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Elastic Security vs NetWitness Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 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

Elastic Security
Ranking in Log Management
9th
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (14th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (8th)
NetWitness Platform
Ranking in Log Management
35th
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
32nd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 2.9%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Elastic Security2.9%
NetWitness Platform0.7%
Other96.4%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Laurentiu Popescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Product Officer at ClusterPower
Has improved threat detection with deep log analysis and streamlined investigation workflows
The most useful features I find in Elastic Security are the forensic ones that allow us to carry deeper analysis into the logs for in-depth investigations, and the dashboards, with the reporting dashboard being quite user-friendly. Elastic Security is quite good at identifying threats, as it is part of the deep investigation tool that I mentioned before. Unless we need to look further into a certain log, we can carry out a deeper analysis and forensics on those particular logs. I can assess the impact of Elastic Security's real-time data analysis on our threat response efficiency as working pretty good. We are looking for real-time analysis because we have a continuous inflow of logs from different sources: from our cloud, from Active Directory, from our network. So it works pretty well.
MOTASHIM Al Razi - PeerSpot reviewer
CISO at One Bank Limited
It is a stable solution, but they should make the user interface easier to understand
The solution's initial setup takes work. We have to organize multiple paths and many features. The deployment process takes less than a week. But it takes a month to complete if we want to make the solution smarter by integrating it with various devices. I rate the process as a six out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Enables monitoring of application performance and the ability to predict behaviors."
"It is the best open-source product for people working in SO, managing and analyzing logs."
"It's a good platform and the very best in the current market. We looked at the Forester report from December 2022 where it was said to be a leader."
"The most valuable feature for me is Discover."
"The scalability is good. It can be scaled easily in the production environment."
"I use the stack every morning to check the errors and it's just so clear. I don't see any disadvantage to using Logstash."
"I like the indexing of the logs."
"It's very customizable, which is quite helpful."
"Their technical support responds quickly and are knowledgable."
"Incident management is its most valuable feature."
"I can have enterprise security, email security, next generation firewall security log, HIDS and NIDS logs, etc. all on the same dashboard. It makes it easy to pinpoint or correlate our server to this. I can find out if there is lateral movement. This is the biggest advantage of this solution."
"The most valuable feature is the security that it provides."
"Offers a good wireless feature."
"It's fully scalable. There is no limit. Of course, the license limits per day the number of terabytes. In my opinion, it's very flexible."
"In my opinion, the solution's most valuable feature is its capacity to monitor network traffic, logs from devices within the network, and network captures. This capability extends beyond logs to include full network capturing."
"NetWitness Platform offers flexibility for deployment and robust integration capabilities."
 

Cons

"We'd like to see some more artificial intelligence capabilities."
"The price of this product could be improved, especially the additional costs. I would also like to see better-quality graphics."
"The tool should improve its scalability."
"The solution's basic setup takes time, and a lot of effort is required from the beginning to make it actually work."
"It's a little bit of a learning curve to understand the logic of searching for things and trying to find what you're looking for in Elastic Security."
"Their visuals and graphs need to be better."
"If the documentation were improved and made more clear for beginners, or even professionals, then we would be more attracted to this solution."
"The problem with ELK is it's difficult to administer. When you have a problem, it can be very, very difficult to rebuild indexes."
"The documentation is not as structured as I would like, personally, and I think that it can be improved and made much more user-friendly."
"Health monitoring of the event sources and devices."
"We have encountered issues with unresolved crashes."
"It is not so easy to customize this product."
"Technical support could be improved."
"More customizability is required, which is something that they need to improve on."
"Security needs improvement."
"The user interface is a little bit difficult for new users and it needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I find it better than Splunk in terms of cost-effectiveness. For cost-effectiveness, I would rate it a nine out of 10."
"It is easy to deploy, easy to use, and you get everything you need to become operational with it, and have nothing further to pay unless you want the OLED plugin."
"Elastic Security is free to use."
"Its price is fine. Its licensing works on a yearly basis. We have to renew the license every year. I also have a good experience with Darktrace. When we buy Darktrace, we get training free of cost, which is not there in Elastic. We have to pay extra for training. There is certainly room for improvement."
"Elastic Stack is an open-source tool. You don't have to pay anything for the components."
"The tool's pricing is flexible and comes at unit cost. You don't have to pay for everything."
"The price is reasonable. It probably costs the same as ArcSight and LogRhythm SIEM. FortiSIEM might cost less than Elastic Security. There are no hidden or additional costs."
"The licensing cost of Elastic Security is based on the daily ingestion rate. I can't recall the exact figure, but for 10GB of log action daily, it would cost around $20,000."
"We have a perpetual license, so the total cost of ownership is not very expensive. It's a good investment."
"The licenses are good but the cost is very expensive."
"There is a licensing fee and the customer can choose whether he wishes this to be subscription-based or perpetual."
"In comparison to other SIEM solutions such as Splunk, NetWitness is less costly."
"RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets do not have a subscription model, it's a one-time purchase. There is only a perpetual license."
"The product is expensive."
"This is a pricey solution; it's not cheap."
"It provides tools to assist in selecting the appropriate license and usage scenarios."
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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
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Performing Arts
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
What do you like most about Elastic Security?
Elastic provides the capability to index quickly due to the reverse indexes it offers. This data is crucial as it contains critical information. The reverse index allows fast data indexing because ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
I am satisfied with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing cost. It is a pure 10.
What do you like most about NetWitness Platform?
The product's initial setup phase was not at all difficult.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetWitness Platform?
The pricing is comparable to others, and I consider the cost to be intermediate. Specific cost details are unknown to me.
What needs improvement with NetWitness Platform?
There is currently no need for improvement in the SIEM ( /categories/security-information-and-event-management-siem ), though there could be potential enhancements by integrating with AI.
 

Also Known As

Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
RSA Security Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Security vs. NetWitness Platform and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.