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Elastic Security vs Grafana Loki 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 Security
Ranking in Log Management
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (17th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (8th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (10th)
Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 3.0%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana Loki is 8.6%, up from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

SyedAli17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralized monitoring improves security posture through rapid data processing
The processing part of Elastic Security ( /products/elastic-security-reviews ) is very interesting for us since we handle almost 7,000 to 8,000 alerts per minute. We require rapid processing speed for alerts and event data, and Elastic Security is very efficient at handling this level of data. Additionally, Elastic Security helps improve the security posture of Pakistan through centralized visibility and real-time processing.
Volodymyr Bondarchuk - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrations enhance monitoring but problem-solving proves challenging
Different types of integrations with various sources are the most helpful and useful features of Grafana Loki that I found for myself. As part of Kubernetes technology, I noticed benefits from using this product such as availability, configuration balancing, high availability solutions for high performance, and failover clustering. It provides a clear picture about the state of the system and gives needed information for taking action and quickly fixing problems.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"ELK is open-source, and it will give you the framework you need to build everything from scratch."
"It's not very complicated to install Elastic."
"The solution has a good community surrounding it for lots of helpful documentation for troubleshooting purposes."
"It's very stable and reliable."
"The most valuable feature is the speed, as it responds in a very short time."
"Elastic Security is a highly flexible platform that can be implemented anywhere."
"The solution is quite stable. The performance has been good."
"The product has huge integration varieties available."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source tool that is stable and flexible."
"The most valuable feature of Grafana Loki is the dashboards which are really simple to create."
"The product's most valuable features are ease of installation, management, and reporting. It has an efficient ability to set thresholds for alerts, as well."
"The effectiveness of filters is pivotal for optimizing the search process and extracting the specific information we need from the extensive log data."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the tool's GUI. The solution's GUI is very user-friendly."
"The solution's stability has never been a problem. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine to ten out of ten."
"Grafana Loki is easy to monitor and detect errors."
"Loki also utilizes the same service discovery mechanism as used by Prometheus. So, whatever labeled metadata you see in Prometheus, you have the exact same metadata in the Loki system. Given this level of intricacy and the attempt to address these challenges, I firmly believe that Loki deserves praise for the work."
 

Cons

"One limitation of Elastic Security is that it does not have built-in workflows for all tasks. For example, if you need a workflow for compliance, you will need to create a custom workflow."
"The setup process is complex. You need a solid working knowledge of networking, operating systems, and a little programming."
"The solution could also use better dashboards. They need to be more graphical, more matrix-like."
"The solution could offer better reporting features."
"It's a little bit of a learning curve to understand the logic of searching for things and trying to find what you're looking for in Elastic Security."
"The tool should improve its scalability."
"There is room for improvement in the Kibana dashboard and in the asset management for the program."
"One thing they could add is a quick step to enable users who don't have a solid background to build a dashboard and quickly search, without difficulty."
"We encountered certain limitations when it came to alerting, particularly when dealing with specific data sources."
"There is a need for some change in the alerting types of the product. In short, a few changes in the alert area are needed due to minor shortcomings."
"It's not intended for proprietary services, so you have to struggle with configuration a lot."
"The Docker container partition feature needs improvement as they do not reuse the space and goes into a pending state."
"The platform's stability needs improvement."
"Visualization-wise, Grafana Loki's dashboard looks a little outdated compared to other open-source visualization tools like Chronograf."
"We had a well-structured dashboard with a functional query. However, an issue arose when the Kubernetes pod restarted. The statistics from our Grafana query would reset, dropping to zero and starting anew. This was particularly noticeable with linear graphs, which are expected to show consistent growth."
"The product must improve its UI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is in the middle. I think it is not an expensive experience if we compare it with big names, for example, QRadar, and also Oxide. I think Elastic Security is quite cheap. I would rate the pricing of this solution a five out of ten."
"Compared to other tools, Elastic Security is a cheaper solution."
"Elastic Security is free to use."
"The price is reasonable. It probably costs the same as ArcSight and LogRhythm SIEM. FortiSIEM might cost less than Elastic Security. There are no hidden or additional costs."
"We are using the free, open-source version of this solution."
"This is an open-source product, so there are no costs."
"Its price is fine. Its licensing works on a yearly basis. We have to renew the license every year. I also have a good experience with Darktrace. When we buy Darktrace, we get training free of cost, which is not there in Elastic. We have to pay extra for training. There is certainly room for improvement."
"I find it better than Splunk in terms of cost-effectiveness. For cost-effectiveness, I would rate it a nine out of 10."
"You can use the free version of Grafana Loki on-premises."
"Grafana Loki is a free, open-source solution."
"I use the solution's open-source version. Grafana Loki is a completely free solution for me."
"We use a free version."
"I find the licensing structure quite reasonable, as the free license effectively meets my requirements."
"The pricing structure varies based on the number of users; there might be specific taxes to pay for it."
"The solution is open source."
"My company doesn't need to pay for the licensing cost of the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
What do you like most about Elastic Security?
Elastic provides the capability to index quickly due to the reverse indexes it offers. This data is crucial as it contains critical information. The reverse index allows fast data indexing because ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
Since Elastic Security is community-based, it does not require significant costs. This is beneficial for SMEs as they do not need extensive budgets for security solutions.
What do you like most about Grafana Loki?
We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana Loki?
Since it is an open source tool, there are no charges or fees.
What needs improvement with Grafana Loki?
I have no ideas at this moment about what could be improved in Grafana Loki.
 

Also Known As

Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Security vs. Grafana Loki and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.