Alternatives to Elastic Stack
Elasticsearch, Logstash, Beats and Kibana combined for collecting, searching and visualizing logs and other data. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Elastic Stack
Elasticsearch, Logstash, Beats and Kibana combined for collecting, searching and visualizing logs and other data.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Elastic Stack.
Graylog
Self-hosted enterprise log management platform with stream processing and alerts.
Graylog is self-hosted log management with stream processing, alerts and content packs, open source with a paid tier for enterprise features and support.
Grafana Loki
Collect and query application logs using label-based indexing.
Grafana Loki is AGPL-3.0 open source and indexes logs by labels rather than full content, integrating with Grafana for exploration instead of Kibana.
OpenObserve
Collect logs, metrics and traces in a unified observability application.
OpenObserve is AGPL-3.0 open source and collects logs, metrics and traces in one application, with hosted services and enterprise features priced separately.
VictoriaLogs
Store and search logs with a dedicated log-management server.
VictoriaLogs is a free Apache-2.0 log-management server for ingesting and searching logs, requiring configured log shippers and retention storage.
Parseable
Rust-based self-hosted logging server with columnar storage and a built-in UI.
Parseable is a Rust-based logging server with columnar S3-native storage, SQL queries and a built-in UI, a younger project than the Elastic Stack.
SigNoz
Open-source full-stack observability platform built on OpenTelemetry and ClickHouse.
SigNoz is open source on OpenTelemetry and ClickHouse, combining logs with APM, traces and metrics, though running ClickHouse adds its own operational overhead.
HyperDX
Investigate application failures using linked logs, traces and related telemetry.
HyperDX is MIT-licensed and links logs with traces for debugging application failures, self-hostable but requiring instrumentation and supporting data storage.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Elastic Stack as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
Grafana
Dashboard and visualization front end for metrics, logs and traces.
Elastic Stack uses Kibana for dashboards but bundles its own storage and ingestion, so it is several services to run, is not open source, and centres on logs.
OpenSearch
Index and search data with an open-source search and analytics engine.
Elastic Stack bundles Elasticsearch, Logstash, Beats and Kibana for search and dashboards, but it is not open source and some features require paid offerings.
Quickwit
Search logs and other large datasets using an engine built around object storage.
Elastic Stack bundles Elasticsearch, Logstash, Beats and Kibana for log search and dashboards, but it is not open source and requires several resource-hungry services.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Grafana Alloy
An open-source telemetry collector from Grafana Labs that gathers and forwards logs, metrics and traces.
OpenTelemetry Collector
Receive, process and export telemetry through a vendor-neutral collector.
Telegraf
Collect and forward metrics using a configurable server agent.
tailspin
Highlight useful patterns in log files without a custom parser.
Uptrace
Explore traces, metrics and logs collected through OpenTelemetry.
