The ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana) is a powerful open-source log management and analytics platform. It consists of three main components that work together to ingest, process, analyze, and visualize log data:
In our development environment, the ELK Stack serves as a comprehensive logging solution that helps developers debug issues, monitor application behavior, and gain insights into system performance.
While we use Grafana for metrics visualization, the ELK Stack has different strengths:
| Feature | ELK Stack | Grafana Loki |
|---|---|---|
| Data Storage | Document-based (Elasticsearch) | Log entries only (more lightweight) |
| Querying | Full-text search, complex queries | LogQL (more limited, but efficient) |
| Resource Usage | Higher (more powerful) | Lower (more efficient) |
| Use Case | Full log analytics, complex searches | Simple log aggregation and visualization |
| Adoption | Industry standard, widely adopted | Newer, gaining popularity |
ELK is generally preferred when you need powerful search capabilities and complex analytics, while Loki is better suited for simple log storage and basic querying with lower resource requirements.
Elasticsearch is the core of the ELK Stack, functioning as a distributed, RESTful search and analytics engine designed for horizontal scalability. It:
Read more about Elastic Search here: elastic_search.md.
Logstash is the data processing pipeline that ingests data from multiple sources, transforms it, and sends it to Elasticsearch. It:
Read more about Elastic Search here: logstash.md.
Kibana is the visualization platform designed to work with Elasticsearch. It:
Read more about Elastic Search here: kibana.md