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SolarWinds Security Event Manager vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

SolarWinds Security Event M...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
33rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
312
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (2nd), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 9.5%, down from 12.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Alex Kinyanjui - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable and scalable solution that provide 24/7 monitoring
We have to protect customer data, including any PII, accessed via the internet terminal. Additionally, we need to monitor events from network devices and servers that may raise suspicion, allowing us to analyze them and determine what is occurring. SolarWinds affected your overall security costs. Considering the nature of our traffic, it has been very effective. We have proactively identified and addressed issues before they escalate into incidents. I've noticed a reduced investment in handling event-related cases with SolarWinds Security Event Manager. This reduction includes reducing human resources and the time required for teams to provide 24/7 monitoring. Consequently, there has been a significant decrease in costs. Additionally, the platform enables us to address issues before they escalate into incidents, thus preventing revenue leakage. As a result, the organization experiences reduced costs and avoids revenue leakage. Since the SolarWinds Security Event Manager implementation, the total budget allocated to security has been reduced by close to five percent. Initially, there was a heavy investment in that aspect, but we have observed this reduction in the allocated budget for the security team. Since implementing SolarWinds Security Event Manager, the team members' pressure has been reduced. They can now concentrate on more critical tasks and development, promoting growth within their department rather than solely focusing on incident monitoring. I recommend the solution. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
ROBERT-CHRISTIAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Has many predefined correlation rules and is brilliant for investigation and log analysis
It is very complicated to write your own correlation rules without the help of Splunk support. What Splunk could do better is to create an API to the standard SIEM tools, such as Microsoft Sentinel. The idea would be to make it less painful. In ELK Stack, Kibana is the query language with which you can search log files. I believe Splunk has also a query language in which they search their log files, but once you have identified the log file that you want to use for further security correlation, you want to very quickly transport that into your SIEM tool, such as Microsoft Sentinel. That is something that Splunk could make a little bit less painful because it is a lot of effort to find that log file and forward it. An API with Microsoft Sentinel or a similar SIEM tool would be a good idea.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The product's most effective part in improving security stems from the fact that the solution is deployed for event management, log viewing, and information management."
"The graphical user interface is very user-friendly. SolarWinds is a hybrid solution so you can use it across many platforms."
"SolarWinds is effective for server, network, and log monitoring. It's also good for IP address management. We also have a patch manager, but we're still working on getting that operational."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is the analysis and the knowledge about the incidence that we trace."
"This tool is simple to use."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use for the end user."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the visibility into both attempted and failed logins."
"The most valuable feature is the reporting."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the dashboard, which allows us to see everything on the same page and provides easy visibility into problems."
"The tool drastically reduces SOC overhead. Its integration with our tool suite is great and helps us correlate events. The solution is also a lot faster than our standalone instances."
"The integration is seamless with many devices and operating systems."
"Splunk Enterprise Security allows us to create custom dashboards by changing fonts and modifying widgets."
"Low barrier to start searching with the ability to normalize data on the fly."
"The most valuable features for us include its robust log management capabilities, which allow us to efficiently handle and retain logs for extended periods as needed."
"On the cloud, we are pushing through less than half a petabyte of data. So far, it has been fairly stable because it runs on all the underlying AWS infrastructures."
"It helps streamline troubleshooting and log analysis."
 

Cons

"The product should improve the ease with which you can create event alerts. They are not as hard now but you need to have an easier way."
"SolarWinds should improve its correlation capabilities. The correlation does not automatically detect and reduce the events fast enough. You have to manually do a correlation report, which means the tool is not scalable in many ways."
"We used the support from SolarWinds Security Event Manager and they are knowledgeable but challenging to get in contact with them."
"Training for this solution needs to be improved, as new employees are sometimes unfamiliar with the product."
"I would like to have a more customizable dashboard."
"We have automated threat detection in the Alliance Security, Antoinette. However, if these features could be further enhanced, it would simplify my work, potentially allowing me to allocate more time to address complex issues."
"I think the customization area in the tool can be considered as an area of concern where improvements are required."
"There is no correlation made between log entries, so no threat information is presented."
"Improving the infrastructure behind Splunk Enterprise Security is vital—enhanced cores, CPUs, and memory should be prioritized to support better processing power. When we execute heavy, resource-intensive queries over long periods, the performance dips."
"Many of my clients want to get better at Splunk, but they're afraid of using the tool because they feel it's too complex for them."
"The solution could improve by increasing the performance. We have run into problems when large amounts of data are processed."
"The monitoring aspect of Splunk could be improved. We have to do some queries to get as much information as CrowdStrike or other solutions provide. If you run a big query, you will see a delay. That is the only concern we have because it will take some time if you query large data sets."
"I do not like the pricing model. It is expensive."
"I would like to have fraud detection features. Fraud is within the same turf as with security operations. Fraud and cybersecurity work hand in hand. I would like to have detection capabilities, or at least dashboards in Enterprise Security for fraud."
"We'd like to have the number of devices covered under the license to be increased."
"It needs to improve the way to install third-party apps and enable installation without logging into splunk.com."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is available at a good price for customers compared to other solutions in the market. I rate the product's price as an eight out of ten."
"Licensing is on devices, so if you have many, then this may be high."
"The pricing model would benefit from having package deals with other SolarWinds products."
"It is in the appropriate mid-range. It is not as expensive as some of the other solutions. It is also not cheap."
"We do a yearly license renewal. For a year, the solution costs roughly $500,000 USD. There are no costs beyond this yearly fee."
"Licenses can only be purchased in blocks of fifty at a time."
"The price of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is reasonable."
"Unlike other security tools, Splunk provides a fixed amount of gigabytes per day, and we are required to pay for any additional usage beyond that limit, in addition to our monthly cost."
"As a team, we prefer the old pricing model with a perpetual license. We are still evaluating the whole subscription-based model."
"Pricing can be a limiting factor. You have to continuously tune what you are bringing in and make sure what you bring in is of value."
"I assume that the pricing is reasonable, because if it was too costly, there are other alternatives."
"Licensing is a yearly, one-time cost."
"Further reductions would be fantastic, and I believe that more and more people would flock to it."
"The pricing and licensing of the product are quite high."
"I think that most of the log analytics solutions are expensive and I'm not sure if it's worth it."
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Comparison Review

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Feb 26, 2015
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We at Infosecnirvana.com have done several posts on SIEM. After the Dummies Guide on SIEM, we are following it up with a SIEM Product Comparison – 101 deck. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Let me know what you think by posting your comments below. The key products compared here are…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
60%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
University
5%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
The solution helps you monitor database instances, application instances, other customer application things, Linux servers, IBM servers, and Oracle servers.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
The tool is available at a good price for customers compared to other solutions in the market. I rate the product's price as an eight out of ten.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
I think the customization area in the tool can be considered as an area of concern where improvements are required In the future, I want to see the tool have better customization abilities with som...
What SOC product do you recommend?
For tools I’d recommend: -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is asking to miss details that are critical, and ending up a statistic. Also, rememb...
What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?
It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingestion of anything, but the charge per GB/Day Indexed and it gets expensive as log ...
How does Splunk compare with Azure Monitor?
Splunk handles a high amount of data very well. We use Splunk to capture information and as an aggregator for monitoring information from different sources. Splunk is very good at alerting us if we...
 

Also Known As

SolarWinds LEM, Solarwinds SIEM, TriGeo, Log and Event Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NetSuite, EasyStreet, Legacy Texas Bank, and Energy Federal Credit Union, to name a few.
Splunk has more than 7,000 customers spread across over 90 countries. These customers include Telenor, UniCredit, ideeli, McKenney's, Tesco, and SurveyMonkey.
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Security Event Manager vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,856 professionals have used our research since 2012.