Most log management platforms were built to handle volume. The operational overhead, the cost model as that volume grows, and whether they actually deploy in the environment you have are the questions that surface later. Graylog Enterprise was built for IT and DevOps teams that need log management at scale, without a dedicated platform engineering team to keep it running. Keep reading to learn:
Processes 1M+ messages per second
“The product works smoothly, allowing for simplification of logging data into standardised streams, creating an easy to use, searchable environment of uniform data.”
– It Security & Risk Management Associate,
Government/Education Industry
“A-high-performance, cost effective log management and SIEM solutions that scales beautifully”
– Manager, IT Security and Risk Management,
IT Services Industry
We know this is a real investment for your organization. But lean teams shouldn’t get a lean vendor relationship. The included Accelerator program, people who know your environment, and a support team customers genuinely rave about are here to deliver the outcomes you are looking for. For teams that want ongoing strategic support, a dedicated TAM is an option.
“The collaboration with Graylog was more than technical. The knowledge exchange helped both teams grow together.”
– Miltiadis Tsatsakis, Principal Engineer,
Kaizen Gaming
The difference: Where your logs live should be your decision, not your vendor’s revenue strategy.
Graylog Enterprise runs self-managed on-prem, in your private cloud, in the cloud provider of your choice, or in Graylog Cloud. The same platform, with consistent core capabilities across all deployment options. You move when it makes sense for you, not when a renewal forces you. The same Graylog runs across 180 countries, including regulated industries, government, and global telecom networks where SaaS isn’t an option.
SaaS-only log platforms including Sumo Logic, Datadog, Logz.io, and SolarWinds’ cloud log products keep your log data in their environment, on their terms. For some teams that’s fine. For organizations with data residency requirements or air-gapped environments, it’s a non-starter.
The difference: Data stored in the lake doesn’t count against your license until you retrieve it.
Graylog Enterprise includes a built-in data lake and data pipeline management. Route data you’re not sure you’ll need to the lake instead of dropping it: verbose sources, high-volume logs, compliance archives, everything you’re keeping just in case. It all sits there without counting against your license until an investigation or audit pulls it in. You decide what to actively process. The lake holds the rest.
No other log management platform in this market includes an equivalent. When you pay for everything you collect, the way teams control costs is by deciding what to collect at all. They drop verbose sources, sample high-volume logs, and skip data they can’t afford to keep. That’s not cost control. It’s a visibility trade-off made before you know what you’ll need.
The difference: Graylog normalizes fields at ingest. Queries run against data that is already structured, which is why results come back in seconds at scale. That’s a real tradeoff worth understanding: field definitions happen when data arrives, not when someone asks a question. If your team’s workflow depends heavily on extracting and reinterpreting raw fields after the fact, that’s worth a direct conversation before you choose.
Graylog Enterprise normalizes fields through Illuminate the moment log data arrives. Consistent field names and structure across hundreds of common sources, out of the box, with no per-source extraction rule maintenance. Queries return in seconds whether you’re reviewing this morning’s deployment logs or months of infrastructure history. For teams running standard infrastructure and application log sources, Illuminate handles the field definitions before anyone has to write them. Graylog ingests over one million messages per second, with shard allocation managed automatically as data grows.
Platforms built for query-time field extraction, including Splunk and Sumo Logic, give teams the flexibility to reinterpret raw data after it’s stored. That flexibility comes at a cost: every search carries the compute overhead of applying schema when the question is asked, which is why these platforms tie pricing to compute load rather than just storage. When multiple teams query large volumes simultaneously, that overhead compounds.
The difference: A log platform that needs a specialist to stay healthy is an engineering project wearing a product’s name.
Graylog Enterprise handles shard allocation and index management automatically, so nobody is recalculating at every capacity milestone. Graylog manages the search backend, keeping it tuned as data grows without requiring dedicated administrative overhead. Illuminate content packs normalize common sources at ingest, so fields are correct and consistent across every source without writing regex or building extraction rules at search time.
Self-managed open-source stacks including ELK and Grafana Loki give you real power and real upkeep. ELK means shard allocation, heap tuning, garbage-collection settings, mapping management, and version migrations, usually a dedicated job. Loki means living by label design, where one bad schema decision quietly turns every query slow.
The difference: Most log management platforms are one-way streets. Data flows in, analysis stays inside.
Graylog Enterprise accepts logs from a wide range of standard formats and protocols, with Illuminate content packs providing normalized parsing and pre-built dashboards for hundreds of common sources out of the box. If a source isn’t in the content library, adding it is a configuration task using Graylog’s input framework, not a custom development project.
Data flows out just as cleanly. The REST API and native MCP server route enriched log data and events to ITSM platforms, case management tools, BI dashboards, and downstream data lakes in real time, without re-ingesting or paying twice to move the same data. Connect your own LLM, cloud or on-prem, with role-based access enforced so an AI agent sees only what its assigned user role can see.
Log management platforms that limit exports keep analysis locked inside. Sumo Logic’s own documentation lists recent searches, scheduled views, partitions, field extraction rules, and lookups as not supported for export, with imports capped at 1,000 objects at a time. Beyond export limits, proprietary SaaS platforms built on closed data models create real risk when vendor relationships change, pricing models shift, or a platform that started on open-source foundations moves away from them. The content, dashboards, and parsing logic your team builds should belong to your organization.
“It was very cost-efficient to switch. Even with the same resources, the new setup operates ten times faster thanks to the guidance from the Graylog team.”
Processing latency: 20-30s to 2-3s.
Message handling: 30s to under 3s.
99.95% availability across 600+ microservices.
“The project organization was seamless, with clear communication and a structured approach that kept everything on track. Special thanks to Siva for the expert support. His attention to detail and technical knowledge made a huge difference.”
Streamlined workflows supported by intuitive dashboards and alerting
Quick rollout with minimal disruption
Lower total cost of ownership compared to competitive alternatives
Both, as two products. Graylog Enterprise is the centralized log management platform for IT operations, DevOps, and compliance teams: collection, parsing, search, dashboards, alerting, data routing, and tiered storage. Graylog Security adds threat detection and investigation on the same platform.
Graylog Open is source-available and free: log collection, search, dashboards, and alerting with no license cost. Graylog Enterprise adds the integrated data lake, tiered storage, data routing, enterprise support, compliance reporting, and advanced access controls. Graylog Security adds full SIEM capability on top of Enterprise: threat detection, risk scoring, investigations, and anomaly detection. All three run on the same code base.
Yes. Run it on-prem, in your private cloud, in the cloud provider of your choice, or in Graylog Cloud. Consistent core capabilities across all deployment options. That’s different from Sumo Logic, Datadog, Logz.io, and SolarWinds’ cloud log products, which are SaaS-only.
Splunk stores raw data and applies schema at query time, which is why search performance and cost both grow with volume, and why a separate pipeline tool is commonly added to manage ingest cost. Elastic gives you strong search built on schema-on-write, but you assemble and operate the stack yourself: shard tuning, heap settings, version migrations. Graylog adds ingest-time normalization via Illuminate, an integrated data lake, and built-in data routing. One platform, consistent core capabilities from on-prem to cloud.
Graylog Enterprise is licensed by ingest volume, the amount of log data you actively process in real time. Data stored in the integrated data lake is held outside your ingest license boundary until you retrieve it, which means you can retain far more than you pay to process at any given time. For specific pricing based on your environment and volumes, visit graylog.org/pricing or contact the Graylog sales team.
The data lake and intelligent tiering together are the main cost levers. Data you route to the lake is held outside your ingest license until you retrieve it. As data ages, intelligent tiering moves it from hot to warm to archive, cutting storage costs without losing access. Together, they let you control both what you pay to process in real time and what you pay to keep long term.
No. Data pipeline management and routing are built in. You filter, route, and transform at ingest, and send each source to the right tier, without a second product in front of the platform.
You keep the open-source flexibility and lose the operational tax. No shard-and-heap tuning, no label-schema fragility, no assembling collectors, pipelines, and dashboards by hand. Illuminate normalizes common sources at ingest, and enterprise support is included. Many Graylog Enterprise customers started exactly where you are, including on Graylog Open.
Search returns in seconds. Illuminate normalizes fields at ingest across hundreds of common sources, so queries run against structured data without a field extraction step at search time. For standard infrastructure and application log environments, that delivers consistent, fast results from day one.
Graylog ingests over one million messages per second and centralizes terabytes of log data a day across distributed environments. For organizations with multiple data centers or regions, Graylog supports distributed cluster deployments with forwarding between them for resilience and geographic distribution.
Syslog, Windows Event Logs, CEF, GELF, Beats, NetFlow, IPFIX, cloud services, Kubernetes, network devices, and custom sources over the REST API. Illuminate content packs provide normalized parsing and pre-built dashboards for hundreds of common sources. If a source isn’t covered, adding a custom one is a configuration task using Graylog’s input framework, not a custom development project.
Yes. Audit-ready reporting, long-term retention in the data lake, role-based access, immutable storage, and scheduled reports support common compliance frameworks. Flexible deployment options, on-prem, private cloud, or Graylog Cloud, give government, education, healthcare, and other regulated organizations the control they need to meet their specific compliance requirements.
Graylog Security adds detection and investigation capability to the same platform. One upgrade, not a re-platform or a new vendor selection.
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