Elasticsearch vs Kibana
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Elasticsearch
Distributed search and analytics engine
VS
Kibana
Visualization and exploration for Elasticsearch data
| Feature | Elasticsearch | Kibana |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Search Engines | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Elastic-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Java | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, bare-metal | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 77,808 | ★ 21,230 |
| First released | 2010 | 2013 |
| Replaces | Algolia, Splunk | Splunk, Datadog |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Elasticsearch or Kibana better?
Neither is universally better. Elasticsearch has the larger community, while Kibana is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Elasticsearch and Kibana free and open-source?
Yes. Elasticsearch is licensed under Elastic-2.0 and Kibana under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Elasticsearch and Kibana with Docker?
Elasticsearch: yes. Kibana: yes.