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Cribl vs Fortinet FortiSIEM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.7
Cribl significantly cuts log ingestion costs up to 40%, optimizing efficiency and reducing storage and licensing expenses despite initial investment.
Sentiment score
5.1
Fortinet FortiSIEM delivers security improvements and customer satisfaction, leading to positive financial outcomes despite no explicit ROI measurement.
What we've seen is really an overall reduction of just shy of 40% in our ingest into our SIM platform versus prior to having Cribl.
Senior Security Engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
The second thing is that data aggregation, sampling, and reduction that we're able to do of the data, lowering our overall data volume, both traversing the network as well as what's being stored inside of our final solutions.
Director, Performance Engineering at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
In terms of reduction, we were able to save almost ~40% of our total cost.
Sr. Lead Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.2
Cribl's support is praised for responsiveness, expertise, and resource access, with suggestions for improved response times on lower-priority issues.
Sentiment score
7.7
Fortinet FortiSIEM's customer service is seen as professional but has mixed reviews on response times and support accessibility.
They had extensive expertise with the product and were able to facilitate everything we needed.
Security Consultant at Riversafe Ltd
Usually, within an hour, we get a response, and we are able to work with them back and forth until we resolve the issues.
Engineering Fellow at Pegasystems
Sometimes by hearing the problem itself, they will know what the solution is, and they will let us know how to resolve it, and we do it immediately.
Senior Specialist at LTIMindtree
Local tech support is available, however, for more critical or technical issues, we depend on the OEM directly, especially when it comes to on-prem solutions.
IT Solutions Product Manager at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
There is a knowledgeable, though small, team of support engineers around the world.
Network Engineer at Laminar Communications Pty Ltd
They take some time to respond because they need logs and investigations, which delays the response time.
Network Engineer at Ogma Consulting
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Cribl efficiently scales by managing large data volumes and diverse sources with ease, making it suitable for all enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.6
Fortinet FortiSIEM scales well, accommodating different business sizes but faces challenges with licensing, architecture, and configuration complexities.
The infrastructure behind Cribl Search is also scalable as it uses a CPU and just spawns horizontally more instances as it demands and requires.
Engineering Fellow at Pegasystems
Compared to other SIEM tools I use, any slight change on the operating system end impacts a lot on our SIEM tools and other things, but Cribl performs well in that regard.
Senior Software Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cribl performs effectively across both market segments.
Principal at a hospitality company with 10,001+ employees
At any point in time, when network devices increase or there is a change in the infrastructure, we can add more workers and collectors to expand our infrastructure setup.
IT Solutions Product Manager at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Fortinet FortiSIEM is highly scalable.
Network Engineer at Laminar Communications Pty Ltd
Fortinet FortiSIEM is easy to scale.
Network Engineer at Ogma Consulting
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Cribl is reliable and stable, with most issues stemming from user errors or environmental factors, not inherent faults.
Sentiment score
6.2
Fortinet FortiSIEM is reliable and stable, handling updates well, with users rating its performance highly despite occasional bugs.
Migrating from those SC4S servers to Cribl worker nodes has truly been a game-changer.
Sr. Lead Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Regarding scalability, we started with zero servers and have around 285 servers now.
Senior Specialist at LTIMindtree
Cribl is designed to deal with certain kinds of loads and is not designed to handle any scenario in the market.
Security Delivery Senior Analyst at Accenture
It stabilizes itself in an appropriate time, so its uptime is good.
IT Solutions Product Manager at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
These issues may cause unusual errors and user interface issues.
Network Engineer at Laminar Communications Pty Ltd
Some stability issues occur, but Fortinet's technical support team provides assistance.
Network Engineer at Ogma Consulting
 

Room For Improvement

Cribl users seek improved performance, documentation, cost efficiency, enhanced features, better logging, integration, scalability, stability, and processing speed.
Fortinet FortiSIEM needs improvements in integration, user interface, support, cost, and features like AI and automated responses.
A more stringent role-based access control feature would enhance security and allow granular control over what users can see and access.
Manager for Monitoring and Logging at Velera
When passing query logs or DNS logs, if certain malicious query patterns need to be identified or if fast-flux attacks are happening, Cribl can report that and those would definitely be a plus for them.
Product Manager at UnDisclosed
I would advise others looking to implement Cribl that if they are evolving Cribl Search, it would be very interesting to see more capability, more flexibility, and more ways to share the data similar to Splunk.
Senior Manager at Deloitte
Recently, they revised it to a subscription-based, all-inclusive license.
IT Solutions Product Manager at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
The built-in APIs in Fortinet FortiSIEM are somewhat lacking and could be improved for better integration with external ITSM products.
Network Engineer at Laminar Communications Pty Ltd
Fortinet FortiSIEM should broaden its remediation part to include more features for incident management.
Network Engineer at Ogma Consulting
 

Setup Cost

Cribl is cost-effective, offering significant data ingestion savings and value, despite initial setup costs and potential price increases.
Fortinet FortiSIEM provides flexible pricing that can be cost-effective, but costs may increase with additional modules and scalability.
Over time, the licensing cost has increased.
SIEM Engineer at National Australia Bank (NAB)
It was cheaper than the Splunk license.
Security Engineering Programme Manager at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Splunk is more expensive, and Cribl appears to be more affordable.
Principal at a hospitality company with 10,001+ employees
Setting it up for oneself as an enterprise-licensed product can be quite expensive.
Network Engineer at Laminar Communications Pty Ltd
Windows agent licenses cost around 3,000 Rupees per device per year.
Network Engineer at Ogma Consulting
The revised model is subscription-based and more flexible.
IT Solutions Product Manager at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
 

Valuable Features

Cribl offers intuitive log management, real-time data transformation, and cost-efficient data routing, enhancing scalability and data handling versatility.
Fortinet FortiSIEM provides automation, analytics, and integration with a user-friendly interface for efficient threat detection and network monitoring.
The data reduction and preprocessing capabilities make Cribl really unique.
Security Consultant at Riversafe Ltd
Cribl has a feature called JSON Unroll or Unroll function that allows you to differentiate the events; each event will come ingested as a single log instead of piling it up with multiple events.
Security Engineer at Tecplix
The Cribl UI is very simple and easy to use, particularly when working with data from various sources; it makes it very easy to create pipelines, add complex logic to those pipelines, and then gives you a preview of what your data looks like before applying that pipeline and what you get after.
Senior Security Engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
It provides extensive logging and record-keeping for internal networks, cloud applications, and services as well as perimeter physical network security.
Network Engineer at Laminar Communications Pty Ltd
I find the real-time monitoring and correlation capabilities effective for security alerts.
Network Engineer at Ogma Consulting
 

Categories and Ranking

Cribl
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (8th), Log Management (3rd), Observability Pipeline Software (1st)
Fortinet FortiSIEM
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
AI Observability (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Cribl is 1.2%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiSIEM is 2.7%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cribl1.2%
Fortinet FortiSIEM2.7%
Other96.1%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Aman Verma - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Has helped reduce daily log volume significantly and streamline data routing across multiple destinations
Regarding complexity, as I mentioned before, Cribl is very simple to use. When I started 2.5 years ago, it was very easy to learn. I learned Cribl within a week, and even though I was a fresher at the time, it was easy to understand and not complex enough that someone would need to spend money on labs. It's not that complex to learn. Regarding cost efficiency, it's very good because nowadays the SIEM tools we use are too expensive on license, and SIEM tools base their license on how many logs get ingested. The unwanted logs, particularly firewall logs, represent a significant portion of unnecessary ingestion. Cribl saves our license by filtering out half of the firewall logs that are unwanted. Our main purpose for using Cribl is to save our license and save money. Currently, everyone is moving toward AI agents. We currently use regex, and AI agents could help us create those regex patterns to drop events or add raw data to events. Currently, we sit down, review the logs, and create regex patterns manually, which can be time-consuming. An AI agent could reduce this time. I read some articles indicating that Cribl Cloud has started using AI and considering MCPs and model context, but I'm not certain how far along they are. If Cribl asked me what they could improve, that would be my suggestion. The support is very good, and I had a few issues with Cribl where I raised support cases and received good responses, which is better than the quick response I didn't get from other SIEM tools and vendor tools I use. Compared to other SIEM tools, Cribl is cheaper than Splunk and DataDogs. However, it's still a bit expensive from my point of view, though I won't call it expensive. Overall, I think 99% of companies use Cribl before their SIEM tools, and compared to SIEM tools, Cribl is cheaper. Companies can use any SIEM tool such as Google, Splunk, or Cisco, and Cribl is cheaper than those SIEM tools. They might have a slight chance to reduce costs further, but I'm not the correct person to evaluate that since I'm more focused on the operational side. Regarding training, it was quite easy to grasp. It took me almost a week to understand the basic functionalities and what Cribl does. Getting more expertise took additional time, but basic functionalities and understanding what Cribl does took around four to five days. One point I want to mention is that Cribl could improve their labs or training materials in their Cribl Cloud or whatever portal they have.
SY
Network Engineer at Ogma Consulting
Comprehensive monitoring boosts security, yet incident management features need expansion
Fortinet FortiSIEM should broaden its remediation part to include more features for incident management. Currently, to manage repetitive incidents or for remediation, I need to use a separate software called FortiSOAR. Additionally, the search functionality in FortiAI should be improved to provide more precise results, making it easier for me to understand what actions need to be taken.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise34
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cribl?
Regarding current pricing, it was based on an ingress-based model that we used, and it was favorable. It was cheaper than the Splunk license. We didn't have a problem with the purchase.
What needs improvement with Cribl?
Some downsides of Cribl include that it was quite a long sales cycle for us, but that was probably partly my fault as well. There weren't really any negatives on the product itself. Cribl can do be...
What is your primary use case for Cribl?
My use cases for Cribl basically involve being part of a Splunk theme organization where I was brought in to do a soft confirmation program, and I was onboarding more and more logs into Cribl as my...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiSIEM?
Fortinet FortiSIEM needs to provide better API integrations to users.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiSIEM?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Fortinet FortiSIEM is wonderful, as it offers an excellent license compared to other vendors.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiSIEM?
Fortinet FortiSIEM is great overall. Performance could be enhanced, but I do not wish to elaborate on needed improvements.
 

Also Known As

No data available
FortiSIEM, AccelOps
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
FortiSIEM has hundreds of customers worldwide in markets including managed services, technology, financial services, healthcare, and government. Customers include Aruba Networks, Compushare, Port of San Diego, Cleveland Indians, Infoblox, Healthways, and Referentia.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cribl vs. Fortinet FortiSIEM and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.