# Monitoring Cluster - monitoring using metricbeat or xpack self default monitoring?
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/monitoring-cluster-monitoring-using-metricbeat-or-xpack-self-default-monitoring/244011
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Tags:** elastic-stack-monitoring
**Created:** [August 6, 2020, 11:29am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/monitoring-cluster-monitoring-using-metricbeat-or-xpack-self-default-monitoring/244011 "2020-08-06T11:29:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Divit\_Sharma](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Divit_Sharma)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2020, 11:29am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/monitoring-cluster-monitoring-using-metricbeat-or-xpack-self-default-monitoring/244011/1 "2020-08-06T11:29:00Z")
What are the pro and cons of monitoring using metricbeat vs default elasticseaech http export? I have a separate monitoring cluster?
Why switch to metricbeat if default self xpack monitoring can also do the same job?
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### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 11:04pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/monitoring-cluster-monitoring-using-metricbeat-or-xpack-self-default-monitoring/244011/2 "2020-08-09T23:04:56Z")
As I understand, longer term we are going to be moving everything to Metricbeat. So doing it now just means you're prepared.
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### Author:  [@Divit\_Sharma](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Divit_Sharma)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2020, 5:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/monitoring-cluster-monitoring-using-metricbeat-or-xpack-self-default-monitoring/244011/3 "2020-08-11T17:00:14Z")
Yeah, I have read that from Elastic documentation but I just wanted to know the reasoning. Why they choose another agent when xpack itself could have handled those things?
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### Author:  [@chrisronline](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/chrisronline)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2020, 5:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/monitoring-cluster-monitoring-using-metricbeat-or-xpack-self-default-monitoring/244011/4 "2020-08-11T17:31:32Z")
See [https://www.elastic.co/blog/external-collection-for-elastic-stack-monitoring-is-now-available-via-metricbeat](https://www.elastic.co/blog/external-collection-for-elastic-stack-monitoring-is-now-available-via-metricbeat)
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2020, 5:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/monitoring-cluster-monitoring-using-metricbeat-or-xpack-self-default-monitoring/244011/5 "2020-09-08T17:31:35Z")
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