Compare alerting systems

Elastic offers more than one alerting system, each suited to different use cases and workflows. Use this page to compare them by goal, feature, and availability.

Note

Elastic Security has its own detection rules, separate from these alerting systems. For threat detection, refer to Detections and alerts.

Select by use case

Goal	Suggested system	Availability
Monitor metrics, logs, or uptime with ready-made rules and no query language	Kibana Classic Alerting	Elastic Cloud Serverless projects are autoscaled environments, fully managed by Elastic and available on Elastic Cloud. Availability Generally available This functionality is generally available and ready for production usage. Serverless interfaces and procedures might differ from classic Elastic Stack deployments. The Elastic Stack includes Elastic's core products such as Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, and Beats. Availability Generally available This functionality is generally available and ready for production usage. Unless stated otherwise on the page, this functionality is available when your Elastic Stack is deployed on Elastic Cloud Hosted, Elastic Cloud Enterprise, Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes, and self-managed environments. This documentation corresponds to the latest patch available for each minor version. If you're not using the latest patch, check the release notes for changes.
Write ES\|QL to define exactly what to detect and what data each rule event carries	Kibana Universal Alerting	Elastic Cloud Serverless projects are autoscaled environments, fully managed by Elastic and available on Elastic Cloud. Availability Generally available This functionality is generally available and ready for production usage. Serverless interfaces and procedures might differ from classic Elastic Stack deployments. The Elastic Stack includes Elastic's core products such as Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, and Beats. Availability Planned We plan to add this functionality in a future Elastic Stack update. Subject to changes. Unless stated otherwise on the page, this functionality is available when your Elastic Stack is deployed on Elastic Cloud Hosted, Elastic Cloud Enterprise, Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes, and self-managed environments. This documentation corresponds to the latest patch available for each minor version. If you're not using the latest patch, check the release notes for changes.
Record matches as rule events with `type: signal` for later analysis, without sending notifications	Kibana Universal Alerting	Elastic Cloud Serverless projects are autoscaled environments, fully managed by Elastic and available on Elastic Cloud. Availability Generally available This functionality is generally available and ready for production usage. Serverless interfaces and procedures might differ from classic Elastic Stack deployments. The Elastic Stack includes Elastic's core products such as Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, and Beats. Availability Planned We plan to add this functionality in a future Elastic Stack update. Subject to changes. Unless stated otherwise on the page, this functionality is available when your Elastic Stack is deployed on Elastic Cloud Hosted, Elastic Cloud Enterprise, Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes, and self-managed environments. This documentation corresponds to the latest patch available for each minor version. If you're not using the latest patch, check the release notes for changes.
Query rule event history in Discover or build dashboards from rule event data	Kibana Universal Alerting	Elastic Cloud Serverless projects are autoscaled environments, fully managed by Elastic and available on Elastic Cloud. Availability Generally available This functionality is generally available and ready for production usage. Serverless interfaces and procedures might differ from classic Elastic Stack deployments. The Elastic Stack includes Elastic's core products such as Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, and Beats. Availability Planned We plan to add this functionality in a future Elastic Stack update. Subject to changes. Unless stated otherwise on the page, this functionality is available when your Elastic Stack is deployed on Elastic Cloud Hosted, Elastic Cloud Enterprise, Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes, and self-managed environments. This documentation corresponds to the latest patch available for each minor version. If you're not using the latest patch, check the release notes for changes.
Manage notification routing, grouping, and throttling in one place, reusable across rules	Kibana Universal Alerting	Elastic Cloud Serverless projects are autoscaled environments, fully managed by Elastic and available on Elastic Cloud. Availability Generally available This functionality is generally available and ready for production usage. Serverless interfaces and procedures might differ from classic Elastic Stack deployments. The Elastic Stack includes Elastic's core products such as Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, and Beats. Availability Planned We plan to add this functionality in a future Elastic Stack update. Subject to changes. Unless stated otherwise on the page, this functionality is available when your Elastic Stack is deployed on Elastic Cloud Hosted, Elastic Cloud Enterprise, Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes, and self-managed environments. This documentation corresponds to the latest patch available for each minor version. If you're not using the latest patch, check the release notes for changes.
Build highly custom notification logic with reusable, configurable workflows	Kibana Universal Alerting	Elastic Cloud Serverless projects are autoscaled environments, fully managed by Elastic and available on Elastic Cloud. Availability Generally available This functionality is generally available and ready for production usage. Serverless interfaces and procedures might differ from classic Elastic Stack deployments. The Elastic Stack includes Elastic's core products such as Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, and Beats. Availability Planned We plan to add this functionality in a future Elastic Stack update. Subject to changes. Unless stated otherwise on the page, this functionality is available when your Elastic Stack is deployed on Elastic Cloud Hosted, Elastic Cloud Enterprise, Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes, and self-managed environments. This documentation corresponds to the latest patch available for each minor version. If you're not using the latest patch, check the release notes for changes.
Build highly custom logic with scripting and chained inputs	Watcher	The Elastic Stack includes Elastic's core products such as Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, and Beats. Availability Generally available This functionality is generally available and ready for production usage. Unless stated otherwise on the page, this functionality is available when your Elastic Stack is deployed on Elastic Cloud Hosted, Elastic Cloud Enterprise, Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes, and self-managed environments. This documentation corresponds to the latest patch available for each minor version. If you're not using the latest patch, check the release notes for changes. Elastic Cloud Serverless projects are autoscaled environments, fully managed by Elastic and available on Elastic Cloud. Availability Unavailable This functionality is not available in Elastic Cloud Serverless.

Compare at a glance

	Kibana Classic Alerting	Kibana Universal Alerting	Watcher
Best for	Teams using built-in rule types with form-based setup	Teams that need control over detection, and over notification routing when matches are tracked as alerts	Custom alerting logic requiring scripting
Rule definition	Select a rule type and fill in parameters	Write an ES\|QL query or use a rule builder with form-based setup	Write a JSON watch definition
How matches are stored	In-place updates, limited query support	Append-only rule events, queryable with ES\|QL in Discover	Watch history index
Notifications	Configured per action on each rule	Action policies invoke reusable workflows, which send the notification; policies support throttling and conditions	Action-level throttling and conditions
Noise reduction	Snooze per rule or per alert, maintenance windows	Acknowledge or deactivate per alert, per-series snooze, maintenance windows, match condition routing in action policies	Action conditions and throttling
Available on Elastic Cloud Serverless	Yes	Yes, Elastic Cloud Serverless projects are autoscaled environments, fully managed by Elastic and available on Elastic Cloud. Availability Generally available This functionality is generally available and ready for production usage. Serverless interfaces and procedures might differ from classic Elastic Stack deployments.	No
Available on Elastic Stack	Yes	Yes, The Elastic Stack includes Elastic's core products such as Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, and Beats. Availability Planned We plan to add this functionality in a future Elastic Stack update. Subject to changes. Unless stated otherwise on the page, this functionality is available when your Elastic Stack is deployed on Elastic Cloud Hosted, Elastic Cloud Enterprise, Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes, and self-managed environments. This documentation corresponds to the latest patch available for each minor version. If you're not using the latest patch, check the release notes for changes.	Yes