Elasticsearch vs mtail
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
mtail
Extract Prometheus metrics from application log files
| Feature | Elasticsearch | mtail |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Search Engines | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Elastic-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Java | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, bare-metal | docker, binary, kubernetes |
| GitHub stars | ★ 77,808 | ★ 4,024 |
| First released | 2010 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Algolia, Splunk | Splunk, Datadog Log Metrics |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Elasticsearch or mtail better?
Neither is universally better. Elasticsearch has the larger community, while mtail is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Elasticsearch and mtail free and open-source?
Yes. Elasticsearch is licensed under Elastic-2.0 and mtail under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Elasticsearch and mtail with Docker?
Elasticsearch: yes. mtail: yes.