Elastic vs Sumo Logic: Build vs buy the right logging platform

When it comes to logging tools, organizations often face a classic tech dilemma: build vs. buy. Should you invest in a robust, ready-to-use SaaS solution like Sumo Logic or dive into the customization rabbit hole with a PaaS option like Elastic? It's a debate as old as time—well, as old as software, anyway. Let's break it down in a way that actually makes sense, and hopefully, it’ll spark less drama than the pineapple-on-pizza debate.

SaaS vs. PaaS: Which one is right for you?

Sumo Logic is a SaaS (Software as a Service) platform designed for convenience. You pay to enjoy everything without worrying about ongoing maintenance. Elastic, on the other hand, is a PaaS (Platform as a Service) option. While it provides some customizations, you're in charge of setting it up, managing the infrastructure, and resolving operational issues.

If you’re looking for a logging solution that works out of the box with minimal effort, Sumo Logic provides that simplicity. You don’t need a dedicated team to maintain infrastructure, and updates occur seamlessly, letting your team to focus on more critical tasks.

While Elastic offers more flexibility, which can be useful if you have specific requirements or a skilled development team able to manage complex configurations, that control often comes with increased complexity, maintenance responsibilities, and higher costs.

Scalability: Effortless growth vs. constant maintenance

A major advantage of Sumo Logic is its effortless scalability. As your data grows, Sumo Logic handles the increased volume without needing any extra effort from you, ensuring that the platform remains efficient and responsive.

But Elastic requires careful planning and manual intervention to manage infrastructure and avoid performance issues. Adding new nodes and ensuring everything works smoothly can require significant effort, especially if data ingestion rates spike unexpectedly. Sumo Logic’s seamless scalability lets you focus on using insights to improve your operations rather than spending time and effort managing infrastructure.

Common challenges with Elastic

The ELK stack (Elastic, Logstash, and Kibana) has become a staple of log analytics in recent years, but it also comes with its fair share of headaches, particularly when self-hosted.

Running out of storage space

As log data grows, managing storage can become a chore. Without careful monitoring, it's easy to hit storage limits which may lead to potential disruptions. Scaling Elastic effectively takes careful planning and constant attention, adding considerable overhead to your operations.

Sumo Logic doesn’t have storage limits because we operate at cloud-scale and can seamlessly adapt to your growing needs.

Ongoing maintenance, upgrades and patching

From managing clusters to handling scaling issues, a lot of effort is involved to ensure the system runs smoothly. If you don’t have a dedicated DevOps engineer, this maintenance can become a major burden, taking up valuable time and resources. Deploying and maintaining a production-ready ELK stack involves ongoing costs and effort.

Unlike a true SaaS solution, upgrading an Elastic cluster is complex. It requires careful planning and can lead to downtime if not handled properly. Scheduling maintenance windows and avoiding disruptions is a constant struggle, and even minor mistakes during upgrades can have a major impact. Sumo Logic provides continuous improvements without the need for downtime or manual intervention, making for a smoother experience.

On top of that keeping your ELK stack updated is crucial for security and performance but often complicated. Patching can lead to downtime and may introduce unexpected issues, like service disruptions. As a result, many organizations delay updates and won’t apply important patches, risking security vulnerabilities.

Sumo Logic's SaaS model alleviates these concerns by overseeing infrastructure management and automating updates. This ensures optimal security and performance without adding to your workload."

Inaccurate configuration of your ELK stack

Given Elastic's flexibility, you have to make many decisions about configuration, and any mistake can easily lead to poor performance or unreliable logging. Misconfigurations can lead to data gaps or degraded service, which can significantly impact your ability to monitor and troubleshoot. It often takes an experienced engineer a significant amount of time to configure Elastic to meet their specific needs, and even then, it requires ongoing tweaks.

Sumo Logic, prevents unintended user error by providing optimized configurations right out of the box, allowing you to focus on analyzing data instead of wrangling tools.

Difficulty in implementing security features

While Elastic offers robust security features, configuring them properly isn’t simple. Setting up encryption, authentication, and role-based access control requires extensive manual configuration. Many organizations struggle with these tasks, and misconfigurations can leave systems vulnerable. Hosting your own ELK stack means you’re solely responsible for managing vulnerabilities, and a compromised system can have devastating consequences.

Sumo Logic automatically integrates security best practices, protecting your data without the need for manual intervention.

The verdict: Convenience or control?

At the end of the day, the choice between Sumo Logic and Elastic comes down to what matters most for your organization: convenience or control. If you want a logging solution that works seamlessly, scales effortlessly, and doesn’t require constant hands-on management, Sumo Logic is the clear winner. It offers ease of use, automatic scaling, integrated security, and managed services, freeing up your team to focus on higher-value tasks.

Elastic is a powerful tool, ideal for those who need full customization and have the resources to manage and maintain it. But this flexibility comes with significant overhead, including scaling, patching, and continuous maintenance and configuration.

Ultimately, understanding your team's capabilities and the time and resources you’re willing to commit will help you make the right choice. Whether you choose to build or buy, the key is to make an informed decision that supports your long-term goals without adding unnecessary headaches along the way.

Make the right decision for your team. Try Sumo Logic today with our free trial.