Log management · November 2026 Edition
Elastic Stack vs SolarWinds Papertrail
Zero of fourteen models named Elastic Stack first on the direct prompt; zero named SolarWinds Papertrail. Elastic Stack was named by thirteen of the fourteen models and SolarWinds Papertrail by nine and Elastic Stack carries 58 labels and SolarWinds Papertrail 13, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in eight categories this edition.
Named in one category this edition.
First-choice share8%3%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate31%15%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#5#8A position in a field of 12; printed, not drawn.
Labels5813A count; the two differ.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, Elastic Stack reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.Datadog Log Management was named alongside these two in thirteen of the fourteen direct answers. Datadog Log Management vs Elastic Stack · Datadog Log Management vs SolarWinds Papertrail · Graylog vs Elastic Stack
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the log management page.
By framing
How many of the fourteen models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.
Elastic StackFirst choices, of fourteen modelsSolarWinds Papertrail
Direct002 against Elastic Stack
Paraphrase202 against Elastic Stack
Comparative00
Budget-constrained223 against Elastic Stack
Scale-constrained003 against Elastic Stack
Negative008 against Elastic Stack · 2 against SolarWinds Papertrail
Bars are first choices, 0 to 14 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to fourteen.
Across every category in the November 2026 Edition, Elastic Stack and SolarWinds Papertrail were named in the same answer forty-three times, of the 200 answers naming Elastic Stack and the 59 naming SolarWinds Papertrail. In those answers SolarWinds Papertrail took the first choice ten times and Elastic Stack seven.
Every model, every framing
The eighty-four answers behind the chart above, one cell each: where Elastic Stack and SolarWinds Papertrail stood in it.
| Model | Direct | Paraphrase | Comparative | Budget-constrained | Scale-constrained | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | | | | |||
| GPT-5.4 mini | | | ||||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | | | | ||
| Perplexity Sonar | | | | | | |
| Grok 4.20 | | | | | | |
| Mistral Small | | | ||||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | | | ||
| Llama 4 Maverick | | |||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | | | |||
| Kimi K2 | | | | | | |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | | | | ||
| MiniMax M2.5 | | | ||||
| GPT-6 Luna | ||||||
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | | | |
Elastic Stack SolarWinds Papertrail first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Elastic Stack on the left and SolarWinds Papertrail on the right.The direct prompt
The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where Elastic Stack and SolarWinds Papertrail stood in it.
Neither was the first choice, one was named
5 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.GPT-5.4 miniDatadog Log Management alternatives: Elastic Stack, New Relic Logs, Splunk, Sumo Logic
Perplexity SonarDatadog Log Management alternatives: Coralogix, Elastic Stack, Graylog, ManageEngine Log360
Grok 4.20Datadog Log Management alternatives: Elastic Stack, ManageEngine EventLog Analyzer / Log360, New Relic Logs, Sumo Logic
DeepSeek V4 FlashGrafana Loki alternatives: Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Graylog, New Relic Logs
GLM 4.7 FlashXDatadog Log Management alternatives: Coralogix, Elastic Stack, Graylog, Logz.io, New Relic Logs, OpenObserve
Neither was named
9 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.Claude Haiku 4.5Graylog alternatives: Datadog Log Management, ManageEngine Log360, New Relic Logs
Gemini 3.5 FlashCoralogix alternatives: Better Stack, Grafana Cloud Logs, Sumo Logic
Mistral SmallDatadog Log Management, Graylog alternatives: Better Stack, Coralogix, Splunk
Llama 4 MaverickDatadog Log Management alternatives: Coralogix, ManageEngine EventLog Analyzer, Splunk
Qwen 3.7 FlashDatadog Log Management alternatives: Coralogix, Graylog
Kimi K2Datadog Log Management alternatives: Grafana Loki, Logz.io, Sematext Logs, SolarWinds
MiniMax M2.5Graylog, SolarWinds alternatives: Datadog Log Management, New Relic Logs
GPT-6 LunaDatadog Log Management alternatives: Elastic Cloud Serverless, Sumo Logic
Muse Glimmer 30BCoralogix, Datadog Log Management, ManageEngine EventLog Analyzer alternatives: Grafana Loki, Graylog, Logmanager, New Relic Logs, OpenObserve, SigNoz, Splunk
Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.
Small business
SolarWinds Papertrail leads by five points.
SolarWinds Papertrail16%#2 of 14Elastic Stack10%#3 of 14Mid-marketThe figures above
The order flips: Elastic Stack leads at mid-market.
Elastic Stack8%#5 of 12SolarWinds Papertrail3%#8 of 12Enterprise
Elastic Stack leads by four points.
Elastic Stack4%#5 of 11SolarWinds Papertrail0%#– of 11What the models said about Elastic Stack
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of seven in this category shown.
“Avoid self-hosted ELK (Elasticsearch/Logstash/Kibana) unless you have a dedicated engineer” Gemini 3.5 Flash · direct prompt · hard negative
“often described as a "financial mistake for small companies" if not managed carefully” Mistral Small · negative prompt · hard negative
“Avoid: Traditional ELK stacks (Elastic) if budget is tight” Kimi K2 · budget prompt · hard negative
“I recommend starting with the ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) or its fully managed version, Elastic Cloud.” Grok 4.20 · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“open-source options like Graylog or Elastic Stack are ideal if you have the technical resources to manage them” Claude Haiku 4.5 · budget prompt · first choice
“Elastic is the best overall choice—particularly if the team has engineering capacity to self-host it.” Perplexity Sonar · budget prompt · first choice
What the models said about SolarWinds Papertrail
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Five of six in this category shown.
“Verdict: Avoid for anything serious; use only for tiny hobbyist setups.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · negative prompt · hard negative
“they lack deep tracing integrations, advanced correlation capabilities, and cost-effective cold storage options” Gemini 3.5 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“Papertrail is a cheap log management platform that offers a fixed-tier pricing plan starting at $7.00/mo.” Llama 4 Maverick · budget prompt · first choice
“Papertrail and Datadog's free tier are generally the top contenders for cost-conscious teams.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · budget prompt · first choice
“Simplest inexpensive SaaS: Papertrail—a straightforward option for small teams” Perplexity Sonar · budget prompt · alternative
Also compared
Datadog Log Management vs Elastic StackDatadog Log Management vs SolarWinds PapertrailGraylog vs Elastic StackGraylog vs SolarWinds PapertrailGrafana Loki vs Elastic StackGrafana Loki vs SolarWinds PapertrailBetter Stack vs Elastic StackBetter Stack vs SolarWinds PapertrailElastic Stack vs Grafana Cloud LogsElastic Stack vs CoralogixGrafana Cloud Logs vs SolarWinds PapertrailCoralogix vs SolarWinds PapertrailAll twenty-eight head-to-head pages and the full logs standing
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.