Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Papertrail VS ElasticSearch

Compare Papertrail VS ElasticSearch and see what are their differences

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Papertrail logo Papertrail

Frustration-free log management. Get started in seconds.

ElasticSearch logo ElasticSearch

Elasticsearch is an open source, distributed, RESTful search engine.
  • Papertrail Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-11
  • ElasticSearch Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-10

Papertrail features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    Papertrail offers an intuitive interface that makes it easy for users to set up and start logging without a steep learning curve.
  • Real-time Monitoring
    It provides real-time log aggregation and monitoring, which is crucial for quick troubleshooting and response.
  • Seamless Integration
    Supports a wide range of integrations with other tools and services, making it versatile in various tech stacks.
  • Search and Filtering
    Offers powerful search and filtering capabilities that allow users to quickly find relevant logs.
  • Alerting
    Includes built-in alerting mechanisms to notify users of critical events, helping to ensure timely responses to issues.
  • Scalability
    Designed to handle large volumes of logs, making it suitable for both small and large applications.
  • Secure
    Provides strong security measures such as encrypted log transmissions and compliance with industry standards.

Possible disadvantages of Papertrail

  • Cost
    Can be relatively expensive for small teams or projects with limited budgets due to its pricing structure.
  • Limited Retention
    Basic plans have limited log retention periods, which might not be sufficient for all use cases.
  • Advanced Features
    Some advanced features and functionalities are only available in higher-tier plans, limiting access for users on basic plans.
  • Dependency on Network
    Being a cloud-based solution, it requires a stable internet connection, which can be a bottleneck in certain environments.

ElasticSearch features and specs

  • Scalability
    ElasticSearch is highly scalable, allowing you to handle large volumes of data and distribute indexing and search tasks across multiple nodes.
  • Real-Time Data
    It provides real-time indexing and searching capabilities, making it suitable for applications that require up-to-the-minute data retrieval and analysis.
  • Full-Text Search
    ElasticSearch is well-known for its powerful full-text search capabilities, enabling complex search queries and supporting a wide range of search options.
  • Complex Query Support
    It offers a rich query language allowing for complex and nested searching with filters, aggregations, and more.
  • Distributed Architecture
    ElasticSearch is designed to be distributed by nature, making it resilient to node failures and allowing data and search requests to be distributed across a cluster.
  • Open Source
    ElasticSearch is open-source, offering flexibility and a large community of developers that contribute to its continuous improvement and support.
  • Analytics
    Besides search, it also supports powerful analytics and visualization tools, especially when integrated with Kibana, its visualization dashboard.
  • Integrations
    ElasticSearch can easily integrate with various data sources and frameworks, enhancing its usability across different applications.

Possible disadvantages of ElasticSearch

  • Complexity
    Operating ElasticSearch can be complex, particularly when dealing with large-scale deployments, requiring specialized knowledge and expertise.
  • Resource Intensive
    ElasticSearch can be resource-intensive, requiring significant amounts of RAM and CPU, which can be costly for large-scale operations.
  • Consistency
    As a distributed system, ElasticSearch can sometimes face consistency issues, especially in scenarios involving partitions or network failures.
  • Security
    Though security features are available, they often require additional configurations and are more robust in the paid versions, which can be a concern for open-source users.
  • Cost
    While the core ElasticSearch software is open-source, scaling and additional features (like security, monitoring, and machine learning) are part of the paid Elastic Stack offerings.
  • Learning Curve
    There is a steep learning curve associated with mastering ElasticSearch and its query DSL (Domain Specific Language), which can be a barrier for new users.
  • Maintenance
    Properly maintaining an ElasticSearch cluster requires ongoing management, monitoring, and tuning to ensure optimal performance.
  • Backup and Restore
    Managing backups and restores can be cumbersome and is not as straightforward as in some other databases or data storage solutions.

Analysis of Papertrail

Overall verdict

  • Overall, Papertrail is a strong option for organizations seeking an intuitive and robust log management solution, particularly if they prioritize ease of use and integration capabilities. It is highly regarded for its performance, reliability, and user-friendly features.

Why this product is good

  • Papertrail is considered a good choice because it provides real-time log management and monitoring, making it easier for users to diagnose and debug application issues quickly. It offers a simple and efficient interface, supports multiple log formats, and integrates well with a variety of services. Users appreciate the ability to search, filter, and alert on log data with ease, which helps in maintaining operational visibility and ensuring system reliability.

Recommended for

  • Small to medium-sized businesses looking for an affordable log management solution
  • Development and DevOps teams needing real-time log monitoring and alerting
  • Organizations that utilize cloud services and require seamless integration
  • IT administrators and engineers who value a straightforward, easy-to-navigate interface

Analysis of ElasticSearch

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Elasticsearch is widely regarded as a top-tier solution for search and analytics applications. Its balance of speed, scalability, and adaptability to various data sets and systems makes it a popular choice across industries. However, it can be complex to set up and manage at scale, so some expertise is beneficial.

Why this product is good

  • Elasticsearch, developed by Elastic.co, is considered a powerful and flexible search and analytics engine. It's renowned for its scalability, speed, and support for complex search functionalities. Officially integrated into the Elastic Stack, it offers robust indexing and real-time search capabilities, making it an ideal choice for large-scale data search and analysis. It has a vibrant community and extensive documentation, which add to its appeal. Users appreciate its ability to handle a vast amount of data efficiently and its seamless integration with other tools like Kibana and Logstash.

Recommended for

  • Organizations needing a reliable, scalable search engine for large datasets
  • Developers building applications with complex search queries and analytics
  • Businesses wanting to perform real-time data analysis and visualization
  • Companies looking for a component within a larger log or event data management solution
  • Engineering and IT teams seeking to integrate search capabilities into existing systems

Papertrail videos

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ElasticSearch videos

What is Elasticsearch?

More videos:

  • Review - Real world Elasticsearch Compose/Stack File Review
  • Demo - Elastic Search

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Papertrail and ElasticSearch)
Monitoring Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Custom Search Engine
0 0%
100% 100
Log Management
100 100%
0% 0
Custom Search
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Papertrail and ElasticSearch

Papertrail Reviews

Best Log Management Tools for Elixir Phoenix
Papertrail is a solid choice that has been around for a while. We’ve used it in production for years and it met our needs. It is easy to set up with Gigalixir. With Heroku, it is a one-click add-on. Some of the product reviews we found said it can become expensive as you scale, especially compared to some of our other options. Papertrail is the best for Heroku apps.
Source: staknine.com
Top 21 Log Management Software Tools
Papertrail is a log management service that takes care of aggregating, searching, and analyzing any type of log files, system logs, or basic text log files. Its real-time features allow for developers and engineers to monitor live happenings for apps and servers as they are happening. Papertrail offers seamless integration with services like Slack, Librato and Email to help...
The Best 21 Sharepoint Alternatives in 2019
Among its many features, Papertrail has many capturing solutions. This is the dynamic answer to minimize the amount of documents you keep in printed form.
Best Log Management Tools: Useful Tools for Log Management, Monitoring, Analytics, and More
Papertrail is a snazzy hosted log management tool that takes care of aggregating, searching, and analyzing any type of log files, system logs, or basic text log files. Its real-time features allow for developers and engineers to monitor live happenings for apps and servers as they are happening. Papertrail offers seamless integration with services like Slack, Librato and...
Source: stackify.com

ElasticSearch Reviews

Log analysis: Elasticsearch vs Apache Doris
Benchmark tests with ES Rally, the official testing tool for Elasticsearch, showed that Apache Doris was around 5 times as fast as Elasticsearch in data writing, 2.3 times as fast in queries, and it consumed only 1/5 of the storage space that Elasticsearch used. On the test dataset of HTTP logs, it achieved a writing speed of 550 MB/s and a compression ratio of 10:1.
4 Leading Enterprise Search Software to Look For in 2022
“ We’ve built some big data search and mobile desktop applications that help our customers experience fast natural language search. Some applications require this, where I need to find data, I don’t want to build some complex query, I just need to ask the system “help me search for this information, narrow my results” and I don't want to wait several seconds. We’ve built a...
Top 10 Site Search Software Tools & Plugins for 2022
Elasticsearch is built for human users, which means that it’s equipped to handle mistakes that humans often make such as typos. This helps to improve search relevance and enhance the overall search experience. It offers real-time crawling, which automatically detects changes in content and ensures that search results are fresh and relevant.
Best Elasticsearch alternatives for search
However, when it comes to dealing with synonyms (i.e. ‘smart phone’ for ‘Samsung Galaxy’), slang (i.e. ‘kicks’ for ‘Nike Air Jordans’) and context (i.e. ‘car park’ is different to ‘dog park’) – you have to set up a bunch of manual rules/definitions with Elasticsearch and co.
Source: relevance.ai
5 Open-Source Search Engines For your Website
Elasticsearch provides key features like Advanced Full-Text Search Capabilities like Data indexing, Search capabilities including phrases, wildcards, auto suggestions, filters & facets, etc... Elasticsearch can also be used for other use-cases like
Source: vishnuch.tech

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, ElasticSearch should be more popular than Papertrail. It has been mentiond 17 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Papertrail mentions (2)

  • Ask HN: How do you handle observability and alerting at tiny companies?
    I like http://papertrail.com; it’s super easy to integrate with any backend, offers alerts, and much more. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • What's a software you searched to selfhost but is still missing to you ?
    I'd love a papertrail.com alternative that doesn't require a metric ass ton of knowledge and experience to set up. And, yes, that is a shot at every open-source, self-hosted graphical syslog tool currently available. Source: about 2 years ago

ElasticSearch mentions (17)

  • ElasticSearch from the Azure store or from Elastic.co?
    What surprised me is that on the Azure store, the only option I see is (Pay as you go), whereas on elastic.co there are the standard platinum and enterprise tiers followed by a where to deploy page and a pricing overview. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Hunspell on elastic.co cloud
    Can anyone help me how to upload custom hunspell stemmer files to elastic cloud (elastic.co)? According to elastic docs it should go under elasticsearch/config/hunspell, but according to cloud docs I should upload it via features/extension tab. So I tried zipping the hunspell folder and uploading it. I also figured out that it should be in the dictionaries folder, but after uploading it still doesn't work. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Creating a modern, SaaS website.. what am I missing?
    I can't figure out where I have to go to get more or less of a custom, premium website. I should mention that I look up to websites like elastic.co for example, would be very happy with something like that. I could really use some guidance! Source: over 2 years ago
  • Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2022)
    Elastic | Multiple software engineering roles | REMOTE (EMEA) | Full-time | https://elastic.co Elastic offers solutions for security and observability that are built on a single, open technology stack that can be deployed anywhere. Elastic Security enables security teams to prevent, detect, and respond to attacks with a solution built atop the speed and reliable of the Elastic stack. The Security External... - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Seeking clarification about which part of ElasticSearch to use for our website
    I have been trying to digest the elastic.co website to try to understand how we can use elastic search, but I've come to a point where I'm not sure which part of elastic, (if any) makes sense for us. In fact I am royally confused. I wonder if anyone here can help clarify? Source: almost 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Papertrail and ElasticSearch, you can also consider the following products

Graylog - Graylog is an open source log management platform for collecting, indexing, and analyzing both structured and unstructured data.

Algolia - Algolia's Search API makes it easy to deliver a great search experience in your apps & websites. Algolia Search provides hosted full-text, numerical, faceted and geolocalized search.

Splunk - Splunk's operational intelligence platform helps unearth intelligent insights from machine data.

Apache Solr - Solr is an open source enterprise search server based on Lucene search library, with XML/HTTP and...

logstash - logstash is a tool for managing events and logs.

Typesense - Typo tolerant, delightfully simple, open source search 🔍