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Elastic Security vs SolarWinds Security Event Manager 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 Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (11th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (15th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (11th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (12th)
SolarWinds Security Event M...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
33rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 3.5%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Elastic Security3.5%
SolarWinds Security Event Manager1.0%
Other95.5%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

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.
Yashokanth Partkunan - PeerSpot reviewer
Managed Services Engineer at Loop1 Systems
Has supported client needs efficiently but requires deeper analysis features and faster support
The log analyzing capability of SolarWinds Security Event Manager should go into more depth than the current environment. More modification and enhancements are required on the dashboard side in order to make it closer to optimal performance. From observation and feedback from users, they need more functionality related to monitoring, and in-depth analyzing needs to be improved.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best part about this solution is that it is open-source and free to use."
"I like that it's a SIEM platform. I like that I can sell Elastic Security quickly. Elastic Security has a large community that can support users."
"The scalability is good. It can be scaled easily in the production environment."
"The most valuable features are the speed, detail, and visualization. It has the latest standards."
"The indexes allow you to get your results quickly. The filtering and log passing is the advantage of Logstash."
"The feature that we have found the most valuable is scalability."
"The solution has a good community surrounding it for lots of helpful documentation for troubleshooting purposes."
"It's quite stable; we have not seen it going down at all for the last three years and it's working well consistently."
"SolarWinds is easy to configure, and it provides timely alerts."
"Some of the rules are most valuable because you can be notified about various things, such as spyware or things that are going on in the internal network."
"The scalability of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is good."
"The graphical user interface is very user-friendly. SolarWinds is a hybrid solution so you can use it across many platforms."
"It will identify things in your network that you just didn't know were going on."
"Technical support for this solution is good."
"SolarWinds Security Event Manager has been generally working well."
"The solution helps you monitor database instances, application instances, other customer application things, Linux servers, IBM servers, and Oracle servers."
 

Cons

"We find that solutions such as Dynatrace and Datadog offer much more functionality, perhaps due to the fact that they are more mature."
"Elastic Security has a steep learning curve, so it takes some time to tune it and set it up for your environment. There are some costs associated with logging things that don't have value. So you need to be cautious to only log things that make sense and keep them around for as long as you need. You shouldn't hold onto things just because you think you might need them."
"I want to find an automatic security system in the tool, like a SOAR solution. I am looking forward to seeing a SOAR system in the tool."
"There is room for improvement in the Kibana dashboard and in the asset management for the program."
"The solution needs to be more reactive to investigations. We need to be able to detect and prevent any attacks before it can damage our infrastructure. Currently, this solution doesn't offer that."
"Configuring the server is difficult and can be improved."
"The solution could also use better dashboards. They need to be more graphical, more matrix-like."
"The solution's basic setup takes time, and a lot of effort is required from the beginning to make it actually work."
"The flash-based interface can be improved because sometimes, the speed of monitoring is reduced."
"We'd like more customization capabilities."
"We need to post events on the end of the devices. Sometimes, the event does not respond."
"It won't tell you when your backups are failing, but it will give you hints when your database is running on full recovery."
"There are no multiple dashboards which would allow you to see information side-by-side."
"The solution's technical support is okay, but we don't have an SLA, and sometimes the response times are very slow."
"It is a very technical program. They can simplify it so that it isn't so hard to deal with."
"I don't think SolarWinds is scalable enough. It is somewhat limited when I need to deploy it across multiple environments in a distributed architecture."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not expensive and costs around ten dollars a month."
"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 Security is free to use."
"Compared to other products such as Dynatrace, this is one of the cheaper options."
"We use the open-source version, so there is no charge for this solution."
"Affordable but with additional costs"
"I can say that the product is cheaply priced."
"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."
"Licenses can only be purchased in blocks of fifty at a time."
"We do a yearly license renewal. For a year, the solution costs roughly $500,000 USD. There are no costs beyond this yearly fee."
"The price of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is reasonable."
"It is in the appropriate mid-range. It is not as expensive as some of the other solutions. It is also not cheap."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

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 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 needs improvement with Elastic Security?
I do not have any specific recommendations for improvements in Elastic Security, but I feel that the AI module should get more mature. These machine learning algorithms become better with time; as ...
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 ?
The log analyzing capability of SolarWinds Security Event Manager should go into more depth than the current environment. More modification and enhancements are required on the dashboard side in or...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
I work with all SolarWinds products mostly, including Network Configuration Manager and NPM. I am a reseller. I usually recommend SolarWinds products for Loop1. It's for the bigger ones; we are the...
 

Also Known As

Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
SolarWinds LEM, Solarwinds SIEM, TriGeo, Log and Event Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
NetSuite, EasyStreet, Legacy Texas Bank, and Energy Federal Credit Union, to name a few.
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Security vs. SolarWinds Security Event Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.