Elastic Agent vs Grafana Alloy

Elastic Agent9.1Visit Grafana Alloy8.9Visit

Higher score Elastic Agent #3 in Telemetry Pipeline Software 9.1/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 6 of 6 features Visit Elastic Agent

vs

Grafana Alloy #5 in Telemetry Pipeline Software 8.9/10 Open source ✓ 6 of 6 features Visit Grafana Alloy

• Elastic Agent fits best

  Elastic-centered teams needing agent management

• Grafana Alloy fits best

  Grafana and Prometheus ecosystem teams

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Side by side

Feature	Elastic Agent 9.1/10 Visit ↗	Grafana Alloy 8.9/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	9.1	8.9
Ranking	#3 in Telemetry Pipeline Software	#5 in Telemetry Pipeline Software
Best for	Elastic-centered teams needing agent management	Grafana and Prometheus ecosystem teams
Pricing model	Free	Free
Starting price	Free	Open source
Free plan	✓ (best)	Not checked yet
Free trial	—	—
Deployment	Cloud, Self-hosted	Self-hosted
Platforms	Windows, macOS, Linux	Windows, macOS, Linux
Support	Docs, Community	Community, Docs
Integrations	300+ integrations	13 integrations
Built for	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Solo, Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Elastic Agent 6/6 · Grafana Alloy 6/6
Logs support	✓	✓
Metrics support	✓	✓
Traces support	✓	✓
Transform rules	✓	✓
Multi-destination routing	✓	✓
Data enrichment	✓	✓
Specs
Deployment model	Both	Self_hosted
Our review
Pros	Free and open plan includes Fleet management and integrations Collects logs, metrics, traces, and security telemetry Supports more than 300 integrations and multiple outputs	Collects metrics, logs, traces, and profiles in one pipeline Supports programmable transformation, enrichment, filtering, and routing Connects with Grafana, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, and major clouds
Cons	Advanced security and compliance require Platinum Enterprise features include advanced AI and orchestration Not open source and has no AI features in the agent	Self-hosted deployment requires infrastructure and operational ownership Pipeline configuration uses a programmable expression-based model Its broad feature set may exceed the needs of simple collectors
Our verdict	Elastic Agent is a unified host agent for collecting and forwarding logs, metrics, traces, availability data, and security telemetry into the Elastic Stack. It is aimed at teams that want centralized control through Fleet, with support for… Read the review →	Grafana Alloy is Grafana Labs’ open-source distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector. It is designed for teams that need to collect metrics, logs, traces, and profiles from infrastructure and applications, then process and forward that… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• Elastic Agent — where it wins

  • Free and open plan includes Fleet management and integrations
  • Collects logs, metrics, traces, and security telemetry
  • Supports more than 300 integrations and multiple outputs

  Where it doesn't

  • Advanced security and compliance require Platinum
  • Enterprise features include advanced AI and orchestration
  • Not open source and has no AI features in the agent

• Grafana Alloy — where it wins

  • Collects metrics, logs, traces, and profiles in one pipeline
  • Supports programmable transformation, enrichment, filtering, and routing
  • Connects with Grafana, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, and major clouds

  Where it doesn't

  • Self-hosted deployment requires infrastructure and operational ownership
  • Pipeline configuration uses a programmable expression-based model
  • Its broad feature set may exceed the needs of simple collectors

• Elastic Agent9.1/10 · Free plan

  A free, flexible agent for teams managing telemetry through Elastic and Fleet.

  Visit Elastic AgentFull verdict →
• Grafana Alloy8.9/10 · Open source

  A self-hosted collector for teams routing metrics, logs, traces, and profiles across observability backends.

  Visit Grafana AlloyFull verdict →