OpenSearch alternatives

3 tools to consider instead of OpenSearch, shown against it.

OpenSearch Elasticsearch Graylog Grafana Loki
Vendor OpenSearch Software Foundation (originated at Amazon) Elasticsearch B.V. (Elastic) Graylog, Inc. Grafana Labs
Pricing model Open source + paid options Usage-based Free tier + paid plans Free tier + paid plans
Free tier Yes Yes Yes Yes
Deployment Cloud, Self-hosted Cloud, Self-hosted Cloud, Self-hosted Cloud, Self-hosted
Open source Yes (Apache-2.0) No (Elastic License 2.0 / SSPL (source-available; AGPL-3.0 option since 2024)) Yes (SSPL (Graylog Open); proprietary (Enterprise/Security)) Yes (AGPL-3.0)
Best for Teams that want an Elasticsearch-compatible, fully open-source log analytics stack without license-model risk. Teams needing a flexible, self-hostable search/log backend that can double as a SIEM without a separate platform. Teams wanting a free, self-hosted log management core with a clear upgrade path to SIEM features. Teams already on Grafana/Prometheus who want cheap log storage without full-text indexing overhead.
Pricing

The software is free under Apache-2.0; cost is entirely the compute/storage of self-hosting or a managed service like Amazon OpenSearch Service.

Pricing has not been verified yet — see the vendor's site.

Elastic Cloud Hosted starts from a base monthly rate for a reference config plus usage-based instance pricing; self-managed is free with paid subscription tiers for advanced features.

Standard from $99/month
Gold from $114/month
Platinum from $131/month
Enterprise from $184/month

Prices read from the vendor's own page on September 21, 2026. Vendors change prices; check the source before you budget.

Graylog Open is free with no volume cap; Enterprise and Security editions are licensed annually by daily processed-data volume (GB/day) or prepaid consumption units (GCU).

Graylog Open Free
Graylog Enterprise from $15,000/year
Graylog Security from $18,000/year

Prices read from the vendor's own page on September 21, 2026. Vendors change prices; check the source before you budget.

Free to self-host; Grafana Cloud's Pro tier charges a small platform fee plus per-GB rates for processing, writing and retaining logs.

Free (Grafana Cloud) $0
Pro (Grafana Cloud) $19/month platform fee + usage
Enterprise from $25,000/year

Prices read from the vendor's own page on September 21, 2026. Vendors change prices; check the source before you budget.

Features
  • Distributed search and log analytics on a Lucene-based engine
  • OpenSearch Dashboards for visualization
  • Security Analytics plugin for detection rules
  • k-NN vector search
  • Index lifecycle management for hot/warm/cold tiering
  • Fully open-source, forkable under Apache-2.0
  • Distributed inverted-index search at petabyte scale
  • Kibana for dashboards and log/trace exploration
  • Vector and hybrid search (dense + lexical)
  • Elastic Security app for SIEM on the same indices
  • Serverless or provisioned hosted deployment options
  • Rich ingest pipelines via Logstash and Beats/Elastic Agent
  • Centralized log collection, parsing and search
  • Custom dashboards and alert definitions
  • Data tiering between hot/warm storage
  • Archiving and compliance reporting (Enterprise)
  • Anomaly detection and correlation rules (Security)
  • Self-hosted or Graylog-managed cloud deployment
  • Label-based indexing instead of full-text indexing
  • LogQL query language aligned with PromQL
  • Native integration with Grafana dashboards and alerting
  • Multi-tenant, horizontally scalable architecture
  • Object-storage-backed retention (S3/GCS/Azure Blob)
  • Promtail/Grafana Alloy agents for log shipping

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