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Elastic Security vs Security Onion 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) (16th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (7th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (9th)
Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
19th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 2.9%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Security Onion is 4.6%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Elastic Security2.9%
Security Onion4.6%
Other92.5%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

SyedAli17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralized monitoring improves security posture through rapid data processing
The processing part of Elastic Security 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.
Jörg Kippe - PeerSpot reviewer
A mature and affordable solution that is easy to install and easy to update
The product takes time to learn, it's not that easy. In the beginning we had a lot of questions. If you want to use such a tool in an real (industrial) environment, you have to ask how to get the network data. Can we do a full packet capture? Can we provide agents to our end systems? There are no simple solutions to these questions. It's a general problem when running such systems in an industrial environment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Elastic Security is a highly flexible platform that can be implemented anywhere."
"ELK is open-source, and it will give you the framework you need to build everything from scratch."
"It's very stable and reliable."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is that it is more flexible than AlienVault."
"The intelligence of the system has been very impressive. It's not quite AI, but the technical bit where it correlates information, based on the seen attacks within an organization is good."
"It is scalable."
"Elastic Security is applied within my cyber defense strategy by utilizing many modules such as EDR, GenAI, SOAR module and combines with the SIEM module."
"The feature that we have found the most valuable is scalability."
"Security Onion is the most mature solution in the market."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
"The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports."
 

Cons

"Upgrades currently released as stacks when it should be a plugin or an extension to save removal and reinstallation."
"The solution could also use better dashboards. They need to be more graphical, more matrix-like."
"With Elastic, you have to build the use cases for the specific requirement. Other products have a simple integration and more use cases to integrate out-of-the-box solutions for SIEM."
"We had issues with scalability. Logstash was not scaling and aggregation was getting delayed. We moved to Fluentd making our stack from ELK to EFK."
"Their visuals and graphs need to be better."
"An area for improvement in Elastic Security is the pricing. It could be better. Right now, when you increase the volume of logs to be collected, the price also increases a lot."
"The interface could be more user friendly because it is sometimes hard to deal with."
"If you compare this with CrowdStrike or Carbon Black, they can improve."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
"The product is not easy to learn."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I can say that the product is cheaply priced."
"The solution is free."
"The solution is not expensive and costs around ten dollars a month."
"When compared to other products, the price is average or on the low side."
"We use the open-source version, so there is no charge for this solution."
"It's a monthly cost with Elastic SIEM, but I am not sure of the exact cost."
"Elastic Stack is an open-source tool. You don't have to pay anything for the components."
"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."
"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
"It is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is a free solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
University
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise14
No data available
 

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?
I am satisfied with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing cost. It is a pure 10.
What do you like most about Security Onion?
The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Security Onion?
Security Onion is an open-source solution. On a scale from one to ten, where ten is expensive and one is cheap, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten.
What needs improvement with Security Onion?
The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult.
 

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. Security Onion and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.