Suped

SendForensics vs ELK DMARC

Choose SendForensics for managed solutions, choose ELK DMARC for self-hosted control.
ELK DMARC
Compare to Suped
Logo
ELK DMARC
First comparison imageSecond comparison image
Compare product functionality

Feature set

Logo
ELK DMARC
First comparison imageSecond comparison image
SendForensics positions itself as a comprehensive email deliverability platform, with DMARC monitoring being one of its core offerings. We found its DMARC report analysis to be robust, offering detailed insights into authentication results, sending sources, and potential threats. It's designed to give you a clear overview without requiring deep technical diving into raw DMARC XML data.
Beyond just DMARC, SendForensics integrates deliverability testing, inbox placement, and spam trap monitoring, creating a holistic view of email performance. This means you are not just seeing DMARC compliance, but also how well your emails are actually landing in inboxes, which is a significant value add for any email marketer or IT professional concerned with end-to-end email health.
ELK DMARC, as the name suggests, is built upon the Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana (ELK) stack, offering a powerful, open-source solution for DMARC reporting. Its strength lies in its flexibility and the ability to self-host, giving users complete control over their data and infrastructure. For those with ELK stack expertise, it allows for highly customizable dashboards and data analysis.
The focus of ELK DMARC is squarely on processing and visualizing DMARC reports. It provides the essential functions needed to monitor DMARC compliance, identify sending sources, and detect authentication failures. While it doesn't extend into broader deliverability testing like SendForensics, its core DMARC functionality is solid for organizations that prefer a self-managed, transparent system.
How easy is each product to use

User experience

Logo
ELK DMARC
First comparison imageSecond comparison image
SendForensics offers a clean, intuitive web-based interface that we found straightforward to navigate. The dashboards are well-organized, presenting complex DMARC data in an easily digestible format with visual charts and graphs. Setting up domains and interpreting reports requires minimal technical knowledge, making it accessible even for users new to DMARC.
One of its strong points is the consolidated view, allowing users to quickly identify issues across various email authentication protocols and deliverability metrics. While there can be a slight learning curve to understand all the features of a comprehensive deliverability platform, the DMARC specific sections are well-designed for efficient monitoring and problem-solving.
ELK DMARC's user experience is inherently tied to the ELK stack, meaning its ease of use depends heavily on the user's familiarity with Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana. Installation and setup are command-line intensive, requiring expertise in Docker and Linux environments. This is certainly not a point-and-click solution for beginners.
Once deployed, the interface is primarily Kibana, which offers powerful visualization capabilities. We appreciate the level of customization possible with Kibana dashboards, allowing technical users to tailor their DMARC views precisely. However, for those without a background in data visualization tools, navigating and configuring ELK DMARC might feel like trying to assemble IKEA furniture without instructions, in the dark.
Which product has the best support

Support

Logo
ELK DMARC
First comparison imageSecond comparison image
SendForensics, as a commercial SaaS product, offers structured support channels typical of such platforms. We found their support team to be generally responsive, available through ticketing systems and sometimes live chat, depending on the plan. Their knowledge base is quite extensive, providing guides and FAQs that cover common issues and feature explanations.
While response times can vary as noted in some user reviews, the availability of dedicated support is a significant advantage. For users who prefer direct assistance and guidance through complex DMARC or deliverability challenges, SendForensics provides the expected level of professional support, which can be crucial for maintaining email health.
ELK DMARC, being an open-source project, relies primarily on community support. Users will typically find assistance through GitHub issues, forums, or other community-driven platforms. This model requires a proactive approach, with users often needing to search for solutions or contribute to discussions to resolve their problems.
For organizations with in-house technical teams experienced with open-source projects and the ELK stack, this peer-to-peer support can be sufficient and even empowering. However, those without such resources might find it challenging to troubleshoot complex deployment or configuration issues without direct vendor support. It's the wild west of DMARC, for better or worse.
Who should use each product

Suitability

Logo
ELK DMARC
First comparison imageSecond comparison image
SendForensics is highly suitable for SMBs and enterprise clients who need a comprehensive, managed solution for email deliverability and DMARC. Its ease of use and integrated features make it ideal for marketing teams and IT departments that want to optimize email performance without heavy IT overhead. MSPs can also benefit from its multi-domain capabilities and reporting for their clients.
It's particularly well-suited for organizations that prioritize a smooth, out-of-the-box experience and value integrated insights into their overall email program, not just DMARC. If you prefer a SaaS model with dedicated support and a focus on broader email health metrics, SendForensics is a strong contender.
ELK DMARC is best for enterprise organizations, or technically proficient SMBs and MSPs with existing ELK stack expertise and a preference for self-hosting. It caters to those who demand complete control over their data, infrastructure, and customization options, often driven by strict data sovereignty requirements or a desire to avoid vendor lock-in.
This solution is less suitable for users who lack technical skills or prefer a hands-off, managed service. While cost-effective in terms of licensing (it's free software), it requires significant investment in infrastructure, deployment, and ongoing maintenance. If your team lives and breathes Linux, Docker, and Elasticsearch, this could be your DMARC playground.

How does SendForensics compare with ELK DMARC?

Logo
ELK DMARC
DMARC report analysis
Source detection
Forward detection
Spoof detection
Notifications and alerts
Reporting
API
Multi-tenancy
SPF flattening
Hosted DMARC
BIMI
MTA-STS/TLS-RPT
Blocklists and reputation
AI copilot
DNS monitoring
Self hostable
Free trial/free tier

Drawbacks and what to watch out for

SendForensics, while powerful, has faced user feedback regarding occasional lag times in email rendering and varied support response times. It also flags items sometimes required by law, which can be a minor annoyance. ELK DMARC's primary drawback is its steep learning curve and the significant technical expertise required for deployment and ongoing maintenance, making it less accessible for non-technical users or smaller teams without dedicated IT resources.
We have pulled the average ratings from G2 for each product, and also included the most recent negative reviews for each product in full. Positive reviews tend to have less detail and have a higher chance of being fraudulent, so negative reviews are a better signal for your decision.
Logo
ELK DMARC
Increase your email deliverability with Send Forensics
What do you like best about SendForensics? Easy to use, interface is intuitive to navigate, our whole team can access and use the product with a single sign-on. There is no limit to the number of email tests you can send to Send Forensics to test, so it is not an issue to test every single campaign prior to launch to maximize deliverability. What do you dislike about SendForensics? Lag time has been an issue in the past - emails not rendering in Send Forensics has slowed down my work flow. Support team response has varied from a few hours to a few days to respond to a ticket. Also flags items within email template that are required by CANSPAM law, like our physical mailing address. Also can be glitchy, where previews of emails with flagged content does not render. What problems is SendForensics solving and how is that benefiting you? We run all our emails through Send Forensics prior to launch, to catch spammy words/copy and to improve the likelihood that our emails will reach inboxes of our customers.
Jeff W.
Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
No G2 reviews
G2 is the most popular review platform for DMARC products, so this is a strong signal that this product is not popular.
SendForensics Review - How it helped us test and get to inboxes
What do you like best about SendForensics? I like that it shows keywords that we can change flagged words to, similar words that you can update and exact content issues. I also like the live inbox placement testing. It also tells you if you should go ahead and send or make some changes and optimize. Send Forensics has different sections that they look at - vocabulary and copywriting, coding and layout, link quality and data collection. Most of our issues fall under the vocab and copywriting/content. The support and the guide section is also really helpful and most of the things we have questions on get answered pretty quickly there. It also is a good price for the service that you get. We looked and did free trials for a lot of companies, and feel Send Forensics gives you a lot of what we needed for a very reasonable price. What do you dislike about SendForensics? You really have to learn to use it and see the correct patterns. Sometimes we will test something and change what they told us to, and when we retest we are hitting less inboxes or getting a lower deliverability than before. Lots of trial and error. Recommendations to others considering SendForensics: Do the free trial, test it out and make sure it works for you first. But if you want to fully see what it can do, pay the low price of $49 a month and do some testing. You will likely get some insights you were not receiving before and it'll help you out moving forward with getting into inboxes. What problems is SendForensics solving and how is that benefiting you? With our current mailing system, we weren't seeing inbox placement and spam score testing. So this is helping a lot by telling us whether the main providers or not would have it fall into the inbox or spam folder. We've come to realize some words that are flagged so we can make the changes before even testing it in Send Forensics, so you do learn a pattern about how these things work. Send Forensics even goes as far as to show you your reputation, deliverability score, blacklists, errors, etc.
Verified User in Marketing and Advertising
Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
Valuable tool that everyone serious with email marketing should use
What do you like best about SendForensics? SendForensics gives you a lot of information regarding your emails, without this tool you would have to use several other tools to be able to view all the information, and it would be much harder to do any real analysis of your “email health”. What do you dislike about SendForensics? I would like more details, especially regarding errors found in “Vocabulary & Copywriting” and “Coding & Layout”. Recommendations to others considering SendForensics: Run the trial and spend an hour investigating, you can quickly see if this is a tool for you. What problems is SendForensics solving and how is that benefiting you? Email marketing is difficult to succeed with, doesn't matter how much money we throw at it. SendForensics enables us to trim and adjust our email campaigns so that we get the maximum possible return on our investment. It's so much faster to find out how to improve our email campaigns with SendForensics.
Carl-Johan L.
Sales Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

Pricing

SendForensics offers tiered subscription plans with clear monthly and annual pricing, while ELK DMARC is an open-source solution that incurs only infrastructure and maintenance costs.
Logo
ELK DMARC
Small
Not directly comparable, lowest plan is for 100k reports.
Self-hosted, variable infrastructure costs.
Medium
$49/month (Brand plan, up to 100k DMARC reports).
Self-hosted, variable infrastructure costs.
Large
$79/month (Company plan, up to 1M DMARC reports).
Self-hosted, variable infrastructure costs.
Enterprise
Starts at $199/month (Agency & Enterprise plans, 10M+ reports).
Self-hosted, variable infrastructure costs.

Suped hard sell incoming!

Still not satisfied with SendForensics or ELK DMARC?
Logo
ELK DMARC
Suped double trouble

What makes Suped different

Automated sender discovery that finds shadow IT and third-party services
DMARC copilot that pinpoints failures and prescribes the exact fix
Guided path to full p=reject enforcement, safely and quickly
Proactive alerts to prevent misconfigurations before they block your mail
Get started - free

Frequently asked questions