trends.""The best thing about Grafana is the visualization. The colors and the ease of use make it very user-friendly.""The most valuable feature of Grafana is the ease to build dashboards from observability construction. Additionally, the page services and integration are good.""There are multiple kinds of models there to create dashboards, which is quite useful.""Grafana is able to connect with multiple data sources, unlike Elasticsearch.""Kubernetes could help us to better visualize the trend of our data by recording and displaying our history over a chosen duration, such as the last 30 days."

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Cons
"Elastic APM's visualization is not that great compared to other tools. It's number of metrics is very low.""The solution needs to use more AI. Once the product onboards AI, users would more effectively be able to track endpoints for specific messages.""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.""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 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.""In the future, Elastic APM needs a portfolio iTool. They can provide an easy way to develop the custom UI for Kibana.""Elastic Observability’s price could be improved.""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."

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"The documentation or training provided by Grafana is limited compared to its competitors, like Splunk.""It would be helpful if Grafana provided more information and training on how to use Prometheus.""I would like the ability to download my results into any format in order to share the information with my clients.""The look and feel of the charting and graph capabilities in Grafana could improve. If they provided a storyboard type of feature as they have in other solutions, such as PowerBI. The multi-tenanted and stitch metrics features could improve.""The solution should include online support.""We need different kinds of applications in our infrastructure to see information in Grafana.""Multiple dashboards combined into one dashboard has slowed things down for us.""Its interface could be more accessible."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "So far, there are just the standard licensing fees. Several of the components are embedded in the license or are even open source. They're even free depending on what you use, which makes it even more appealing to someone that is discussing pricing of the solution."
  • "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 price of Elastic Observability is expensive."
  • "Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."
  • More Elastic Observability Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I use the open source model so it is free."
  • "My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."
  • "We use the open-source version of Grafana."
  • "We are using the open-source license."
  • "I give the price an eight out of ten."
  • "You need to purchase the solution's license for its commercial use."
  • "The solution is expensive."
  • More Grafana Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The solution has been stable in our usage.
    Top Answer:The price of Elastic Observability is expensive. I rate the price of Elastic Observability an eight out of ten.
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:Hi @Faustine Chisasa,  I will go with ELK + Grafana. Elasticsearch is highly distributed, scalable and fast. You got power of storage. Logstash is highly pluggable and rich in plugins. You can use… more »
    Top Answer:The most important feature of Grafana is its alarm formatting capability.
    Ranking
    Views
    13,163
    Comparisons
    10,536
    Reviews
    10
    Average Words per Review
    587
    Rating
    7.6
    Views
    7,544
    Comparisons
    4,263
    Reviews
    28
    Average Words per Review
    387
    Rating
    7.9
    Comparisons
    Learn More
    Grafana Labs
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    Overview
    To effectively monitor and gain insights across your distributed systems, you need to have all your observability data in one stack. Break down silos by bringing together application, infrastructure, and user data into a unified solution for end-to-end observability and alerting.
    Rely on the most widely deployed observability platform available, built on the proven Elastic Stack (also known as the ELK Stack) to converge silos, delivering unified visibility and actionable insights.

    Grafana is an essential visualization tool for all application metrics in the environment, allowing teams to search and conduct application troubleshooting and monitor application performance, including CPU. Its most valuable features include its ability to create appealing graphs, cater to multiple use cases, integrate with other tools, and provide live monitoring and alerts. 

    Grafana has greatly improved organizations' observability and operational excellence by providing a centralized way to instantly see business, technical, and service metrics and find bottlenecks easily.

    Offer
    Learn more about Elastic Observability
    Learn more about Grafana
    Sample Customers
    PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
    PayPal, eBay, Staples, Booking.com, Intel, NS1, TED, NetApp, Vimeo, RackSpace, SquareSpace, OpenTable, MediaMath, Fermilab
    Top Industries
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm21%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    Healthcare Company8%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider18%
    Retailer18%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Wellness & Fitness Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm22%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Retailer6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business9%
    Large Enterprise91%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise68%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise57%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business16%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise71%
    Buyer's Guide
    Elastic Observability vs. Grafana
    May 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. Grafana and other solutions. Updated: May 2023.
    708,544 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Elastic Observability is ranked 6th in Application Performance Management (APM) with 10 reviews while Grafana is ranked 9th in Application Performance Management (APM) with 28 reviews. Elastic Observability is rated 7.6, while Grafana is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Elastic Observability writes "Allows us capture data in observability points, place it into a database, and analyze it". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Grafana writes "Agent-free with great dashboards and an active community". Elastic Observability is most compared with Dynatrace, New Relic, AppDynamics, Sentry and Instana Dynamic APM, whereas Grafana is most compared with Azure Monitor, Dynatrace, Honeycomb.io, Sentry and Prometheus. See our Elastic Observability vs. Grafana report.

    See our list of best Application Performance Management (APM) vendors.

    We monitor all Application Performance Management (APM) 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.