230MB RSS, and this is not "ES usage", it's just after starting it with no data whatsoever. I've seen databases which use less memory than that when working.

> I run some very large clusters [...] without problems for 4-6 months without any restarts.

Well, good for you. Being a sysadmin, I understand very well that my ES server may be a specimen combining bad kernel compilation, broken JVM version, unstable ES release, and ground water emanating bad energy, so I don't complain much. Still, I would be very, very happy to see any alternative for storing JSONified logs.