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Graylog Enterprise vs Security Onion comparison

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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

Graylog Enterprise
Ranking in Log Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
22nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Graylog Enterprise is 2.3%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Security Onion is 1.7%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Graylog Enterprise2.3%
Security Onion1.7%
Other96.0%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Hiten Nandasana - PeerSpot reviewer
Angular developer at Flourish software
Centralized monitoring has strengthened threat detection and supports faster incident investigations
Security Onion is a completely open-source and free platform, making it a cost-effective solution that works smoothly and effectively for our organization. Security Onion integrates well with our existing tools, primarily using Linux systems in our organization, allowing us to monitor logs and manage threat detection and operations in the public cloud effectively. Security Onion is very helpful in meeting compliance requirements and supports regular standards for our environment. I advise organizations that use Linux or have network security knowledge to consider Security Onion, as it satisfies requirements such as threat detection and log management systems. I would rate this review eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Troubleshooting is straightforward with Graylog Enterprise."
"The ability to write custom alerts is key to information security and compliance."
"UDP is a fast and lightweight protocol, perfect for sending large volumes of logs with minimal overhead."
"The build is stable and requires little maintenance, even compared to some extremely expensive products."
"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."
"The centralized logs where one can find bugs quicker and find the line of code that is a problem has made us more efficient."
"I like the correlation and the alerting."
"Real-time UDP/GELF logging and full text-based searching."
"The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports."
"Security Onion is a completely open-source and free platform, making it a cost-effective solution that works smoothly and effectively for our organization."
"Security Onion is the most mature solution in the market."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
 

Cons

"I hope to see improvements in Graylog for more interactivity, user-friendliness, and creating alerts. The initial setup is complex."
"I would like to see a default dashboard widget that shows the topology of the clusters defined for the graylog install."
"More customization is always useful."
"There are many other applications in the market that influenced my rating reduction."
"Elasticsearch recommendations for tuning could be better. Graylog doesn't have direct support for running the system inside of Kubernetes, so it can be challenging to fill in the gaps and set up containers in a way that is both performant and stable."
"The documentation for Graylog Enterprise can be improved, as this has been a pain point."
"Graylog could improve the process of creating rules. We have to create them manually by doing parses and applying them. Other SIEM solutions have basic rules and you can create and get more events of interest."
"We ran into problems with Elasticsearch throwing a circuit-breaking exception due to field data size being too large. It turned out that the heap size directly impacted this size in a high-throughput environment, causing unexplained instability in Graylog. We were able to troubleshoot on the Elasticsearch size, but we should have been able to reference some minimum requirements for Graylog to know that our settings weren't sufficient."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
"Security Onion can be made easier to set up initially, as it is somewhat difficult at the start, but once configured, it becomes a great tool to use."
"The product is not easy to learn."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you want something that works and do not have the money for Splunk or QRadar, take Graylog.​​"
"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."
"I use the free version of Graylog."
"Having paid official support is wise for projects."
"There is an open source version and an enterprise version. I wouldn't recommend the enterprise version, but as an open source solution, it is solid and works really well."
"We're using the Community edition."
"I am using a community edition. I have not looked at the enterprise offering from Graylog."
"Consider Enterprise support if you have atypical needs or setup requirements.​"
"It is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is a free solution."
"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Graylog?
I find the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Graylog Enterprise to be somewhat expensive. However, it is cost-effective compared to other larger platforms. The pricing depends on factors such a...
What needs improvement with Graylog?
One improvement I want to see in Graylog Enterprise is artificial intelligence to help us automatically identify unusual patterns and suggest possible causes. I also want to see more ready-made das...
What is your primary use case for Graylog?
Graylog Enterprise serves as my main centralized log management solution. In our environment, we have many systems that generate logs, including servers, applications, network devices, and security...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Security Onion?
Security Onion does not require any cost, as it is open-source and free.
What needs improvement with Security Onion?
Security Onion can be made easier to set up initially, as it is somewhat difficult at the start, but once configured, it becomes a great tool to use. I assigned a rating of eight out of ten because...
What advice do you have for others considering Security Onion?
Security Onion is a completely open-source and free platform, making it a cost-effective solution that works smoothly and effectively for our organization. Security Onion integrates well with our e...
 

Also Known As

Graylog2
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Graylog Enterprise vs. Security Onion and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.