Data as of:
LIVE
ESTC
Elastic N.V. · Search / Observability / Security
$86.96
-0.44% this month
VERSUS
COMPARE
CSCO
Cisco Systems, Inc. · Networking / Cybersecurity
$109.51
-0.94% this month
Comparison scoreboard
CSCO LEADS 5/5AI Scorei
ESTC 35.4
CSCO ✓56.6
1Y Returni
ESTC -2.99%
CSCO ✓+59.45%
Fwd P/Ei
ESTC 23.02
CSCO ✓19.64
Target Up.i
ESTC +16.26%
CSCO ✓+25.30%
Op. Margini
ESTC -0.61%
CSCO ✓27.70%
Metrics last refreshed: 9/20/2026
Quick take
ESTC vs CSCO Stock Comparison: AI Score, Valuation, Performance and Upside
ESTC (Elastic) and Splunk (now part of CSCO) both provide enterprise log management, observability, and security analytics — but via different architectures. Elastic's search-engine-native approach and open-source base give it an AI/vector search advantage and price competitiveness vs Splunk's proprietary platform now integrated into Cisco. Cisco's acquisition of Splunk created a potential displacement opportunity for Elastic as enterprise customers reassess Splunk pricing under new Cisco ownership.
ESTC vs CSCO — Elastic (the search-native observability and SIEM platform with Elasticsearch vector search for AI/RAG, benefiting from Splunk-Cisco acquisition pricing pressure) versus Cisco (the networking infrastructure giant that acquired Splunk in 2024 for $28B to combine network telemetry with SIEM security analytics at enterprise scale).
Live analysis · updated 9/20/2026
CSCO holds the edge across 5 of 5 key metrics in this comparison. CSCO leads on both 1-year return (+59.45%) and forward P/E quality (19.64x vs 23.02x for ESTC), a relatively favorable combination of momentum and valuation. CSCO leads on both revenue growth (17.60%) and operating margin (27.70%), suggesting a stronger fundamental setup on both dimensions. Analyst consensus implies meaningfully more upside for CSCO (+25.30%) than for ESTC (+16.26%).
Want a full valuation workup? 46-section report — AI Score, Monte Carlo forecast, bull/bear case, DCF, and more.
Normalized 1Y performance
ESTC
CSCO
Recent returns
ESTC
CSCO
Analyst price targets & sentiment
Human Wall Street analysts' price targets, typically implying a ~12-month view — a separate signal from this site's own AI Prediction Signal further down the page, which is a 5-/30-day machine-learning forecast based on price history alone.
ESTC
Price target range
analyst mean$105.52
current price$86.96
+16.3% upside to analyst mean
CSCO · 22 analysts
STRONG BUYHOLDSTRONG SELL
Buy (2.0/5.0)
19 Buy / 9 Hold / 0 Sell
Price target range
analyst low$56.00
analyst mean$137.74
current price$109.51
+25.3% upside to analyst mean
Who should consider this stock?
ESTC may suit investors who:
- believe Elasticsearch's vector search is an AI infrastructure moat — enterprises building LLM-powered search applications need vector databases, and Elasticsearch is the dominant choice
- see the Splunk-Cisco acquisition as a displacement opportunity — Elastic can offer lower-cost observability and SIEM to Splunk customers reconsidering contracts under Cisco pricing
- value Elastic's open-source distribution advantage — 800M+ Elasticsearch downloads create organic enterprise pipeline that paid search products cannot replicate
- are comfortable with hyperscaler OpenSearch competition, SSPL licensing controversies, and GAAP profitability timeline
CSCO may suit investors who:
- want the Splunk enterprise SIEM and observability opportunity with the financial safety net of Cisco's $15B+ annual FCF and 3%+ dividend yield
- believe Cisco's networking installed base creates unmatched cross-sell opportunity for Splunk security products to existing enterprise networking customers
- prefer a diversified networking+security+observability portfolio at lower premium valuation vs pure-play observability stocks like Elastic or Datadog
- are comfortable with Splunk integration execution risk, networking hardware maturation, and Elastic/Datadog displacing Splunk customers reconsidering under Cisco ownership
Performance & AI score
| Metric | ESTC | CSCO |
|---|---|---|
| AI scorei | 35.4 | 56.6 |
| AI ranki | #1687 | #245 |
| Latest closei | $86.96 | $109.51 |
| 1M returni | -0.44% | -0.94% |
| 6M returni | +57.68% | +39.49% |
| 1Y returni | -2.99% | +59.45% |
$10,000 invested — hypothetical growth (dividends reinvested)
How much would $10,000 be worth today if invested at the start of each period, with all dividends reinvested?
| Period | ESTC | CSCO |
|---|---|---|
| 1Y ago | $9.7K (-3.0%) started 2025-09-18 | $15.94K (+59.4%) started 2025-09-18 |
| 5Y ago | $5.42K (-45.8%) started 2021-09-20 | $24.75K (+147.5%) started 2021-09-20 |
| 10Y ago | $12.42K (+24.2%) started 2018-10-05 | $63.02K (+530.2%) started 2016-09-19 |
Hypothetical — past performance does not guarantee future results.
Valuation & upside potential
| Metric | ESTC | CSCO |
|---|---|---|
| Market capi | $9.53B | $433.28B |
| Trailing P/Ei | 25.93 | 33.01 |
| Forward P/Ei | 23.02 | 19.64 |
| Price/Salesi | N/A | 4.70 |
| EV/Revenuei | 4.90 | 7.07 |
| Analyst targeti | $105.52 | $137.74 |
| Target upsidei | +16.26% | +25.30% |
Growth, profitability & risk
| Metric | ESTC | CSCO |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue growthi | 15.10% | 17.60% |
| Earnings growthi | N/A | 52.00% |
| EPS growthi | N/A | +52.00% |
| FCF margini | +27.98% | +18.27% |
| Operating margini | -0.61% | 27.70% |
| Profit margini | 20.84% | 20.95% |
| ROIC proxyi | 33.12% | 27.32% |
| Return on equityi | 33.12% | 27.32% |
| Dividend yieldi | N/A | 1.50% |
| Payout ratioi | 0.00% | 49.85% |
| Dividend growth streaki | N/A | No increase yet |
| Betai | 0.97 | 1.00 |
| Debt/equityi | 45.94 | 58.73 |
| Current ratioi | 1.81 | 0.93 |
| Quick ratioi | 1.64 | 0.65 |
Correlation
Over the past year, ESTC and CSCO have moved barely in the same direction (correlation of 0.01), based on daily returns.
1Y
0.01
-1.0+1.0
5Y
0.20
-1.0+1.0
10Y
0.27
-1.0+1.0
Drawdown & downside risk
Lower drawdown and smaller single-period drops generally indicate a smoother ride, though they do not guarantee lower future risk.
1Y risk snapshot
ESTC max drawdowni54.17%
CSCO max drawdowni17.35%
ESTC max wkly dropi22.89%
CSCO max wkly dropi11.44%
5Y risk snapshot
ESTC max drawdowni76.82%
CSCO max drawdowni36.68%
ESTC max wkly dropi32.32%
CSCO max wkly dropi13.61%
10Y risk snapshot
ESTC max drawdowni76.82%
CSCO max drawdowni41.95%
ESTC max wkly dropi32.32%
CSCO max wkly dropi16.10%
Performance metrics by period
| Period | Metric | ESTC | CSCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1Y | Growthi | -2.99% | +59.45% |
| CAGRi | -2.99% | +59.50% | |
| Volatilityi | 57.35% | 34.13% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.16 | 1.41 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.22 | 2.08 | |
| Max drawdowni | 54.17% | 17.35% | |
| Current drawdowni | 12.96% | 15.76% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 27.05% | 5.92% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 31.35% | 7.84% | |
| Max daily dropi | 15.44% | 12.32% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 22.89% | 11.44% | |
| 5Y | Growthi | -45.76% | +119.45% |
| CAGRi | -11.53% | +17.04% | |
| Volatilityi | 60.36% | 25.84% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.02 | 0.57 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.03 | 0.80 | |
| Max drawdowni | 76.82% | 36.68% | |
| Current drawdowni | 53.44% | 15.76% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 54.29% | 12.60% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 56.25% | 15.65% | |
| Max daily dropi | 26.49% | 13.73% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 32.32% | 13.61% | |
| 10Y | Growthi | +24.23% | +362.65% |
| CAGRi | +2.77% | +16.56% | |
| Volatilityi | 58.11% | 26.32% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.26 | 0.55 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.38 | 0.76 | |
| Max drawdowni | 76.82% | 41.95% | |
| Current drawdowni | 53.44% | 15.76% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 40.71% | 11.02% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 46.51% | 14.50% | |
| Max daily dropi | 26.49% | 13.73% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 32.32% | 16.10% |
Business comparison
| Category | ESTC | CSCO |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Elastic N.V. | Cisco Systems, Inc. |
| Sector | Technology | Technology |
| Industry | Software - Application | Communication Equipment |
| Core business | Elastic is the company behind the Elasticsearch open-source search engine — the world's most popular enterprise search technology. Elastic's commercial platform (Elastic Stack: Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, Beats) provides search, observability (logging and APM), and security analytics (SIEM) for enterprise customers. Elasticsearch's vector search capabilities position it in the AI/RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) market — enterprises use Elasticsearch to enable LLMs to search private knowledge bases. Elastic Cloud is the managed SaaS deployment running on AWS, Azure, and GCP. | Cisco is the world's largest networking equipment company (routers, switches, wireless infrastructure) expanding into cybersecurity through acquisitions including Splunk (acquired March 2024 for $28B). Splunk's SIEM and observability platform adds security analytics and log management capabilities to Cisco's security portfolio (including Cisco SecureX, Umbrella, and Duo Security). Cisco's networking revenue provides a massive installed base for cross-selling security and observability to enterprise IT departments already using Cisco switches and routers. |
| Investor focus | Investors focus on Elastic's ARR growth, cloud revenue mix expansion, vector search AI adoption (Elasticsearch as AI infrastructure), and security analytics growth as Splunk (now Cisco) raises prices post-acquisition. | Investors focus on Cisco's software/subscription revenue growth, Splunk integration synergies, networking hardware cycle recovery, and gross margin trajectory as Cisco evolves from hardware to software-recurring model. |
ESTC strengths
- Elasticsearch open-source moat: Elasticsearch has 800M+ downloads — the open-source adoption creates an organic pipeline of enterprises that evaluate Elastic commercial products
- Vector search for AI/RAG applications: Elasticsearch is a leading vector database for enterprise AI — enabling LLMs to search private enterprise knowledge bases in RAG architectures is a major new use case driving adoption
- Splunk pricing displacement opportunity: Cisco's acquisition of Splunk has raised enterprise security analytics pricing — Elastic's open-source-rooted pricing is attractive to Splunk customers facing contract renewals at higher rates
CSCO strengths
- Splunk integration creates security analytics giant: Splunk's SIEM combined with Cisco's networking infrastructure gives Cisco unmatched enterprise threat visibility from network telemetry to security events
- Installed base for cross-sell: Cisco's networking equipment is in virtually every enterprise data center and campus — Splunk security products can be sold directly to existing Cisco networking customers
- Dividend and buyback with strong FCF: Cisco generates $15B+ FCF annually from its networking franchise — providing dividend yield (3%+) and consistent buybacks that Elastic doesn't offer
Risks to watch — ESTC
- Competing with hyperscaler search products: AWS OpenSearch, Azure AI Search, and Google Cloud Search compete with Elasticsearch in cloud deployments at lower prices
- Open-source licensing controversy: Elastic changed its licensing from Apache 2.0 to SSPL in 2021, prompting AWS to fork Elasticsearch as OpenSearch — a competitive threat from a well-resourced alternative
- Profitability timeline: Elastic has been investing aggressively in growth with GAAP losses — path to sustained profitability depends on cloud revenue mix reaching sufficient scale
Risks to watch — CSCO
- Splunk integration execution risk: large acquisitions have integration challenges — combining Cisco networking culture with Splunk's analytics-first startup culture creates organizational risk
- Networking hardware market maturation: enterprise networking hardware refresh cycles have been lengthening — Cisco's core hardware revenue faces secular slowdown as cloud migration reduces on-premise switching investment
- Elastic and Datadog competing for Splunk's observability customers: Splunk customers considering alternatives during Cisco integration evaluate Elastic and Datadog as lower-cost independent alternatives
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