Graylog Enterprise vs syslog-ng comparison

Graylog and One Identity are both solutions in the Log Management category. Graylog is ranked #15 with an average rating of 7.0, while One Identity is ranked #17 with an average rating of 10.0. Graylog holds a 6.2% mindshare in Log Management, compared to One Identity’s 2.4% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Graylog users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of One Identity users who would recommend it.

Graylog Enterprise

Read 21 Graylog Enterprise reviews

8,755 Views
8,755 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

syslog-ng

Read 7 syslog-ng reviews

4,107 Views
4,107 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Graylog Enterprise

syslog-ng

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 8, 2025

Graylog Enterprise and syslog-ng are competitors in the log management and analysis category. Graylog Enterprise often has an advantage due to its user-friendly interface, while syslog-ng stands out for its extensive integration capabilities.

Features: Graylog Enterprise offers efficient search capabilities, scalable architecture, and customizable dashboards. Syslog-ng provides advanced log routing, parsing, and extensive integration options with various platforms.

Room for Improvement: Graylog Enterprise could enhance its integration capabilities and customization options, and improve performance under high loads. Syslog-ng might improve its user interface, streamline configuration, and offer more support resources to enhance user experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Graylog Enterprise is known for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. In contrast, syslog-ng is favored by users who prefer a detailed approach to installation and configuration, though this can be complex for less experienced users.

Pricing and ROI: Graylog Enterprise generally offers a lower setup cost and quicker ROI, benefiting from its efficient deployment. Syslog-ng may incur higher initial costs but yields a strong ROI due to its advanced capabilities when its full potential is leveraged.

To learn more, read our detailed Graylog Enterprise vs. syslog-ng Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Graylog Enterprise vs. syslog-ng

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 867,676 peers since 2012

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

15th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

syslog-ng

Ranking in Log Management

17th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

3.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Graylog Enterprise is 6.2%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of syslog-ng is 2.4%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Log Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Graylog	6.2%
syslog-ng	2.4%
Other	91.4%

Log Management

Featured Reviews

Ivan Kokalovic

DevOps Engineer at Proton Technologies

Facilitates backend service monitoring with efficient log retrieval and API flexibility

Graylog is valuable because it bridges technical knowledge to non-technical teams, presenting complex backend processes in a simple timeline. It boosts the knowledge of sales and customer support teams by allowing them to see the backend operations without needing to read the code. Its API is flexible for visualization, and its powerful search engine efficiently handles large volumes of log data. Moreover, its stability, fast search capabilities, and compatibility with languages like ANSI SQL enhance its utility in IT infrastructure.

Read full review

RyanVargas

Senior Director and Senior Systems Engineer (Dual Role), IT Infrastructure and Security at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

It's a user-friendly open-source solution that can replace or augment a commercial product in some cases

I rate syslog-ng 10 out of 10. It's free and easy to use. It has built-in tools that help us index the various logs sent to it. It's a solid log product. If you're looking for a SIEM solution, syslog-ng will work as a stopgap measure at beginning of the project. It can also work as an injector for a true SIEM solution. You can send all the logs to syslog-ng and forward all the data to the SIEM solution after you've cleaned up the data and got the pertinent information. It's a good front end for a commercial SIEM solution, which becomes more expensive as you load more data into it. I would highly recommend syslog-ng for that use case. However, if you lack the expertise, you might need to go with a cloud-based SIEM instead. You need some in-house expertise or an outside consultant to manage it and set it up.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The Graylog features that have proven to be most beneficial for our data analysis in particular are that we tend to use it as a big data store, so we have the correlation rules that, if something matches under certain conditions, it raises an alarm."

"We're using the Community edition, but I know that it has really good dashboarding and alerts."

"It has data adapters and lookup tables that utilize HTTP calls to APIs."

"This had increased productivity for the dev and support teams, because we are directly notifying them."

"What I like about Graylog is that it's real-time and you have access to the raw data. So, you ingest it, and you have access to every message and every data item you ingest. You can then build analytics on top of that. You can look at the raw data, and you can do some volumetric estimations, such as how big traffic you have, how many messages of data of a type you have, etc."

"Real-time UDP/GELF logging and full text-based searching."

"I like the correlation and the alerting."

"UDP is a fast and lightweight protocol, perfect for sending large volumes of logs with minimal overhead."

More Graylog Enterprise pros

"Syslog-ng has a separate config file in addition to the core configuration."

"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."

"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."

"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."

Cons

"With technical support, you are on your own without an enterprise license."

"Since container orchestration systems are popular and Graylog fits the niche well, perhaps they could officially support running in docker containers on Kubernetes as a StatefulSet as a use case. That way, the declarative nature of Kubernetes config files would document their best case deployment scenario-"

"Dashboards, stream alerts and parsing could be improved."

"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."

"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."

"There should be some user groups and an auto sign-in feature."

"I would like to see some kind of visualization included in Graylog."

More Graylog Enterprise cons

"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."

"There is room for improvement in terms of observability."

"In syslog-ng, I think a GUI would be beneficial. I am unsure if the premium module has a GUI to administer it."

"The filtering has room for improvement."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you want something that works and do not have the money for Splunk or QRadar, take Graylog."

"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."

"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."

"You get a lot out-of-the-box with the non-enterprise version, so give it a try first."

"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."

"Having paid official support is wise for projects."

More Graylog Enterprise pricing and cost advice

"Syslog-ng is open-source."

"Syslog-ng is a free open-source solution."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Government

University

Government

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Graylog?

The product is scalable. The solution is stable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Graylog?

I am not familiar with the pricing details of Graylog, as I was not responsible for that aspect. It was determined that we didn't need an enterprise plan, which is more suited for clients with less...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Graylog?

An improvement I would suggest is in Graylog's user interface, such as allowing for font size adjustments. A potential enhancement could be the integration with Ollama to run large language models ...

See all answers

What do you like most about syslog-ng?

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for syslog-ng?

The pricing is in the middle. I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with one being expensive and ten being cheap.

See all answers

What needs improvement with syslog-ng?

Something could potentially be improved, though it works effectively for me. In the early stages, over 10 years ago, syslog-ng was lacking some features, so I created a patch for it. I used a patch...

See all answers

Comparisons

Grafana Loki vs Graylog Enterprise

Compared 32% of the time

Wazuh vs Graylog Enterprise

Compared 26% of the time

Security Onion vs Graylog Enterprise

Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiAnalyzer vs Graylog Enterprise

Compared 3% of the time

Seq vs Graylog Enterprise

Compared 3% of the time

More Graylog Enterprise Competitors

SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server vs syslog-ng

Compared 23% of the time

Grafana Loki vs syslog-ng

Compared 10% of the time

Cribl vs syslog-ng

Compared 6% of the time

Elastic Stack vs syslog-ng

Compared 6% of the time

Logstash vs syslog-ng

Compared 4% of the time

More syslog-ng Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Graylog Enterprise

September 2025

Download Graylog Enterprise product report

Buyer's Guide

Log Management

August 2025

Download syslog-ng product report

Also Known As

Graylog2

No data available

Overview

Graylog Enterprise, recognized for log collection, real-time search, and enriched data handling, offers an open-source framework that integrates seamlessly with Elasticsearch. Its user-centric interface streamlines data correlation and log aggregation, supporting both backend services and comprehensive monitoring needs.

Graylog Enterprise stands out for its stability and powerful log management capabilities, facilitating efficient log aggregation, real-time updates, and data analytics. Users benefit from its plugin-based alerting, user-friendly interface, and support for microservices, including Docker integration. The ability to search in detail, flexible API integration, and data enrichment features are highly valued. Challenges include collector application issues, desired visualization enhancements, and authentication integration improvements. Users seek advancements in UI customization, backup functions, and easier rule creation.

What are Graylog Enterprise's most important features?

Log Collection: Efficiently aggregates and handles diverse logs.
Real-Time Search: Provides immediate log data access.
Custom Alerts: Plugin-based alerting for tailored notifications.
Dashboard Enhancements: Improved visualization for data insights.
Data Enrichment: Adds value through detailed log analysis.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Audit Trail Support: Essential for compliance in financial sectors.
Security Event Correlation: Enables incident analysis and response.
Faster Issue Identification: Speeds up troubleshooting with detailed visualization.
API Flexibility: Seamless integration across systems and environments.
Comprehensive Monitoring: Centralized log management enhances oversight.

In industrial use, Graylog Enterprise is crucial for audit trailing in financial sectors, facilitating security event identification and error monitoring. Backend teams leverage real-time analytics for swift issue resolution, while developers appreciate the comprehensive log visualization enabled by Docker integration for microservice management.

Graylog

Optimizing SIEM
syslog-ng is the log management solution that improves the performance of your SIEM solution by reducing the amount and improving the quality of data feeding your SIEM.

Rapid search and troubleshooting
With syslog-ng Store Box, you can find the answer. Search billions of logs in seconds using full text queries with Boolean operators to pinpoint critical logs.

Meeting compliance requirements
syslog-ng Store Box provides secure, tamper-proof storage and custom reporting to demonstrate compliance.

Big data ingestion
syslog-ng can deliver data from a wide variety of sources to Hadoop, Elasticsearch, MongoDB, and Kafka as well as many others.

Universal log collection and routing
syslog-ng flexibly routes log data from X sources to Y destinations. Instead of deploying multiple agents on hosts, organizations can unify their log data collection and management.

Secure data archive
syslog-ng Store Box provides automated archiving, tamper-proof encrypted storage, granular access controls to protect log data. The largest appliance can store up to 10TB of raw logs.

One Identity

Sample Customers

Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Tecnocom, University of Victoria, University of Exeter, Datapath

Buyer's Guide

Graylog Enterprise vs. syslog-ng

September 2025

Free Report: Graylog Enterprise vs. syslog-ng

Find out what your peers are saying about Graylog Enterprise vs. syslog-ng and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Graylog Enterprise vs. syslog-ng report.

See our list of best Log Management vendors.

We monitor all Log Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.