Papertrail vs Elastic Stack (ELK)
Log Management pricing comparison · 2026
Papertrail pricing ranges from $0–$280/month, while Elastic Stack (ELK) uses custom pricing. Elastic Stack (ELK) is typically 100% more affordable, though your actual cost depends on tier and team size.
Papertrail
Papertrail (by SolarWinds) is a cloud-hosted log management service designed for developer
verified 27d ago
View pricing →
Elastic Stack (ELK)
Elastic Stack (ELK) pricing is entirely custom with no publicly listed tiers — all purchas
verified 1d ago
View pricing →
Estimated license cost
at 25 seats
List price × seats. Click a tier below to lock it.
Medium
$12K/yr
year 1 license · $40/seat
Pricing model unknown
Pricing model unknown
no public list price found
What buyers actually pay
median, annual
Vendr deal-flow data. The real benchmark, not list price.
Median annual
$575/yr
Vendr · n=11
No Vendr data
—
Not in Vendr's deal flow
REF · 01
Sources & confidence
Every dollar amount and contract clause below traces back to a sourced fact. We don't manufacture composite scores.
Where this data comes from
Vendr · TrustRadius · Reddit · BBB · official docs
Sources
8 sourced facts
4 hidden-cost · 2 contract · Vendr median · 1 review platform
Last verified
3w ago
Confidence
High confidence
Sources
2 sourced facts
2 hidden-cost
Last verified
1d ago
Confidence
Limited confidence
REF · 02
Plans at a glance
Every tier per product. Lock one to drive the cost row above and reveal a tier-specific outbound CTA.
Tier ladder
Click a tier to lock the cost row to it. Locking surfaces a tier-specific Visit CTA.
REF · 05
What users say
Aggregated, with sample sizes. We use whichever review platform has data.
User reviews
TrustRadius · Trustpilot · G2
Decide
Get a quote from each vendor
Each link opens the vendor's pricing page in a new tab.
License cost is computed from publicly listed plans (real math, list price × seats).
Median annual cost is from Vendr's deal flow when available — see source badges.
Hidden costs and contract terms each cite their own sources. We do not invent composite scores.
VS
Papertrail and Elastic Stack (ELK) both operate in the log management category. This page compares their list pricing.
Plan-by-Plan Pricing
| Plan | Papertrail | Elastic Stack (ELK) |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free /free | Custom |
| Small | $7 /$7/month | — |
| Medium | $40 /$40/month | — |
| Large | $230 /$230/month | — |
| Enterprise | Custom | — |
Cost at Scale
Total cost of ownership — licenses, implementation, and hidden costs included.
Papertrail
7 scenarios$0/month
Solo Developer - Free Plan
Free tier with 50MB/month and 48-hour retention. Perfect for non-critical hobby projects.
$7/month ($84/year)
Small Startup - 1GB/month (Small)
Small plan with 7-day retention, unlimited saved searches, Slack/PagerDuty alerts. Scales to ~33MB/day.
$40/month ($480/year)
Growing SaaS - 10GB/month (Medium)
Medium plan with 7-day retention. Enables usage-based overages up to 20GB/month at 30% premium ($52 max).
Elastic Stack (ELK)
2 scenarios$30,000/year
Mid-Size Self-Managed Enterprise Deployment
$150,000/year
Equivalent Elastic Cloud Deployment