Comparison

Elastic (ELK Stack) vs Splunk

On the evidence we track, Elastic (ELK Stack) leads this comparison with a composite score of 68/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

Elastic (ELK Stack) full profile →Splunk full profile →

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★Elastic (ELK Stack)68

Splunk50

Attribute comparison across 2 tools
Attribute	Elastic (ELK Stack)Leader	Splunk
Vioscale score	68 / 100medium · 68%	50 / 100low · 40%
Pricing
Free tierpricing.free_tier	✓	-
Modelpricing.model	commercial	commercial
Price levelpricing.price_level	high	unknown
Transparentpricing.transparent	✓	✗
Integrations
Countintegrations.count	35	2,000
Security
Disclosure policysecurity.disclosure_policy	✓	✓
Gdprsecurity.gdpr	✓	-
Iso27001security.iso27001	✓	-
Scorecardsecurity.scorecard	6.9	-
Vulnerabilitiessecurity.vulnerabilities	Count: 45 · Source: https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=maven&package_name=org.elasticsearch%3Aelasticsearch&per_page=100 · Last 12m: 2 · Max severity: HIGH	-
Reliability
Sla pctreliability.sla_pct	99.95	-
Status pagereliability.status_page	✓	✓
Adoption
Dependent reposadoption.dependent_repos	18,551	-
Github starsadoption.github_stars	77,862	-
Activity
Commits last 30dactivity.commits_last_30d	100	-
Release
Historyrelease.history	20 items	-
Language
Primarylanguage.primary	Java	-
Market
Availabilitymarket.availability	Available worldwide · Popular in US, GB · HQ US	Available worldwide

Score

Vioscale score

Elastic (ELK Stack)68 / 100medium · 68%

Splunk50 / 100low · 40%

Pricing

Free tier

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk–

Model

Elastic (ELK Stack)commercial

Splunkcommercial

Price level

Elastic (ELK Stack)high

Splunkunknown

Transparent

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk✗

Integrations

Count

Elastic (ELK Stack)35

Splunk2,000

Security

Disclosure policy

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk✓

Gdpr

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk–

Iso27001

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk–

Scorecard

Elastic (ELK Stack)6.9

Splunk–

Vulnerabilities

Elastic (ELK Stack)Count: 45 · Source: https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=maven&package_name=org.elasticsearch%3Aelasticsearch&per_page=100 · Last 12m: 2 · Max severity: HIGH

Splunk–

Reliability

Sla pct

Elastic (ELK Stack)99.95

Splunk–

Status page

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk✓

Adoption

Dependent repos

Elastic (ELK Stack)18,551

Splunk–

Github stars

Elastic (ELK Stack)77,862

Splunk–

Activity

Commits last 30d

Elastic (ELK Stack)100

Splunk–

Release

History

Elastic (ELK Stack)20 items

Splunk–

Language

Primary

Elastic (ELK Stack)Java

Splunk–

Market

Availability

Elastic (ELK Stack)Available worldwide · Popular in US, GB · HQ US

SplunkAvailable worldwide

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for log management software. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Capability comparison for Log Management Software
Capability	Elastic (ELK Stack)	Splunk
Core
Pipeline role	End-to-end platform	End-to-end platform
Search
Full-text log search	✓	✓
Live tail / stream	✓	-
Processing
Structured parsing	✓	✓
PII redaction at ingest	-	-
Ops
Log-based alerting	✓	✓
Dashboards / visualisation	✓	✓
Storage
Retention tiering	✓	-
Object-store columnar backend	✗	-
Interop
OpenTelemetry logs	-	Native
Query language	ES\|QL (with native PromQL support)	-
Deployment
Hosting	Cloud + self-hosted	Cloud + self-hosted

Core

Pipeline role

Elastic (ELK Stack)End-to-end platform

SplunkEnd-to-end platform

Full-text log search

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk✓

Live tail / stream

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk-

Processing

Structured parsing

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk✓

PII redaction at ingest

Elastic (ELK Stack)-

Splunk-

Ops

Log-based alerting

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk✓

Dashboards / visualisation

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk✓

Storage

Retention tiering

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk-

Object-store columnar backend

Elastic (ELK Stack)✗

Splunk-

Interop

OpenTelemetry logs

Elastic (ELK Stack)-

SplunkNative

Query language

Elastic (ELK Stack)ES|QL (with native PromQL support)

Splunk-

Deployment

Hosting

Elastic (ELK Stack)Cloud + self-hosted

SplunkCloud + self-hosted

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

Elastic (ELK Stack)

Leader

A cloud-based observability and search platform that ingests logs from multiple sources, automatically structures them with AI, and enables full-text search, alerting, dashboards, and machine learning analysis on unstructured data.

Independently observed

Splunk

Splunk ingests system and application data from across an enterprise and processes it to help security and operations teams identify problems quickly, respond to threats automatically, and understand system performance.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

Elastic (ELK Stack)

Leader

from $99/moSubscriptionFree tier14-day trial

From $99/month. Subscription model with free 14-day trial. Usage-based pricing for cloud resources (120 GB storage / 2 zones baseline).

StandardFrom $99/month. Free 14-day trial.
- Distributed Elasticsearch Platform on AWS, Azure, GCP
- Elasticsearch Query Language (ES|QL)
- AutoOps monitoring
- Hundreds of out-of-the-box integrations
- Discover, dashboards, alerting
- +4 more
GoldFrom $114/month. Includes reporting and third-party integrations.
- Everything in Standard
- Reporting
- Third-party alerting actions
- Watcher
- Enterprise Search
- +2 more
PlatinumFrom $131/month. ML and advanced security included.
- Everything in Gold
- Advanced security features
- Machine learning: anomaly detection, supervised learning
- Cross-cluster replication
- Semantic and vector search with ML models (ELSER, e5)
- +5 more
EnterpriseFrom $184/month. Full AI suite and advanced automation.
- Everything in Platinum
- Searchable snapshots in cold/frozen tiers
- Elastic Maps Server
- Cross-cluster search and ES|QL Data Federation
- GPU inference with Elastic Inference Service
- +10 more

as of 2026-08-14verify ↗

Splunk

Usage-based14-day trial

Multiple usage-based pricing models (Ingest, Workload, Entity). Contact sales for quotes.

as of 2026-08-14verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platform and deployment support comparison
Supports	Elastic (ELK Stack)	Splunk
WebPlatforms	✓	✓
CLIPlatforms	✓	✓
Cloud / SaaSDeployment	✓	✓
Self-hostedDeployment	✓	✓
HybridDeployment	✓	✗

Platforms

Web

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk✓

CLI

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk✓

Deployment

Cloud / SaaS

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk✓

Self-hosted

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk✓

Hybrid

Elastic (ELK Stack)✓

Splunk✗

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

Elastic (ELK Stack)

Leader

31 total

OpenAI
Anthropic
Jina AI
Amazon Bedrock
Google Vertex AI
Microsoft Azure AI
Mistral
Cohere
Hugging Face
NVIDIA
IBM watsonx
LlamaIndex
LangChain
Vectorize.io
Slack
Jira
PagerDuty
ServiceNow
Microsoft Teams
xMatters
IBM Resilient
Filebeat
Metricbeat
Heartbeat
+7 more

Independently observed

Splunk

3 total

OpenTelemetry
Cisco Talos
AWS

Independently observed

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.