Elastic Observability vs Nagios Log Server comparison

Elastic and Nagios are both solutions in the Log Management category. Elastic is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.7, while Nagios is ranked #48. Elastic holds a 1.2% mindshare in Log Management, compared to Nagios’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Elastic users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Nagios users who would recommend it.

Elastic Observability

Read 29 Elastic Observability reviews

8,436 Views
2,025 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Nagios Log Server

Read 4 Nagios Log Server reviews

1,284 Views
1,284 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Elastic Observability

Nagios Log Server

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Nagios Log Server and Elastic Observability are key competitors in log management and observability. Elastic Observability appears to have the upper hand due to its extensive features and flexibility, although Nagios Log Server is noted for cost-effectiveness and customer support.

Features: Nagios Log Server is noted for efficient log collection, analysis capabilities, and simpler integrations. Elastic Observability is recognized for comprehensive monitoring features, advanced data visualization, and management of complex environments.

Room for Improvement: Nagios Log Server could improve scalability, real-time data processing, and user interface. Elastic Observability could benefit from a simplified setup process, reduced resource consumption, and enhanced documentation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nagios Log Server is acknowledged for straightforward deployment and responsive customer service, fitting smaller IT infrastructures. Elastic Observability requires more intricate deployment for diverse systems, aiming to align customer service with its complexity.

Pricing and ROI: Nagios Log Server is attractive for its lower initial setup cost and promising short-term ROI. Elastic Observability, despite higher upfront costs, is viewed as a long-term investment with substantial ROI for larger enterprises requiring extensive features.

To learn more, read our detailed Elastic Observability vs. Nagios Log Server Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. Nagios Log Server

December 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

Elastic Observability

Ranking in Log Management

14th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (6th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (9th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)

Nagios Log Server

Ranking in Log Management

48th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 1.2%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios Log Server is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Log Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Elastic Observability	1.2%
Nagios Log Server	0.8%
Other	98.0%

Log Management

Featured Reviews

Mohammed-Abdelalim

Assistant Vice President at QualityKiosk Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Has provided powerful customization for unique monitoring needs but needs more out-of-the-box capabilities

In my opinion, the best features of Elastic Observability are their flexibility to integrate with other existing systems and the ability to build a unified monitoring tool that can integrate with existing ones and end-to-end user journeys which require a lot of customizations. The greatest feature in Elastic is the ability to customize. This is similar to my comments about customizable dashboards in Elastic because it's visible to the analyst. However, it's very great. Customizing these dashboards can meet the customer's specific use cases and specific stories that they have in their environment, their special environment that doesn't look like other environments. The dashboarding in Elastic is highly customizable to the level of logos. If the customer wants his company logo in the dashboard, it can be done.

Read full review

Syarul Idzuddin Adzmi

Operation Director at Digital Pulse Sdn Bhd

A scalable and affordable tool for monitoring data centers

Five engineers are needed for the maintenance of the product. I would definitely recommend the solution to those planning to use it. To increase the rating for the product, Nagios should offer remote support and offer more customization in reporting while making it easy for the customers to use it. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

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

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

"The solution allows us to dig deep into data."

"For full stack observability, Elastic is the best tool compared with any other tool ."

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

"Machine learning is the most valuable feature of this solution."

"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."

"I think Elastic Observability is already in very good shape."

"Elastic provides built-in features for queries and report generation. It's a very good tool for monitoring integration capabilities."

More Elastic Observability pros

"A great feature of the solution involves its internal portal."

"One of the most valuable features is the dashboard because the UI was effective and easy to use. The alert systems are good as well. We had no failovers and had high availability. We can search the queries fast as well in Nagios Log Server."

"The product is scalable."

"The initial setup of Nagios Log Server was easy and straightforward."

Cons

"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 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."

"The interface could be improved."

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

"Elastic Observability could improve asset discovery as the current requirement to push the agent is not ideal."

"Simplifying the parsing of logs and manual efforts would also be beneficial."

"Elastic Observability is reactive rather than proactive. It should act as an ITSM tool and be able to create tickets and alerts on Jira."

More Elastic Observability cons

"The customization and dashboards have shortcomings and need to be improved to make the tool look more presentable."

"The configurations during initial setup could be improved. If they could be agentless, as in the case of the Ansible product, it would be better. I would like to be able to analyze the network bandwidth."

"The support could be better."

"As we are talking about a product which is open to the public, the pricing makes it challenging for us to profit off of its marketing."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The product is not that cheap."

"The price of Elastic Observability is expensive."

"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."

"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."

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

"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."

"We will buy a premium license after POC."

More Elastic Observability pricing and cost advice

"We found the pricing to be quite affordable."

"For a single instance, the price is around $4,000."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap, I rate the pricing an eight or nine."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

12%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	16

No data available

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...

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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 ...

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What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?

After careful consideration about areas for improvement in Elastic Observability, aspects such as pricing, customization, implementation, and scalability could be improved. As a user of the system,...

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Comparisons

Sentry vs Elastic Observability

Compared 8% of the time

Dynatrace vs Elastic Observability

Compared 7% of the time

New Relic vs Elastic Observability

Compared 7% of the time

Grafana vs Elastic Observability

Compared 7% of the time

Zabbix vs Elastic Observability

Compared 6% of the time

More Elastic Observability Competitors

Wazuh vs Nagios Log Server

Compared 28% of the time

Graylog Enterprise vs Nagios Log Server

Compared 12% of the time

Grafana Loki vs Nagios Log Server

Compared 9% of the time

VMware Aria Operations for Logs vs Nagios Log Server

Compared 6% of the time

SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server vs Nagios Log Server

Compared 5% of the time

More Nagios Log Server Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability

January 2026

Download Elastic Observability product report

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Log Server

January 2026

Download Nagios Log Server product report

Overview

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

Nagios Enterprises delivers official products, services, and solutions for and around Nagios – the industry standard in enterprise-grade IT infrastructure monitoring. With millions of users worldwide, Nagios is the undisputed champion in the IT monitoring space. Our team of dedicated professionals works to ensure total customer satisfaction with all the services we provide. Our extensive network of partners helps extend Nagios services and solutions to new organizations and markets worldwide to meet a variety of business needs. Nagios Enterprises was founded in 2007 by Ethan Galstad. Ethan created what would later become known as Nagios in 1999, and currently serves as the President of Nagios Enterprises.

Nagios

Sample Customers

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

IBM, impulse, wipro, comteco

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. Nagios Log Server

December 2025

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