ELK Stack vs syslog-ng
ELK Stack
elastic.cosyslog-ng
syslog-ng.comSide by side
| Figure | ELK Stack | syslog-ng |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 12 | 6 |
| Spec score · Log Management Software | 9.5 (#1) | 9.1 (#11) |
| Compliance | Elastic's Trust Center lists certifications and attestations including SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 3, PCI, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and FedRAMP Moderate and High. | Commercial documentation describes logstore and reliable transfer features as helping with SOX, HIPAA and PCI-DSS collection requirements. |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | Elastic offers over 300 turn-key integrations for Search, Security, Observability, and cloud providers including AWS, Azure, and GCP. | The product pages list destinations and integrations including Elasticsearch, Hadoop, Kafka, MongoDB, SQL databases, Redis, Splunk, and SIEM tools. |
| Purpose | The Elastic Stack combines Elasticsearch, Kibana, Beats, and Logstash to take data from any source and format for search, analysis, and visualization. | syslog-ng collects logs from infrastructure sources, processes them, and routes or stores them for analysis. |
| Security | Security capabilities include authentication integrations, role-based access control, SSL/TLS encryption, IP filtering, audit logging, and field- and document-level controls. | Premium Edition supports TLS-encrypted transfer and encrypted log storage, with X.509 certificates for host and server mutual authentication. |
| Support | Elastic Cloud subscription tiers include varying levels of support, while paid self-managed Gold, Platinum, and Enterprise subscriptions include support. | Commercial customers can access certified engineers, global coverage, and support services; Open Source Edition users are directed to community support and documentation. |
Plans
ELK Stack
- BasicPrice not published
- Logs EssentialsPriced on request
- Complete$0.09 a month
- Standard$99 a month
- Gold$114 a month
- Platinum$131 a month
- Enterprise$184 a month
- Basic (self-managed)Free
- Elastic Cloud hostedPriced on request
- Elastic Cloud ServerlessPriced on request
syslog-ng
- syslog-ng Open Source EditionFree
- syslog-ng Premium Edition trialFree
- Syslog-ng Basic$2,800, paid once
- syslog-ng Premium EditionPriced on request
- syslog-ng Premium Edition MarketplacePriced on request
- syslog-ng Store BoxPriced on request
In their own words
ELK Stack
The Elastic Stack combines Elasticsearch, Kibana, Beats and Logstash to bring data from different sources into search, analysis and visualization workflows. Elasticsearch is a distributed, JSON-based search and analytics engine, while Kibana provides dashboards, visualizations, live presentations and deployment management. Elastic Agent, Beats and a web crawler can ingest information from applications, infrastructure and public content. Features include alerting, machine learning, vector search, graph analytics, clustering, high availability and data lifecycle management. Elastic positions the platform for Search, Observability and Security, including centralized logging, monitoring and security analytics. It is available as hosted Elastic Cloud or as self-managed software for on-premises, public cloud, private cloud and hybrid environments. Elasticsearch and Kibana have an open source foundation, and Elasticsearch can be downloaded and started free. Elastic Cloud offers a 14-day trial without a credit card. Hosted pricing depends on deployment components and can include snapshot storage and data transfer charges; listed hosted tiers start at $99 a month.
syslog-ng
syslog-ng collects infrastructure logs, processes them, and routes or stores them for analysis. Its free Open Source Edition can collect, parse, classify, rewrite, and correlate logs before sending them to analysis tools or storing them. Premium Edition adds filtering and real-time pattern correlation to reduce and normalize log data, plus disk buffering, client-side failover, and application-layer acknowledgements. It supports TLS-encrypted transfer and encrypted log storage with X.509 certificates for mutual authentication. Store Box offers access-controlled search and custom reports that can help with compliance work. Listed destinations include Elasticsearch, Hadoop, Kafka, MongoDB, SQL databases, Redis, Splunk, and SIEM tools. Premium licensing is based on Log Source Hosts, with annual support available; Store Box licensing depends on Log Source Hosts and hardware configuration. Open Source Edition is GPL/LGPL licensed and community supported. Commercial customers can access certified engineers and support services; Premium Edition and Store Box offer free trials.