AI Indexes
IT AI Index
September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › IT operations and endpoint › September 2026 Edition

Log management

Asked as “log management platform”, and as “centralized logging tool”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 53 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
28%
Contested · Graylog 26%
28Datadog Log Management26Graylog11Grafana Loki34others

28% 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 Management28%31%64criticized challenger
02Graylog26%10%41accepted challenger
03Grafana Loki11%4%46accepted challenger
04Better Stack9%0%14accepted challenger
05Elastic Stack6%30%54criticized challenger
06OpenObserve2%0%16accepted challenger
07Coralogix2%0%11accepted challenger
Show the five products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
12Splunk0%60%55criticized challenger
10Sumo Logic0%14%22accepted challenger
08New Relic Logs0%8%25accepted challenger
09SigNoz0%0%14accepted challenger
11Logz.io0%0%10accepted 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 →
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Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative40%
Key
01Datadog Log Management28%
02Graylog26%
03Grafana Loki11%
04Better Stack9%
05Elastic Stack6%
06OpenObserve2%
07Coralogix2%
08New Relic Logs0%
09SigNoz0%
10Sumo Logic0%
11Logz.io0%
12Splunk0%

What they warned about

Five of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Perplexity Sonar, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash and GLM 4.7 FlashX 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
60%
33 of 55 labels negative · 13 of 12 models · 9 hard negative
“Usually not the best for a limited budget: Splunk and often Datadog, because costs tend to rise quickly” GPT-5.4 mini, budget prompt
Datadog Log Management
31%
20 of 64 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“Usually not the best for a limited budget: Splunk and often Datadog, because costs tend to rise quickly” GPT-5.4 mini, budget prompt
Elastic Stack
30%
16 of 54 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 6 hard negative
“The Trap to Avoid: The "Free" ELK Stack (Elasticsearch)... This is often a financial mistake for small companies.” Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget prompt
Graylog
10%
4 of 41 labels negative · 4 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Graylog has limited scalability and is not suitable for large-scale log management” Llama 4 Maverick, negative prompt

What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

73 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 992 links across 211 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · Cribl43 answers · 70 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Middleware.io35 answers · 46 citations · 10 models
vendor site · OpenObserve35 answers · 44 citations · 12 models
22 answers · 23 citations · 9 models
vendor site · G221 answers · 22 citations · 11 models
vendor site · SigNoz20 answers · 27 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Coralogix20 answers · 26 citations · 9 models
20 answers · 20 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Guideflow20 answers · 20 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Dash019 answers · 26 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Motadata19 answers · 19 citations · 9 models
16 answers · 19 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 28%
28%17374,0003,541
Graylog graylog.org26%1273,60014612,2693
Grafana Loki grafana.com
Grafana Loki 11%, Grafana Cloud 4%, Grafana Cloud Logs 4%
19%1742,4004084,520116
Better Stack betterstack.com9%2851,6001,01741,811119
Elastic elastic.co
Elastic Stack 6%
6%13574,00034,672208,306 company1058
OpenObserve openobserve.ai2%1571,60094,82574
Coralogix coralogix.com2%724,4008310,540$2827
Axiom axiom.co2%19165,0007,92119,1287
Sematext sematext.com2%2590067,7476
Fluentd fluentdb.ai2%251,0008894

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 13 sites; 3 of them are among the sites the models cited here (cribl.io, dash0.com, 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 choiceDatadog Log Management, Elastic StackChanged
Two alternativesGrafana Loki, New Relic Logs
against: Splunk
no first choiceGraylog, SolarWinds Papertrail
Four alternativesGrafana Loki, Logz.io, OpenObserve, Sematext
against: Datadog Log Management
no first choiceagainst: Splunk
GPT-5.4 miniDatadog Log Management
Three alternativesElastic Stack, Microsoft Sentinel, New Relic Logs
against: Splunk
Datadog Log ManagementHeld
Five alternativesAzure Monitor, Elastic Stack, Grafana Loki, Microsoft Sentinel, Splunk
no first choice
Seven alternativesDatadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Graylog, Loggly, New Relic Logs, Splunk, Sumo Logic
Grafana Cloud Logs, Grafana Loki
One alternativeOpenSearch
against: Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Splunk
no first choiceagainst: Datadog Log Management, Splunk
Gemini 3.5 FlashBetter Stack
Five alternativesAxiom, Grafana Cloud, New Relic Logs, OpenObserve, Sumo Logic
against: Datadog Log Management, Splunk
Better StackHeld
Three alternativesAxiom, Grafana Cloud, OpenObserve
against: Datadog Log Management
no first choice
Six alternativesDatadog Log Management, Elastic Stack (ELK) & OpenSearch, Grafana Loki, OpenObserve, SigNoz, Splunk
Axiom, Better Stack
Three alternativesGrafana Loki, OpenObserve, Parseable
against: Elastic Stack, OpenSearch
no first choice
Five alternativesAxiom, Better Stack, Coralogix, CrowdStrike Falcon LogScale, Elastic Security
against: Datadog Log Management, Dynatrace, New Relic Logs, Splunk
against: Amazon CloudWatch Logs, Azure Monitor, Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Google Cloud Logging, Grafana Loki, Legacy SIEMs, SolarWinds Loggly, Splunk
Perplexity SonarDatadog Log Management
Five alternativesCoralogix, Graylog, Logit.io, ManageEngine EventLog Analyzer, New Relic Logs
GraylogChanged
Three alternativesBetter Stack, Coralogix, Datadog Log Management
no first choiceBetter Stack, Grafana Loki
Two alternativesGraylog, SolarWinds Papertrail
no first choiceagainst: Azure Monitor, Graylog, SolarWinds, Splunk
Grok 4.20Datadog Log Management
Three alternativesElastic Stack, Graylog, Sumo Logic
against: Splunk
Datadog Log ManagementHeld
Three alternativesGrafana Loki, Graylog, Logz.io
against: Splunk
no first choiceGraylog
One alternativeGrafana Loki
against: Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Splunk
no first choiceagainst: Datadog Log Management, Dynatrace, Elastic Stack, Graylog, IBM QRadar, Splunk
Mistral SmallDatadog Log Management, Graylog
Two alternativesLogmanager, New Relic Logs
no first choiceChangedDatadog Log Management, Splunk
Six alternativesCoralogix, Elastic Stack, Fluentd, Graylog, OpenObserve, Sumo Logic
Elastic Stack
Two alternativesGrafana Loki, OpenSearch
no first choice
Three alternativesCoralogix, Datadog Log Management, Mezmo
against: SolarWinds, Splunk
DeepSeek V4 FlashDatadog Log Management, Graylog
Three alternativesGrafana Loki, Middle ware, Sumo Logic
against: Splunk
SematextChanged
One alternativeGrafana Loki
against: Datadog Log Management
no first choice
Six alternativesDatadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Grafana Loki, New Relic Logs, SigNoz, Splunk
Grafana Cloud
Three alternativesElastic Stack, Graylog, SigNoz
against: Datadog Log Management, Splunk, Sumo Logic
Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack
One alternativeGrafana Loki
against: Splunk
against: Datadog Log Management, Devo, LogRhythm, Microsoft Sentinel, Securonix, SolarWinds, Splunk
Llama 4 MaverickDatadog Log Management
Three alternativesLogicMonitor, New Relic Logs, SigNoz
no first choiceChanged
Two alternativesDatadog Log Management, Graylog
no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceagainst: Graylog
Qwen 3.7 FlashDatadog Log Management
Four alternativesCoralogix, Elastic Stack, Grafana Loki, Sentry
against: Elastic Stack, Graylog, Splunk
GraylogChanged
Three alternativesDatadog Log Management, Grafana Loki, New Relic Logs
against: Elastic Stack, Splunk
no first choice
Five alternativesCribl Stream, Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, New Relic Logs, Splunk
Coralogix, Grafana Loki
Two alternativesGraylog, OpenObserve
against: Elastic Stack, Splunk
no first choiceagainst: Splunkagainst: Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, New Relic Logs, SolarWinds Papertrail, SolarWinds Products, Splunk, Sumo Logic
Kimi K2Graylog
Four alternativesBetter Stack, Grafana Loki, Logz.io, SigNoz
against: Datadog Log Management
GraylogHeld
Two alternativesGrafana Loki, SigNoz
against: Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Splunk, Sumo Logic
no first choiceOpenObserve
Four alternativesCoralogix, Grafana Loki, Graylog, SigNoz
against: Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Splunk
no first choiceagainst: CrowdStrike, Elastic Stack, Grafana Lokiagainst: Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Splunk
GLM 4.7 FlashXDatadog Log Management
Three alternativesElastic Stack, SolarWinds Loggly, Splunk
Datadog Log Management, Fluentd, Grafana LokiChanged
Two alternativesElastic Stack, Graylog
against: Splunk
no first choiceGrafana Loki, Graylog
Six alternativesManageEngine EventLog Analyzer, Netdata, OpenObserve, Sematext, SolarWinds Log & Event Manager, groundcover
no first choiceagainst: Datadog Log Management, Elastic Stack, Splunk
MiniMax M2.5Graylog
Two alternativesDatadog Log Management, Sumo Logic
GraylogHeld
Two alternativesDatadog Log Management, ManageEngine EventLog Analyzer
Splunk
Two alternativesDatadog Log Management, Elastic Stack
Grafana Loki, Graylog
Two alternativesAxiom, Netdata
no first choiceagainst: Splunkagainst: Splunk
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. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:48no04 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 11:21yes56 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:58yes1530 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 12:32yes183 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:26yes2511 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 08:11yes115 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:01yes2148 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 12:03yes51 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:01no033 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 08:39yes1934 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 12:08yes1424 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 12:44yes935 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 13:41no05 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 12:59no03 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:37yes525 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 08:14yes203 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:18yes145 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 07:45no01 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 07:40yes2326 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 10:28yes52 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 11:44yes1028 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 08:42yes1923 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:38yes1493 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:12yes541 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 12:30yes98 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 07:48yes68 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 13:25yes2024 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 08:51yes194 s
ComparativeGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 13:17yes238 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 13:17yes1010 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 13:18yes2339 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 10:47yes57 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 11:07yes517 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 08:52yes2441 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 12:07yes1895 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 12:25yes1021 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:22yes98 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 11:55yes46 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 12:58yes1625 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 12:42yes193 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 08:26yes197 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 12:33yes511 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 12:03yes2328 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:28yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 13:53yes2034 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 08:32yes2025 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 07:48yes946 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:38yes527 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:51no07 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 11:41no06 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 09:21yes933 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:17yes207 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 12:08yes189 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 08:58no09 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 07:38yes2059 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 10:49yes51 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 13:48no029 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:29no040 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 11:16yes967 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 12:28no09 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 11:35yes3611 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 10:17yes55 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 13:38yes1222 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 13:49yes194 s
Negative framingGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:31yes238 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 08:57yes53 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 08:44yes2434 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 10:42yes51 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 11:43yes2565 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 10:30yes2531 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 12:14yes2298 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 12:30yes1423 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
CloudWatch read as Amazon CloudWatch Logs
Cribl read as Cribl Stream
Datadog 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 + Kibana + Logstash/Filebeat) 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, and Kibana) 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) read as Elastic Stack
Elastic (Elasticsearch / Elastic Observability) read as Elastic Stack
Elastic (SSPL/ELv2) read as Elastic Stack
Elastic Cloud read as Elastic Stack
Elastic Cloud (ELK) read as Elastic Stack
Elasticsearch read as Elastic Stack
Elasticsearch (ELK Stack) read as Elastic Stack
Elasticsearch (Self-Hosted) read as Elastic Stack
Motadata read as Motadata ObserveOps
New Relic read as New Relic Logs
Unresolved, counted raw
Analog & Cronolog
CloudWatch Logs Insights
CrowdStrike Falcon Long Term Repository
GCP Logging
Legacy SIEMs
Middle ware
NXLog Enterprise Edition and NXLog Manager
SolarWinds Log & Event Manager (LEM)
SolarWinds Products (Loggly, Papertrail)
Trellix SIEM Enterprise Log Manager
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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