Logstashvs
Elastic Stack
Elastic Stack: Search, Observability, and Security Solutions
Logstash
Data Processing Pipeline for Ingestion
As of 30 August 2026, Logstash is free to use. Logstash is a free and open-source data processing pipeline that ingests data from a multitude of sources. Softwr lists it under Logging. Logstash is made by Elastic, launched in 2011, available on Web, API.
Overview
What Logstash does
Logstash is a free and open-source data processing pipeline that ingests data from a multitude of sources.
What people use it for
- Log monitoring
- Application performance
- Security analytics
- Troubleshooting
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Logstash.
- Logstash's source is dual licensed: code outside the x-pack directory is Apache License 2.0, but code inside x-pack (which carries several of Logstash's monitoring and management features) is licensed under the Elastic License, not a fully open source license
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Logstash
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- LogstashvsDatadog Logs
Datadog Logs: Log Management and Analytics
- LogstashvsNew Relic
New Relic: Observability made simple
- LogstashvsCoralogix
Coralogix: Continuous Log Insights and Visibility
Pricing
What Logstash costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Free
Free
- Data ingestion
- Event parsing
- Data transformation
Capabilities
Features
Data ingestion
Event parsing
Data transformation
Multiple input sources
API
Integration with API
Webhooks
Integration with Webhooks
REST
Integration with REST
Web support
Available on web
Api support
Available on api
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
How much does Logstash cost?
Logstash is free and open-source. The data processing pipeline is available to download at no charge and can be deployed without licensing costs or commercial restrictions.
SourceBehind it
Who makes Logstash
- Company
- Elastic
- Based in
- United States
Keep looking
Where to go from Logstash
- Logstash alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Logstash pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Logstash badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Logging softwareThe full category
- Best Logging softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Logging software for
Compare Logstash with
- Datadog Logs
- New Relic
- Coralogix
- InfluxDB
- Fluentd
- Graylog
- Traceloop
- Grafana Loki
- incident.io
- Cronitor
- FireHydrant
- CloudWatch
- Dynatrace
- Airbrake
- AppDynamics
- Axiom
- Azure Monitor
- Telegraf
Other Logging software
Continuous Log Insights and Visibility
Free, then $0.42/GB (logs ingestion)10 researched notesPurpose-built time series database for metrics and events
Free, then $0.0025/MB ingested12 researched notesLLM reliability platform with open-source observability and evaluation
Free plan10 researched notesSoftware reliability platform with on-call management and agentic root cause analysis
Free plan11 researched notesMonitoring for cron jobs, websites, and background tasks
Free, then $2/monitor/month11 researched notesAll-in-one incident management for alerting, on-call, and response
Free, then $25/responder-month11 researched notesThe Plugin-Driven Server Agent for Collecting and Reporting Metrics
Free plan10 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Logstash, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Logstash
Logstash alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Logstash pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Logstash
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Logstash badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
Best Logging software alternatives
Software reliability platform with on-call management and agentic root cause analysis
subscription
Status pages with uptime monitoring and compliance-ready incident tracking
LLM reliability platform with open-source observability and evaluation
Freemium with pay-as-you-go enterprise option
Active reliability platform combining uptime monitoring, API testing, and incident response
subscription