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Cisco XDR vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 30, 2024

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

Cisco XDR
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (15th)
Splunk Enterprise Security
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
375
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (2nd), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco XDR is designed for Extended Detection and Response (XDR) and holds a mindshare of 1.9%, up 0.9% compared to last year.
Splunk Enterprise Security, on the other hand, focuses on Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), holds 7.4% mindshare, down 10.0% since last year.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco XDR1.9%
CrowdStrike Falcon10.5%
Wazuh7.9%
Other79.7%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Splunk Enterprise Security7.4%
Wazuh7.3%
IBM Security QRadar5.6%
Other79.7%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Joseph Houghes - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Architect at Pure Storage
flexible reporting and analytics boost data-driven security responses
The feature I appreciate the most about Cisco XDR is the flexibility for a user to be able to create their own reporting and dashboards. I would say I got to stop beta testing myself. I am testing what can be customized the most with it. Being able to ingest all the analytics and make it something that's either meaningful to them or to their own leadership is a big plus. It's not just what the product is at launch; you have the ability to customize and make it useful to your business to actually get real, purposeful information out of just a swamp of data. The features of Cisco XDR have actually benefited the organization significantly by allowing us to do the outputs of specific data and even filtered subsets of the data. We can do the same reporting but only deliver in either reports or dashboards the information about the systems that a specific team is responsible for, or the larger teams that multiple departments or IT silos roll up into. We're basically able to just modify the filters and have the same reports in the same dashboards where it's all the same; 99% of the work is the same.
reviewer1469784 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Helps us detect cyber threats quickly and integrate multiple feeds effectively
Overall, the product is good, but when it comes to some infrastructure issues, we have to dig into more logs. There is no straightforward indication of an issue. Health check kind of dashboards are not available. More AI would help us, and more optimization, since security products run more queries. The AI module could suggest solutions, optimizing queries or workload balancing. If the product itself advises on running queries during peak times, it would be similar to what ChatGPT currently offers. We see quite a few issues on stability. Even last week, we faced something, and identifying bottlenecks is not easy. We need more SMEs, and there is no mechanism to tell us about indexer or search head issues. Self-monitoring dashboards could be beneficial. The technical support still requires more improvement. Often, primary support takes a lot of time and forwards most solutions to the engineering side. The primary support team has very limited knowledge to provide.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature I appreciate the most about Cisco XDR is the flexibility for a user to be able to create their own reporting and dashboards, ingest all the analytics, and make it something meaningful to their business to actually get real, purposeful information out of just a swamp of data."
"Cisco XDR offers threat intelligence and links with the Firewall."
"Cisco XDR is built primarily for enterprise endpoint security, integrated onto endpoints with logs integrated into SIEM, and it is used for security investigations, malware impact investigation, and tracking particular security incidents through integration of different logs, where endpoint logs are very important, providing detail about processes run by potential malware and any call-outs made to command and control."
"The feature I appreciate the most about Cisco XDR is the reliability."
"My advice for other organizations considering Cisco XDR is that it offers proactive security measures that are really very helpful."
"I appreciate the granularity of what I get from Cisco XDR the most."
"The features of Cisco XDR benefit my company since time is money. When outages happen and when a customer can't reach the internet, they get agitated. Therefore, the quicker we can mitigate an issue, our customers get happier in a quicker fashion."
"Cisco XDR offers threat intelligence and links with the Firewall."
"Splunk's schema on demand is incredibly useful. I do not have to worry about what my users will need when we onboard their data."
"The two features I appreciate most in Splunk Enterprise Security are the content management system and the inter-incident review dashboard."
"The user interface is excellent, and since I'm using Splunk as a power user, it's easy to create dashboards."
"The data representation options in the dashboards are excellent."
"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."
"It's very flexible. If you look from the cloud implementation it is there. Reports are made quickly. Unlike other tools, it caters to all kinds of technical information on the front very easily. There's no need to put in any technical information. You can pull on the reports very easily, take action, and notify stakeholders."
"I find the process for customizing, developing, testing, deploying, and refining detections in Splunk Enterprise Security effective."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the dashboard. It's very intuitive."
 

Cons

"They need to provide better pricing and bundle XDR licenses with products like Meraki solutions or Firepower Threat Defense."
"They need to provide better pricing and bundle XDR licenses with products like Meraki solutions or Firepower Threat Defense."
"My only complaint about Cisco XDR is related to licensing, which is complicated."
"Improvements in Cisco XDR revolve around performance."
"Cisco XDR can be improved by addressing the upfront cost. Everything matters for us since we're small, mom and pop, so every dollar counts."
"The licensing of Cisco XDR is a bit complicated. The cost can depend on what it is, and the process can be a little complicated."
"I would say I got to stop beta testing myself."
"Regarding the pricing aspect of Cisco XDR, I think the price is a bit expensive."
"Splunk Enterprise Security could be cheaper."
"They can incorporate the SOAR solution within the actual product so that we do not require two different products, two different installations, and two different pricing methods. In regards to UBA, I am familiar with the UBA that existed two years ago. I am not updated about it today, but two years ago, UBA required such an amount of data that from a cost perspective, it was not worth it. When you compare it to what you get out of the box with Microsoft Sentinel without additional costs, there is no match."
"The system can be intimidating, and sometimes the concepts conveyed in the documentation require adjustment."
"Splunk Enterprise Security can be improved with more ease of configuration."
"The main improvement needed in Splunk Enterprise Security is its system visibility after installation."
"At Splunk .conf24, I saw a demo for Splunk Enterprise Security 8. All the things that they have done in Splunk Enterprise Security 8 are what it can be better at."
"Splunk Enterprise Security could improve in automation, flexibility, and providing more content out of the box."
"If you monitor too much, you can lose performance on your systems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing of Cisco XDR is a bit complicated. The cost can depend on what it is, and the process can be a little complicated."
"Splunk Enterprise Security incurs a significant cost because of the amount of data we send, but we are fine with the value we're getting for that price."
"The variables and the flexibility that Splunk provides are helpful, especially in a hybrid and multi-cloud environment."
"Although Splunk is an expensive product, it is designed to be utilized across your organization in order to maximize your ROI and lower your TCO."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is affordable."
"The pricing can be better. We are already considering Elastic because Splunk is too expensive. You have to pay based on per-day ingestion. There should be a more flexible model for the use cases where one day you have a huge amount, and on other days, it is quite less."
"I think that most of the log analytics solutions are expensive and I'm not sure if it's worth it."
"It's a yearly subscription."
"Splunk can be expensive, as its licensing is based on the daily data ingestion volume."
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Comparison Review

VS
Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Feb 26, 2015
HP ArcSight vs. IBM QRadar vs. ​McAfee Nitro vs. Splunk vs. RSA Security vs. LogRhythm
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
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business109
Midsize Enterprise50
Large Enterprise264
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco XDR?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been intriguing. I used to work for a Cisco partner, and I still have friends there with whom I discuss comparisons regarding some hardwar...
What needs improvement with Cisco XDR?
Improvements in Cisco XDR revolve around performance. The less performance it utilizes to run at high configuration levels, the better it becomes, so all vendors need to continue working on keeping...
What is your primary use case for Cisco XDR?
As a security consultant, I use multiple SIEM and XDR solutions, so cumulatively, I can say I have used Cisco XDR for around one year.
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...
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 CrowdStrike, Trend Micro, Microsoft and others in Extended Detection and Response (XDR). Updated: January 2026.
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