September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › IT › IT operations and endpoint › Logs · September 2026 Edition

Log management

Asked as “log management platform”, and as “centralized logging tool”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 50 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
20%
Contested · Grafana Loki 16%
20Datadog Log Management16Grafana Loki10Graylog54others

20% of first choices, contested.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Datadog Log Management20%29%58criticized challenger
02Grafana Loki16%7%44accepted challenger
03Graylog10%14%37accepted challenger
04New Relic Logs10%7%27accepted challenger
05OpenObserve8%5%22accepted challenger
06Better Stack8%0%19accepted challenger
07SigNoz6%0%13accepted challenger
08Elastic Stack2%36%56criticized challenger
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
11Splunk0%53%51criticized challenger
10Sumo Logic0%11%18accepted challenger
09Cribl Stream0%0%13accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
All twenty-eight head-to-head pages: the top eight products, each against each

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative40%
Key
01Datadog Log Management20%
02Grafana Loki16%
03Graylog10%
04New Relic Logs10%
05OpenObserve8%
06Better Stack8%
07SigNoz6%
08Elastic Stack2%
09Cribl Stream0%
10Sumo Logic0%
11Splunk0%

What they warned about

Two of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.20, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2 and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Splunk
53%
27 of 51 labels negative · 11 of 12 models · 6 hard negative
“Avoid Splunk for mid-market—it's enterprise-priced (~$150/GB/day list, $10K+/mo easily) and overkill” Grok 4.20, direct prompt
Datadog Log Management
29%
17 of 58 labels negative · 11 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“Avoid Datadog for logs if you cannot strictly govern data volume or need multi-year retention.” Kimi K2, negative prompt
Elastic Stack
36%
20 of 56 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 6 hard negative
“The "Operational Burdens" (Avoid unless you have expertise)... you may find the cluster constantly crashing” Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt
Graylog
14%
5 of 37 labels negative · 5 of 12 models
“Had a privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2025-53106)... Ensure you're running version 6.2.4 or 6.3.0-rc.2 or later.” MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt

What they cite

Twelve of the twelve models returned a source list in this edition: four return the pages they cited and eight the search results they consulted.

Sites the answers cite

62 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 862 links across 225 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · Cribl41 answers · 57 citations · 11 models
vendor site · OpenObserve39 answers · 45 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Middleware.io23 answers · 26 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Dash022 answers · 30 citations · 10 models
22 answers · 28 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Logz.io18 answers · 21 citations · 8 models
18 answers · 19 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Exabeam18 answers · 18 citations · 10 models
vendor site · SigNoz18 answers · 18 citations · 11 models
vendor site · CubeAPM17 answers · 18 citations · 8 models
16 answers · 16 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Parseable15 answers · 20 citations · 8 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best log management platform”, “log management platform”, “log management platforms”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
Datadog parent site
Datadog Log Management 20%
20%16774,0003,541
Grafana Loki grafana.com
Grafana Loki 16%, Grafana Cloud Logs 4%
20%1551,90012284,520116
Graylog graylog.org10%1173,60014612,2693
New Relic newrelic.com
New Relic Logs 10%
10%6714,80084383,276 company$41289
OpenObserve openobserve.ai8%851,60094,82574
Better Stack betterstack.com8%3111,6001,01741,811119
SigNoz signoz.io6%1792,400527,2441
Axiom axiom.co6%30165,0007,92119,1287
ManageEngine parent site
ManageEngine EventLog Analyzer 4%, ManageEngine Log360 0%
4%1398,100675
Coralogix coralogix.com2%1164,4008310,540$2827

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 13 sites; 6 of them are among the sites the models cited here (cribl.io, dash0.com, exabeam.com, grepr.ai, logz.io, openobserve.ai). The first result for “best log management platform” is reddit.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best log management platform for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which centralized logging tool would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top log management platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best log management platform for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a log management platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which log management platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choiceagainst: Elastic StackDatadog Log Management, Grafana LokiChangedagainst: SplunkLogz.io
One alternativeSumo Logic
against: Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Graylog, Splunk
SolarWinds Papertrail
Two alternativesGrafana Loki, New Relic Logs
against: Elastic Stack
no first choiceagainst: Splunk
GPT-5.4 miniDatadog Log Management
Two alternativesNew Relic Logs, Splunk
against: Elastic Stack
Datadog Log ManagementHeld
Three alternativesElastic Stack / OpenSearch, Grafana Loki, Sumo Logic
against: Splunk
no first choiceGrafana Loki
Four alternativesAmazon CloudWatch Logs, Azure Monitor Logs, Google Cloud Logging, OpenSearch / Elasticsearch
against: Datadog Log Management, Splunk
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashCoralogix
Two alternativesBetter Stack, Grafana Loki
against: Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Splunk
Better Stack, Grafana Cloud LogsChanged
Two alternativesAxiom, Sumo Logic
against: Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack
no first choice
Six alternativesDatadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Grafana Loki, OpenObserve, OpenSearch, Splunk
Axiom, Better Stack
Three alternativesGrafana Loki, New Relic Logs, OpenObserve
against: Elastic Stack, Graylog, OpenSearch
no first choiceagainst: Elastic Stackagainst: Amazon CloudWatch Logs, ArcSight, Datadog Log Management, Decentralized Log Aggregation, Elastic Stack, Grafana Loki, LogRhythm, Splunk
Perplexity SonarNew Relic Logs
Three alternativesManageEngine Log360, Middleware.io, Sematext Logs
ManageEngine EventLog AnalyzerChanged
Two alternativesDatadog Log Management, Graylog
no first choiceBetter Stack, Grafana Loki
One alternativeOpenObserve
against: Elastic Observability
no first choiceagainst: Datadog Log Management, OpenObserve, SolarWinds, Splunk
Grok 4.20Datadog Log Management, New Relic Logs
Three alternativesGrafana Loki, Graylog, ManageEngine Log360
against: Elastic Stack, Splunk
Datadog Log ManagementChanged
Three alternativesElastic Stack, Grafana Loki, Graylog
against: Splunk
no first choiceGrafana Loki
Five alternativesElastic Stack, Grafana Cloud Logs, Graylog, New Relic Logs, OpenSearch
against: Datadog Log Management, Splunk
no first choice
Four alternativesDatadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Grafana Loki, New Relic Logs
against: Splunk
against: Datadog Cloud SIEM, Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, FortiSIEM, Graylog, ManageEngine Log360, SolarWinds Papertrail, Splunk
Mistral SmallGraylog
Two alternativesNew Relic Logs, Sematext Logs
ManageEngine EventLog AnalyzerChangedno first choiceAxiom
Three alternativesGrafana Loki, Graylog, SolarWinds Papertrail
no first choiceagainst: Datadog Log Management, SolarWinds, Splunk
DeepSeek V4 FlashNew Relic Logs, SigNoz
Three alternativesGrafana Loki, ManageEngine Log360, Splunk
against: Datadog Log Management
Grafana LokiChanged
Four alternativesBetter Stack, Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, SigNoz
against: Splunk
no first choice
Six alternativesDatadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Grafana Loki, Logz.io, Splunk, Sumo Logic
Axiom, OpenObserve
Four alternativesGrafana Loki, Graylog, SigNoz, SolarWinds Papertrail
Grafana Loki, OpenObserve, SigNoz
One alternativeElastic Stack
against: Datadog Log Management, New Relic Logs, Splunk
against: Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Grafana Loki, Splunk
Llama 4 MaverickMiddleware.io
Three alternativesGraylog, ManageEngine Log360, New Relic Logs
GraylogChanged
Three alternativesManageEngine EventLog Analyzer, OpenObserve, Sumo Logic
no first choiceOpenObserve
Three alternativesGrafana Loki, Graylog, SigNoz
no first choiceagainst: SolarWinds
Qwen 3.7 FlashDatadog Log Management, New Relic Logs
Three alternativesElastic Stack, OpenObserve, Sumo Logic
GraylogChanged
Two alternativesDatadog Log Management, Grafana Loki
against: Splunk
no first choice
Six alternativesCribl Stream, Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Grafana Loki, Mezmo, Splunk
Elastic Stack
Five alternativesAxiom, Better Stack, Grafana Loki, Graylog, SolarWinds Papertrail
no first choice
Five alternativesDatadog Log Management, Dynatrace, Elastic Stack, Grafana Loki, Graylog
against: Splunk
against: AppDynamics, Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, New Relic Logs, SolarWinds, Splunk
Kimi K2Datadog Log Management
Four alternativesGraylog, Middleware.io, New Relic Logs, OpenObserve
against: Splunk
GraylogChanged
Two alternativesBetter Stack, Datadog Log Management
against: Elastic Stack
no first choiceGrafana Loki, OpenObserve
Three alternativesFluent Bit, Graylog, SigNoz
against: Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Splunk, Sumo Logic
no first choiceagainst: Splunkagainst: Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Grafana Loki, Splunk
GLM 4.7 FlashXDatadog Log Management
Two alternativesElastic Stack, Splunk
Datadog Log ManagementHeld
Two alternativesGraylog, Logz.io
Datadog Log Management, Splunk
Three alternativesCribl Stream, Elastic Stack (ELK) & OpenSearch, Grafana Loki
Grafana Loki
Three alternativesBetter Stack, Grafana Cloud Logs, SolarWinds Papertrail
against: Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Splunk
no first choiceagainst: Azure Log Analytics Agent, Elastic Stack, Graylog, Logging Made Easy, Scribe, Splunk
MiniMax M2.5New Relic Logs
Four alternativesDatadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, LogRhythm, ManageEngine Log360
Datadog Log Management, GraylogChangedagainst: Elastic Stack, Splunkno first choice
Two alternativesElastic Stack, Splunk
Better Stack, Grafana Cloud Logs, SigNoz
Two alternativesGrafana Loki, OpenObserve
against: Elastic Stack
no first choice
Four alternativesCribl Stream, Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Splunk
against: CrowdStrike Falcon LogScale, Datadog Log Management, Graylog, Log4j 1.x, Sumo Logic
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency.
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 11:14no05 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 14:10yes47 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 13:52yes1727 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 13:50yes205 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 11:13yes3418 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 12:45yes1110 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 10:51yes1016 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 09:40yes53 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 13:47yes939 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:26yes921 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:22yes1246 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 13:34yes932 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:38no06 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 11:52no03 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 14:13yes824 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 13:21yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 12:10yes179 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 12:05yes54 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:57yes1020 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:20yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 10:49no042 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 10:34yes12103 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 11:29yes1094 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 12:44no011 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:03yes99 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 13:27yes79 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 11:51yes921 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:34yes206 s
ComparativeGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 13:41yes3318 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 13:56yes58 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:50yes1010 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:37yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 12:32yes1548 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 09:41yes1239 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 12:55yes2571 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 14:11yes575 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:57yes96 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 14:15no04 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 10:19yes1723 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 10:04yes205 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 12:41yes159 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 11:49yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 13:37yes913 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:41yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 12:09no038 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 12:14yes946 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 10:55yes25157 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 13:00yes732 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:49yes1814 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 12:03no07 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 11:24yes1326 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 12:59yes206 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 14:04yes1412 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 12:23no06 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:17yes1422 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:06yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 13:07no038 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 14:06yes1531 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 10:27yes20137 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:18yes517 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:07yes3513 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 10:10yes44 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 12:04yes1719 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 12:32yes206 s
Negative framingGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 11:29yes2312 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 13:14yes54 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 11:05yes2439 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 10:04yes52 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 11:04yes1057 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:31yes2951 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 12:46yes4239 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 12:19yes2150 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
AWS CloudWatch read as Amazon CloudWatch Logs
Azure Monitor read as Azure Monitor Logs
CloudWatch (AWS) read as Amazon CloudWatch Logs
Cribl read as Cribl Stream
Datadog read as Datadog Log Management
Datadog (Log Management) read as Datadog Log Management
Datadog (for Logs) read as Datadog Log Management
ELK read as Elastic Stack
ELK Stack read as Elastic Stack
ELK Stack (Elastic) read as Elastic Stack
ELK Stack (Elasticsearch + Logstash + Kibana) read as Elastic Stack
ELK Stack (Elasticsearch) read as Elastic Stack
ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) read as Elastic Stack
ELK Stack (Elasticsearch/Logstash/Kibana) read as Elastic Stack
ELK stack read as Elastic Stack
ELK stack (ElasticSearch, LogStash, Kibana) read as Elastic Stack
Elastic read as Elastic Stack
Elastic (ELK Stack) read as Elastic Stack
Elastic (ELK Stack: Elasticsearch + Kibana) read as Elastic Stack
Elastic (ELK) read as Elastic Stack
Elastic Cloud read as Elastic Stack
Elasticsearch read as Elastic Stack
Grafana Cloud read as Grafana Cloud Logs
Grafana Cloud (Loki) read as Grafana Cloud Logs
New Relic read as New Relic Logs
Self-Hosted Elasticsearch (ELK Stack) read as Elastic Stack
Sematext read as Sematext Logs
Unresolved, counted raw
Azure Log Analytics Agent (MMA)
Decentralized Log Aggregation
Log4j 1.x
Logging Made Easy (LME)
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
← ITSMM365 management →