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Pick 2–5 published tools. Values come from our evidence-checked profiles — an em-dash means unknown, never “no”. Ranking rows reflect the current published methodology for the comparison context.
Elastic Observability vs Grafana
Context: Observability Platforms · 24 rows
| Attribute | Elastic ObservabilityElastic | GrafanaGrafana Labs |
|---|---|---|
| Identity · Taxonomy | ||
| Documentation | https://www.elastic.co/docs | https://grafana.com/docs/ |
| Tags | observability, logs, apm, elastic-stack | dashboards, observability, open-source, monitoring, visualization |
| Platform · Deployment | ||
| Delivery model | SaaS, self-hosted | SaaS, self-hosted |
| Pricing · Licensing | ||
| Free plan | — | true |
| Free trial | true | true |
| License model | — | open-source |
| Pricing model | subscription, usage | subscription, usage |
| Source repository | — | https://github.com/grafana/grafana |
| SPDX license IDs | — | AGPL-3.0 |
| Starting price | — | 19 |
| Features · Product · Fit | ||
| Core capabilities | Log analytics, Infrastructure monitoring, APM and distributed tracing, Digital experience monitoring, LLM observability, AIOps | Dashboards and data visualization, Metrics, Logs, Traces, Profiles, Synthetic monitoring and load testing |
| Api · Integrations · Ecosystem | ||
| API available | true | true |
| CLI | true | — |
| Security · Privacy · Compliance | ||
| Regulatory compliance | FedRAMP, HIPAA | GDPR, FedRAMP |
| Security certifications | SOC 2, SOC 3, ISO/IEC 27001, PCI DSS, CSA STAR, TISAX | SOC 2, ISO/IEC 27001, ISO 22301, PCI DSS, CSA STAR |
| Audience · Use · Case | ||
| Best for | Teams standardizing on Elasticsearch that want logs, metrics, and APM alongside search and security workloads, deployed as Elastic Cloud or self-managed. | Visualization-first observability for teams that query metrics, logs, and traces from many data sources. Available as self-hosted open source or as the managed Grafana Cloud service. |
| Company-size fit | SMB, mid-market, enterprise | individual, SMB, mid-market, enterprise |
| Primary use cases | Incident investigation and remediation, Infrastructure monitoring, Application performance monitoring, User experience and uptime monitoring | Full-stack observability, Kubernetes monitoring, Frontend observability, Performance testing |
| Lifecycle · Versioning | ||
| Changelog/release notes | https://www.elastic.co/docs/release-notes | https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/release-notes/ |
| Current version | 9.5.3 | 13.2 |
| Maintenance status | active | active |
| Vendor · Maintainer | ||
| Founded year | 2012 | 2014 |
| Headquarters country | Netherlands | — |
| Vendor type | commercial | commercial |
“—” means unknown (we never treat missing evidence as a negative). Cells reflect each value's current evidence state; superseded or stale values are excluded. Ranking rows are editorial assessments under the cited methodology version — see the Observability Platforms category for definitions.