Wazuh vs Elastic Security

How we compare:This comparison is based on official documentation, public pricing, community discussions, and aggregated user feedback, not hands-on testing by our team. We organize what real users and practitioners are saying across the web.

Wazuh

Wazuh is a free, open-source security platform that provides unified XDR and SIEM protection. It offers log analysis, intrusion detection, file integrity monitoring, vulnerability detection, and compliance monitoring across on-premises and cloud workloads.

Pros
  • Completely free and open source
  • Unified SIEM + XDR in one platform
  • Active community with 20M+ annual downloads
  • Agent-based with multi-platform support
  • Strong compliance reporting (PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR)
Cons
  • Requires significant infrastructure expertise to deploy
  • UI less polished than commercial alternatives
  • Community support only (paid support available)
  • Can be resource-intensive at scale

Pricing: Free (Open Source)

Elastic Security

Elastic Security is a unified security solution built on the Elastic (ELK) Stack that combines SIEM, endpoint security, and cloud security into a single platform. It leverages Elasticsearch for fast search and analytics at scale, provides pre-built detection rules aligned with MITRE ATT&CK, and offers free and open core functionality that makes it accessible to organizations of all sizes.

Pros
  • Open-source core with no ingest-based pricing
  • Scales massively with Elasticsearch
  • Unified SIEM, EDR, and cloud security
  • Strong community and extensive documentation
  • No per-GB data licensing costs
Cons
  • Complex cluster management at scale
  • Advanced features require paid subscription
  • Steeper operational overhead than SaaS alternatives
  • Detection content less mature than Splunk

Pricing: Free (basic) / From $95/month (Cloud) / Enterprise custom