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Elastic Security vs syslog-ng 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
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (7th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (19th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (11th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (12th)
syslog-ng
Ranking in Log Management
18th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
3.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 3.3%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of syslog-ng is 1.4%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Elastic Security3.3%
syslog-ng1.4%
Other95.3%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Laurentiu Popescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Product Officer at ClusterPower
Has improved threat detection with deep log analysis and streamlined investigation workflows
The most useful features I find in Elastic Security are the forensic ones that allow us to carry deeper analysis into the logs for in-depth investigations, and the dashboards, with the reporting dashboard being quite user-friendly. Elastic Security is quite good at identifying threats, as it is part of the deep investigation tool that I mentioned before. Unless we need to look further into a certain log, we can carry out a deeper analysis and forensics on those particular logs. I can assess the impact of Elastic Security's real-time data analysis on our threat response efficiency as working pretty good. We are looking for real-time analysis because we have a continuous inflow of logs from different sources: from our cloud, from Active Directory, from our network. So it works pretty well.
OC
IT Infrastructure & Cloud Security Manager at Thux
Has ensured compliance by centralizing log data and supporting secure connections
We currently do not use that feature. We currently have just an open-source release, not a premium release. My boss has indicated that he wants to buy a premium syslog-ng version next month. I think we can use other features of this tool in the future. In syslog-ng, I think a GUI would be beneficial. I am unsure if the premium module has a GUI to administer it.

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 very good logging functionality, the aggregation capability is quite useful, the solution is quite stable, the performance has been good, and the solution scales well."
"This solution helps us because we can find all of the logs in one place."
"I use the stack every morning to check the errors and it's just so clear. I don't see any disadvantage to using Logstash."
"I like that it's a SIEM platform. I like that I can sell Elastic Security quickly. Elastic Security has a large community that can support users."
"This solution enables us to monitor application performance from Elasticsearch and we can predict some behaviors for applications using ELK."
"Elastic Security helps improve the security posture of Pakistan through centralized visibility and real-time processing."
"The scalability is good. It can be scaled easily in the production environment."
"It can handle millions of loads at a time, and you can always use the filters to find exactly what you are looking for and detect errors in every log message you are searching for, basically."
"For us, the most valuable feature is the use of compound search for searching logs at a specific time, by a specific user, or specific behavior."
"We chose syslog-ng because it is easy to install, easy to maintain, easy to update, and due to the fact that all data arrive in raw format, we can manipulate it as we want."
"Syslog-ng has a separate config file in addition to the core configuration."
"What I appreciate most about syslog-ng is its configuration; its C-style config is much easier to understand, read, and write than other popular solutions such as syslog or rsyslog."
"Syslog-ng provides easy access to all my logs. It helps me show managers and other clients precisely where an incident occurred. I also like it because you can integrate syslog-ng with multiple solutions to allow real-time monitoring."
"Syslog-ng has built-in features that we can use to create alerts for a SIEM solution. It isn't a true SIEM solution, but it's sufficient for the time being."
"The ability to extract and store the logs is the most valuable feature of syslog-ng."
 

Cons

"The solution's basic setup takes time, and a lot of effort is required from the beginning to make it actually work."
"The solution could offer better reporting features."
"We find that solutions such as Dynatrace and Datadog offer much more functionality, perhaps due to the fact that they are more mature."
"It is difficult to anticipate and understand the space utilization, so more clarity there would be great."
"The process of designing dashboards is a little cumbersome in Kibana. Unless you are an expert, you will not be able to use it. The process should be pretty straightforward. The authentication feature is what we are looking for. We would love to have a central authentication system in the open-source edition without the need for a license or an enterprise license. If they can give at least a simple authentication system within a company. In a large organization, authentication is very essential for security because logs can contain a lot of confidential data. Therefore, an authentication feature for who accesses it should be there."
"There is room for improvement in the Kibana dashboard and in the asset management for the program."
"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."
"The process of designing dashboards is a little cumbersome in Kibana."
"It's hard to find people who know how to use syslog-ng. I often find problems with configurations, and solutions aren't integrated correctly with syslog-ng. For example, there might be data with extra decimals, or the collector agents are incorrectly named. It isn't a problem with the solution; it's a lack of professionals."
"There is always the potential for additional integration and protocol extensions."
"In syslog-ng, I think a GUI would be beneficial. I am unsure if the premium module has a GUI to administer it."
"There is room for improvement in terms of observability."
"The filtering has room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is flexible and comes at unit cost. You don't have to pay for everything."
"This is an open-source product, so there are no costs."
"It is easy to deploy, easy to use, and you get everything you need to become operational with it, and have nothing further to pay unless you want the OLED plugin."
"I find it better than Splunk in terms of cost-effectiveness. For cost-effectiveness, I would rate it a nine out of 10."
"Affordable but with additional costs"
"The product offers an amazing pricing structure. Price-wise, the product is very competitive."
"Elastic Stack is an open-source tool. You don't have to pay anything for the components."
"The base product is open-source but if you need advanced security features then you need to pay for the subscription. Elastic Security's price is reasonable in some cases and in other cases it's not."
"Syslog-ng is a free open-source solution."
"Syslog-ng is open-source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

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 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 needs improvement with Elastic Security?
I do not have any specific recommendations for improvements in Elastic Security, but I feel that the AI module should get more mature. These machine learning algorithms become better with time; as ...
What needs improvement with syslog-ng?
We currently do not use that feature. We currently have just an open-source release, not a premium release. My boss has indicated that he wants to buy a premium syslog-ng version next month. I thin...
What is your primary use case for syslog-ng?
In Italy, we have to be compliant with the Garante for privacy. We have to log every login, logout, or login failure made by a system administrator. We store all syslog data of the infrastructure. ...
What advice do you have for others considering syslog-ng?
When it comes to parsing, I can parse both structured and unstructured data, though our data are only structured. Currently, we collect all data we receive as raw data. Each file is stored for each...
 

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
Tecnocom, University of Victoria, University of Exeter, Datapath
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Security vs. syslog-ng and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
899,917 professionals have used our research since 2012.