Log Management · head to head
Elastic vs Stackdriver
Stackdriver
Log Management
Google Cloud Operations - Monitoring and Logging
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Stackdriver has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Elastic the 99.95% monthly uptime SLA is only offered on the Platinum and Enterprise subscription tiers of Hosted deployments, not on lower tiers, per elastic.co, August 2026; Stackdriver stackdriver is now branded Google Cloud Observability and cloud.google.com/stackdriver redirects to the Observability product page
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Elastic and Stackdriver actually diverge.
| Attribute | Elastic | Stackdriver |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | On request | Free |
| Pricing model | Unknown | usage-based |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Platforms | Web | Web, Api |
| Founded | Unknown | 2006 |
Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Log Management).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Elastic
Nothing recorded that Stackdriver does not also cover.
Only in Stackdriver
- Log management
- Metrics collection
- Real-time monitoring
- Error reporting
- API
- Webhooks
- REST
- Web support
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Elastic
No use cases recorded yet. See the Elastic review.
Stackdriver
- Centralised logging, metrics and traces for workloads running on Google Cloudnot Elastic
- Alerting and uptime checks on cloud servicesnot Elastic
- Running managed Prometheus-compatible monitoring at scalenot Elastic
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Elastic
- The 99.95% monthly uptime SLA is only offered on the Platinum and Enterprise subscription tiers of Hosted deployments, not on lower tiers, per elastic.co, August 2026
Stackdriver
- Stackdriver is now branded Google Cloud Observability and cloud.google.com/stackdriver redirects to the Observability product page
- Cloud Logging charges $0.50 per GiB ingested, with only the first 50 GiB per project per month free
- Logs kept beyond 30 days cost an extra $0.01 per GiB per month on top of the ingestion charge
- Monitoring metric ingestion starts at $0.2580 per MiB, with only the first 150 MiB per billing account free
- Alerting policies are billed at $0.35 per month for each metric reference in the policy
- Uptime checks cost $0.30 per 1,000 executions and synthetic monitors $1.20 per 1,000 executions, with only 100 synthetic executions per billing account free
- Monitoring read API calls cost $0.50 per million time series returned beyond the first million per billing account
- Log volume is measured before indexing on the actual size of log entries, so verbose logging directly drives cost
Pricing, plan by plan
Elastic
On requestNo published plan breakdown. See the Elastic review.
Stackdriver
Free- FreeFree
- Log management
- Metrics collection
- Real-time monitoring
Which should you pick?
Choose Elastic if
Nothing in the data separates Elastic from Stackdriver on the points above - pick on price and on how each one feels to use.
Choose Stackdriver if
- You need log management.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Api.
- You also want metrics collection.
Questions people ask
- Is Elastic or Stackdriver better?
- Neither clearly leads. Elastic starts at On request and Stackdriver at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Elastic or Stackdriver?
- Stackdriver has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Elastic and Free for Stackdriver.
- Does Elastic or Stackdriver run on more platforms?
- Elastic runs on Web. Stackdriver runs on Web, Api.
- Can I use Stackdriver for free?
- Yes. Stackdriver has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Elastic starts at On request.
- What can Elastic do that Stackdriver cannot?
- Stackdriver covers Log management, Metrics collection, Real-time monitoring, Error reporting.