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Elastic Stack vs Graylog Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 2026

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 Stack
Ranking in Log Management
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Graylog Enterprise
Ranking in Log Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Stack is 3.3%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Graylog Enterprise is 4.1%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Graylog Enterprise4.1%
Elastic Stack3.3%
Other92.6%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

LB
Senior Consultant at Skillfield
Offers robust out-of-the-box integrations and streamlines logging processes effortlessly
There are improvements needed for Elastic Stack. It is mostly based on Lucene, and the heart of Elastic Stack is Lucene, which has some limitations. Anything built on top of Lucene often feels an add-on, and that includes vector databases. Elastic Stack can store vector embeddings as well and perform AI and machine learning tasks out of the box without excessive configuration. The main improvements involve increasing speed and compression capabilities; I have seen databases that claim to achieve significantly better compression. While Elastic Stack can manage vast amounts of data, if the mapping is not specified correctly, the indexing time can be slow, especially with many events per second. Improper mapping usually means that every document received gets indexed for all fields, which is not desired. Elastic consultants typically optimize this, but out of the box, as data volume increases, scaling becomes necessary. They are working on these improvements in new versions.
NC
Security Officer at JSC "Moldtelecom" S.A.
Log analysis has become clearer and faster but visualization and extensibility still need work
The problem was with the complexity and the cost to add extensions. We found this very expensive to buy another version with additional features. I think that Graylog Enterprise does not have customizable dashboards. I did not see them in Graylog Enterprise because most of the time we used the open source free version, which is limited. I think Graylog Enterprise should improve some things that they have in the paid version and perhaps provide users with a menu that gives examples of parsing logs and draws graphics so that people do not need to improve another system such as Grafana. This would be interesting. When it comes to functionalities, I found the log management in Graylog Enterprise acceptable. It is very simple to use and to collect logs. It has support for different protocols and different ports, and the sidecar is easy to use. However, in visualization, I think it needs to be much better.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The scripting model in Elastic Stack allows me to query logs and then put the data into Grafana."
"I think the ecosystem is well supported, and for logs, it was faster compared to our previous previous log management."
"The tool's most powerful aspect is its search engine capability. It's a highly effective and powerful solution for searching. We use it in professional and student projects at universities, and it delivers promising results."
"Prior to the latest updates, data lake management was a standout feature. The hybrid capability for on-premise and cloud integration was also crucial. Now, with Elastic Defense, the agent simplifies security monitoring, making it a key asset."
"Elastic Stack has made a positive impact as we can now see our logs."
"It is a very scalable solution...I didn't face any problem with this scalability part of the solution since we only have a few pieces of equipment in our company."
"It is an excellent tool for monitoring purposes."
"I have experienced a return on investment from the use of the solution."
"The ability to write custom alerts is key to information security and compliance."
"The best feature of Graylog is the Elasticsearch integration. We can integrate and we can run filters, such as an event of interest, and those logs we can send to any SIEM tool or as an analytic. Additionally, there are clear and well-documented implementation instructions on their website to follow if needed."
"UDP is a fast and lightweight protocol, perfect for sending large volumes of logs with minimal overhead."
"Graylog is very handy."
"We run a containerized microservices environment. Being able to set up streams and search for errors and anomalies across hundreds of containers is why a log aggregation platform like Graylog is valuable to us."
"Everything stands out as valuable, including the fact that I can quantify and qualify the logs, create pipelines and process the logs in any way I like, and create charts or data maps."
"It is used as a log manager/SIEM. It provides visibility into the infrastructure and security related events."
"I am very proud of how very stable the solution is."
 

Cons

"The implementation of dashboards in the solution needs to be made easier...I had some issues with the ports and configuration since it was kind of complex to implement with Docker."
"There could be better documentation."
"Improvements are needed in the solution in areas like SOAR and TIP, where there are certain shortcomings."
"Agent deployment is a little tough in the on-premise version."
"Elastic Stack should work on their dashboards and integration process."
"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"AI-enablement would be a big improvement in Elastic Stack...If there is room for an ML model in Elastic Stack, then it would be good."
"When people try to move the data from another source to Elastic Stack for visualization, they face challenges when connecting to Elastic Stack from such different sources."
"More customization is always useful."
"There are many other applications in the market that influenced my rating reduction."
"There should be some user groups and an auto sign-in feature.​"
"When it comes to configuring the processing pipeline, writing the rules can be very tedious, especially since the documentation isn't extensive on how the functions provided for these rules work."
"More complex visualizations and the ability to execute custom Elasticsearch queries would be great."
"Graylog needs to improve their authentication. Also, the fact that Graylog displays logs from the top down is just ridiculous."
"When it comes to configuring the processing pipeline, writing the rules can be very tedious, especially since the documentation isn't extensive on how the functions provided for these rules work."
"I hope to see improvements in Graylog for more interactivity, user-friendliness, and creating alerts. The initial setup is complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the open-source community version of the product."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."
"The product is expensive."
"If I compare Elastic Stack to the other products in the market, I would say that the tool is available at a competitive price."
"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
"Consider Enterprise support if you have atypical needs or setup requirements.​"
"We're using the Community edition."
"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."
"Graylog is a free open-source solution. The free version has a capacity limitation of 2 GB daily, if you want to go above this you have to purchase a license."
"We are using the free version of the product. However, the paid version is expensive."
"It's open source and free. They have a paid version, but we never looked into that because we never needed the features of the paid version."
"Having paid official support is wise for projects."
"​You get a lot out-of-the-box with the non-enterprise version, so give it a try first."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
University
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Elastic Stack?
The tool is huge, and it performs brilliantly. I tested it for malware, and within two weeks of launching, the product alerted me about a network intrusion. This was a tough test for it, but it per...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Stack?
My experience with Elastic Stack pricing indicates that it is node-based. While I do not have complete pricing details, they are available online. If I choose Elastic Cloud, it includes licensing a...
What needs improvement with Elastic Stack?
I would like to improve Elastic Stack by addressing the current big problem we face with importing logs and log files, such as syslogs. To import these log files, we need to design the ingest pipel...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Graylog?
I am not sure about the pricing, setup cost, and licensing because that was dealt with by a different team that handled the licensing and procurement.
What needs improvement with Graylog?
The documentation for Graylog Enterprise can be improved, as this has been a pain point. I think the visualization aspect of Graylog Enterprise can be made more rich, similar to what we have in Gra...
What is your primary use case for Graylog?
I remember using Graylog Enterprise in the past at a software house where we used it for logging. During that time, we were using Graylog Enterprise as a log aggregator, collecting logs from multip...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Graylog2
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Stack vs. Graylog Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.