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Grafana Loki vs Logstash comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Logstash
Ranking in Log Management
26th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Grafana Loki is 7.0%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Logstash is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Grafana Loki7.0%
Logstash0.8%
Other92.2%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2350791 - PeerSpot reviewer
Regional Associate & Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Offers cost-effective log management with strong correlation features across observability tools
Grafana Loki's open-source capability is a significant benefit. Grafana has invested in making their enterprise tools competitive with other APM tools, facilitating cross-correlation with Mimir and Tempo for metrics and tracing. The tool offers good search functionality, and its on-premises capability is advantageous. The indexing performance is strong, making it a robust log management tool. Grafana Loki is notably cost-effective.
MA
Assistant Vice President at QualityKiosk Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Exploring resilience and integration capabilities while navigating complexity and technical challenges
Logstash lacks a graphical user interface, necessitating a strong programming background to handle it effectively. It is challenging for business users who need a skilled team for its operation. Changing pipelines is not easy because Logstash requires pipelines to be programmed and cannot just be dragged and dropped like other data solutions. Additionally, Logstash does not automatically make actions based on the data it receives; integrating automation tools is required.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Different types of integrations with various sources are the most helpful and useful features of Grafana Loki that I found for myself."
"I appreciate the capability to process logs from microservices and seamlessly integrate them into Grafana."
"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 most valuable feature of Grafana Loki is the dashboards which are really simple to create."
"Grafana agent is very lightweight and does not cost significant resources of our cluster."
"We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics."
"Grafana Loki's open-source capability is a significant benefit, and Grafana has invested in making their enterprise tools competitive with other APM tools, facilitating cross-correlation with Mimir and Tempo for metrics and tracing."
"Everything aligns well with improving our organization."
"I can collect logs from various data sources, including hardware."
"We have three or four Logstash servers for high availability."
"The transformation means we ship the logs in the way that we want them to be presented in Kibana, which is the main function we use Logstash for."
"The functionality of Logstash is quite easy to implement and the plugin ecosystem of Logstash is great, with plugins for shell script monitoring and SQL monitoring working well with the tool."
"Logstash has numerous plugins for inputs and outputs, allowing it to work well in environments that do not contain other Elastic components."
 

Cons

"We face some bugs when we install the latest version of Grafana Loki."
"It's not intended for proprietary services, so you have to struggle with configuration a lot."
"The platform's stability needs improvement."
"I do not see any areas for improvement at the moment."
"The Docker container partition feature needs improvement as they do not reuse the space and goes into a pending state."
"Visualization-wise, Grafana Loki's dashboard looks a little outdated compared to other open-source visualization tools like Chronograf."
"Improvements could be made in the enablement of the product, addressing the complexity of implementing these tools."
"We encountered certain limitations when it came to alerting, particularly when dealing with specific data sources."
"There can be a UI to implement with Logstash. Currently, I have to work with config files and everything."
"Elastic does not provide proper support for Logstash worldwide, and I rate their technical support as one out of ten."
"We still have a problem with importing the log system."
"An enhancement we could implement is the ability to cluster Logstash to exist in more than one node."
"Almost all the research can be very bad. We still have a problem with importing the log system."
"The product needs to improve its compatibility."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You can use the free version of Grafana Loki on-premises."
"We use a free version."
"I find the licensing structure quite reasonable, as the free license effectively meets my requirements."
"The solution is open source."
"The cost is less than other paid services like CloudWatch."
"I use the solution's open-source version. Grafana Loki is a completely free solution for me."
"Grafana Loki is an open-source solution."
"Since we are using the open-source version of Grafana Loki, we are not paying anything for the solution."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise4
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Improvements could be made in the enablement of the product, addressing the complexity of implementing these tools.
What do you like most about Logstash?
I can collect logs from various data sources, including hardware.
What needs improvement with Logstash?
Customization can be automated with Logstash, but it is at the developer's disposal. The developer has to do it, not the tool as such. There is scope for optimization, but that is all outside the t...
What is your primary use case for Logstash?
The purposes for which I am using Logstash largely include log aggregation and application monitoring.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Grafana Loki vs. Logstash and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,259 professionals have used our research since 2012.