# What is the best setup for Beats and ELK stack

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-best-setup-for-beats-and-elk-stack/35827>\
**Category:** Beats\
**Created:** [November 29, 2015, 11:33am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-best-setup-for-beats-and-elk-stack/35827 "2015-11-29T11:33:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![congpine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/65b543/32.png) [@congpine](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/congpine)\
**Post date:** [November 29, 2015, 11:33am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-best-setup-for-beats-and-elk-stack/35827/1 "2015-11-29T11:33:57Z")

</div>

Hi,  
This is the setup that I'm currently trying to achieve few months ago with Logstash Forwarder:  
LF --\> Logstash --\> Redis -\> Logstash Indexer --\> Elasticsearch --\> Kibana  
However, as Logstash Forwarder will be depreciated soon , I will replace it with Beats tools(Filebeat, packetbeat).  
I can see Beats has an output configuration directly to ElasticSearch.  
On each monitored node, I will install filebeat to ship certain logs and packetbeat to capture network packets info .

Should I still use the same setup above or connect Beats directly ES ?

What would be the recommended setup?

Thanks

Cong Nguyen

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vtst2412](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/vtst2412/32/6228_2.png) [@vtst2412](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/vtst2412)\
**Post date:** [November 29, 2015, 8:01pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-best-setup-for-beats-and-elk-stack/35827/2 "2015-11-29T20:01:50Z")

</div>

For packetbeat and topbeat, it is certainly fine to forward events directly to ES as they have boilerplate format and template. However, with filebeat, I would recommend using logstash to "massage the data".

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ruflin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ruflin/32/3116_2.png) [@ruflin](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ruflin)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2015, 8:37am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-best-setup-for-beats-and-elk-stack/35827/3 "2015-11-30T08:37:09Z")

</div>

The recommended setup is as @vtst2412 described it:

- Topbeat and Packetbeat directly to Elasticsearch
- Filebeat through logstash if you need your log files analysed

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![congpine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/65b543/32.png) [@congpine](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/congpine)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2015, 11:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-best-setup-for-beats-and-elk-stack/35827/4 "2015-11-30T11:35:54Z")

</div>

thanks, guys.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 9:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-best-setup-for-beats-and-elk-stack/35827/5 "2017-07-05T21:57:54Z")

</div>