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Elastic Observability vs Zabbix comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.5
Elastic Observability enhances cost-effectiveness by reducing incidents, automating fixes, and visualizing cloud operations, saving time and resources.
Sentiment score
7.3
Zabbix, free and open-source, reduces downtime and costs, improving network stability and significant enterprise savings.
Elastic Observability has saved us time as it's much easier to find relevant pieces across the system in one screen compared to our own software, and it has saved resources too since the same resources can use less time.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.6
Elastic Observability customers appreciate their helpful support, quick responses, and valuable documentation, despite some challenges in complex issue resolution.
Sentiment score
6.8
Zabbix users praise supportive documentation, community forums, and responsive technical support despite occasional time zone challenges and free version reliance.
Elastic support really struggles in complex situations to resolve issues.
Their excellent documentation typically helps me solve any issues I encounter.
It is so straightforward that I have never had to use the support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Elastic Observability is praised for scalability and ease of deployment, despite potential complexities and internal process limitations.
Sentiment score
6.9
Zabbix is highly scalable, excels in diverse environments, but large deployments may require database optimization for efficient performance.
I rate the scalability of Elastic Observability as a ten, as we have never seen issues even with a lot of data coming in from more customers, provided we have the appropriate configuration.
Elastic Observability seems to have a good scale-out capability.
Elastic Observability is easy in deployment in general for small scale, but when you deploy it at a really large scale, the complexity comes with the customizations.
Zabbix is very scalable and lightweight.
Zabbix has high scalability.
I would rate its scalability ten out of ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Elastic Observability is stable and reliable, with high user ratings, efficiently handling large data volumes with proper configuration.
Sentiment score
7.5
Zabbix is reliable and resource-efficient, performing well with database tuning and handling heavy workloads without crashing.
There are some bugs that come with each release, but they are keen always to build major versions and minor versions on time, including the CVE vulnerabilities to fix it.
It is very stable, and I would rate it ten out of ten based on my interaction with it.
I would rate the stability of Elastic Observability as a ten, as we don't experience any issues.
Zabbix is very scalable and lightweight.
Zabbix is quite stable, and we haven't had any problems with Zabbix itself.
 

Room For Improvement

Elastic Observability needs automation, AI, and customization improvements, addressing complex deployment, market presence, metrics, licensing, and usability issues.
Zabbix users seek improved UI, automation, integration, and customization with enhanced reporting, security, and scalability for non-technical users.
For instance, if you have many error logs and want to create a rule with a custom query, such as triggering an alert for five errors in the last hour, all you need to do is open the AI bot, type this question, and it generates an Elastic query for you to use in your alert rules.
It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like network observability, package flow analysis, and device performance data on the infrastructure side.
Some areas such as AI Ops still require data scientists to understand machine learning and AI, and it doesn't have a quick win with no-brainer use cases.
The only issue I can note is that it's Linux-based, and Linux documentation is not the best.
 

Setup Cost

Elastic Observability provides competitive pricing, benefiting large enterprises with comprehensive licensing, but may be costly for smaller users.
Zabbix is cost-effective and flexible, offering open-source monitoring with no licensing fees, low expenses, and optional support costs.
The license is reasonably priced, however, the VMs where we host the solution are extremely expensive, making the overall cost in the public cloud high.
Elastic Observability is cost-efficient and provides all features in the enterprise license without asset-based licensing.
Observability is actually cheaper compared to logs because you're not indexing huge blobs of text and trying to parse those.
 

Valuable Features

Elastic Observability excels with flexible integration, powerful search, scalability, real-time insights, affordability, and robust support, enhancing efficiency.
Zabbix is valued for open-source customization, scalability, comprehensive monitoring, alerting systems, and cost-effective enterprise IT management.
The most valuable feature is the integrated platform that allows customers to start from observability and expand into other areas like security, EDR solutions, etc.
the most valued feature of Elastic is its log analytics capabilities.
All the features that we use, such as monitoring, dashboarding, reporting, the possibility of alerting, and the way we index the data, are important.
If disk usage surpasses a threshold, say 70%, I receive alerts and can take proactive action.
Zabbix has a lot of features, including monitoring, status updates, and collecting information telemetry from storages and servers as well.
Zabbix is Linux-based open-source software, and the main use case is to reduce costs.
 

Categories and Ranking

Elastic Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
7th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
10th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (14th), Container Monitoring (4th)
Zabbix
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
9th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
1st
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (1st), Server Monitoring (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 3.4%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 3.0%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Elastic Observability3.4%
Zabbix3.0%
Other93.6%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Stefan Decuypere - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time dashboards and visual insights have streamlined issue analysis and monitoring
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, I know what it costs but am not directly involved in cost-benefit evaluations or maintenance, which is handled by another team. I develop the visual representation of the data and frankly, I don't see major gaps in my application or anything I would really miss; I appreciate the fast pace of the developments that have occurred in the last couple of years. Regarding room for improvement in Elastic Observability, I would have preferred built-in tools to manage the indexes on deployment for better visual representation, as the initial feedback regarding system performance and data storage was fairly primitive and lacking.
B Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless global client monitoring with reliable remote connectivity
I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients. Many tools that I require for system maintenance are included. I can easily monitor all of my clients throughout the world I did not give much thought to it, however, improvements could be made to Zabbix.…
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872,846 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise34
 

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 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 ...
What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?
Out-of-the-box use cases have room for improvement in Elastic Observability. They don't invest a lot in building out-of-the-box observable use cases, and they are more focusing on giving a very fle...
What do you like most about Zabbix?
The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.
What needs improvement with Zabbix?
The reporting is lacking because this is an open-source tool, and nowadays, management's expectation is that the reports should be of high quality and every information should be presented in a con...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. Zabbix and other solutions. Updated: October 2025.
872,846 professionals have used our research since 2012.