Beats was created by Elastic (formerly Elasticsearch BV) as a family of lightweight data shippers. The project emerged from the need for purpose-built agents that could efficiently collect and ship specific types of data to the Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana).
The name “Beats” reflects the heartbeat-like nature of these agents—continuously collecting and transmitting data at regular intervals.
- Packetbeat was the first Beat, designed for network packet analysis
- Provided application-level visibility into network traffic
- Established the single-purpose agent architecture
- Topbeat (later merged into Metricbeat): System-level metrics
- Filebeat: Log file shipping (replaced Logstash Forwarder)
- Metricbeat: Unified metrics collection from various services
- Heartbeat: Uptime monitoring
- Winlogbeat: Windows event log collection
- Elastic released libbeat, the common framework underlying all Beats
- Enabled community members to create custom Beats
- Provided shared functionality: input/output handling, configuration, TLS support
- Auditbeat: Security audit data collection
- Journalbeat: Systemd journal logs (later deprecated)
- Functionbeat: Serverless data shipper for cloud environments
- Topbeat merged into Metricbeat as modules
- Introduction of Elastic Agent, a unified agent that can run multiple Beats
- Single managed process instead of multiple Beat installations
- Centralized management through Kibana
- Cloudbeat: Cloud security posture management
- Ongoing module additions for popular services
- Enhanced security features and compliance certifications
- Individual Go binaries for each Beat
- Separate configuration files
- Independent deployment and management
- Shared libbeat framework
- Modular design with input/processor/output pipelines
- Elastic Agent unification
- Fleet management for centralized control
- 2015-2020: Apache License 2.0
- 2021-Present: Dual licensing
- Open Source (OSS) versions: Apache 2.0
- Full versions: Elastic License v2
This change was made to protect Elastic’s business model against cloud providers offering managed Elastic services without contributing back.
Beats remains actively maintained by Elastic with:
- Regular releases aligned with Elasticsearch versions
- Over 200+ modules for various data sources
- Strong integration with the Elastic Stack
- Active community contributions
| Original Name |
Current Name |
Notes |
| Packetbeat |
Packetbeat |
Still available |
| Topbeat |
Metricbeat |
Merged 2017 |
| Filebeat |
Filebeat |
Still available |
| Metricbeat |
Metricbeat |
Still available |
| Heartbeat |
Heartbeat |
Still available |
| Winlogbeat |
Winlogbeat |
Still available |
| Auditbeat |
Auditbeat |
Still available |
| Journalbeat |
Deprecated |
Replaced by Filebeat |
| Functionbeat |
Functionbeat |
Cloud-focused |
Any questions?
Feel free to contact us. Find all contact information on our contact page.