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Pro Easy to work with
Elasticsearch gained its popularity amongst developers by being enjoyable to use. A simple feature comparison against it's competition doesn't convey the significant advantages of just how easy it is to work with. This is due to multiple design choices such as the use of JSON for the API a...
Pro Structured search queries with JSON
Search can be executed either using a simple, Lucene-based query string or using an extensive JSON-based search query DSL. By structuring the query as a JSON object you can be very explicit and can dictate exactly what ElasticSeach will return. A very basic example of a JSON query is: curl -XGET...
Pro Open source
It's free and Open Source so you can host it yourself for free or even tweak it.
Con Poor documentation
As a relatively new project, the documentation for ElasticSearch still leaves much to be desired. Documentation assumes that the user at least has familiarity with similar document stores, and is largely oriented toward those already familiar with other search solutions, such as Solr. Errors, while...
Con Prone to 'Split Brain' Situations
The Sematex blog explains a problem with the way Elasticsearch handles its clusters, called the 'Split Brain Situation': Imagine a situation, where you cluster is divided into half, so half of your nodes don’t see the other half, for example because of the network failure. In such cas...
Con Some missing features
Elasticsearch is currently missing the following features: Results Grouping / Field Collapsing Autocomplete Spell Checker/Did you mean (Available as a third-party plugin) Decision Tree Faceting Query Elevation Hash-based deduplication.
Pro Filtering
Filter and hide lines that are not of interest.
Pro Row highlighting
Can match strings and regular expressions.
Pro Auto scroll
Support for streaming log files
Pro Real-time alerts
Alerts can be created based on tags or by setting criteria via the intuitive and powerful search capabilities of LogEntries. To not flood notifications it's possible to specify limitations for alerts, such as how many times an hour an event has to happen for it to trigger a notification. Notifi...
Pro Supports a diverse set of programming languages
Including Java, .Net, Ruby, PHP, node.js, Python.
Pro Free up to 5 GB
Logentries free product allows uploading up to 5 GB of logs a month and has a 7-day retention period. The free product is available after the 30-day trial ends.
Con Confusing interface
The interface is packed with features and options, many of them I'm not sure what they do at all.
Con Limited search capabilites
Compared to Elasticsearch and other competitors, search syntax has few features, apart from regexp and NOT/AND/OR combining. E.g. has no syntax to determine if a field is absent.

Con Character limit for each log entry
Currently log entries are limited to 8192 characters, if your log entry runs over this amount then it will be truncated where the excess log will be a new entry in the UI. This can easily cause a problem JSON structure with java stacktraces.
Pro Free and open source
Graylog2 is licensed under GNU GPL v3.
Pro Easy setup
Graylog2 can be quickly installed on any Linux machine running Java 7 via an executable that allows installing and configuring remote dependencies and graylog2 itself via a web interface.
Pro Real-time
Information and statistics displayed update in real time.
Con Limited logging protocols support
Graylog2 only has support for syslog and GELF.
Con Self hosted. Difficult to maintain.
Maintenance is very difficult because of the high volume nature of logs.
Con Interface is hard to use
The interface is hard to use, loaded with data, and difficult to understand.
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