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Grafana Loki vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 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

Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Log Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
305
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Grafana Loki is 8.5%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 7.4%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

CarlosPimentel - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient log filtering enhances quick network troubleshooting
We use Grafana Loki for various verticals including manufacturing, finance, health, and aerospatial sectors. It primarily helps in monitoring security and access to devices. Grafana dashboards are used to track access success and failure and audit commands issued on devices Loki significantly…
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

"We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics."
"Grafana Loki is easy to monitor and detect errors."
"Loki significantly saves time in troubleshooting by quickly pinpointing network issues."
"The solution's stability has never been a problem. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine to ten out of ten."
"The effectiveness of filters is pivotal for optimizing the search process and extracting the specific information we need from the extensive log data."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the tool's GUI. The solution's GUI is very user-friendly."
"Loki also utilizes the same service discovery mechanism as used by Prometheus. So, whatever labeled metadata you see in Prometheus, you have the exact same metadata in the Loki system. Given this level of intricacy and the attempt to address these challenges, I firmly believe that Loki deserves praise for the work."
"There are new features like that pilot code and things like that for profiling."
"The data representation options in the dashboards are excellent."
"We can ingest and correlate data from virtually any type of system."
"I have found the installation can be of medium difficulty to very complex depending on the use case."
"It has a big user base, so the community is useful."
"We are using Microsoft 365 and we're using the Exchange Mail Service. It's good for monitoring that in particular."
"The speed of the search engine"
"Splunk has a wide range of features that customers use to find and analyze all kinds of logs."
"The benefits include the easy integration with other Splunk tools including Splunk UEBA, Splunk ITSI, and Splunk Core. The ease of integration and the organization's experience and familiarity with searching and passing logs through Splunk are the main benefits."
 

Cons

"We had a well-structured dashboard with a functional query. However, an issue arose when the Kubernetes pod restarted. The statistics from our Grafana query would reset, dropping to zero and starting anew. This was particularly noticeable with linear graphs, which are expected to show consistent growth."
"Visualization-wise, Grafana Loki's dashboard looks a little outdated compared to other open-source visualization tools like Chronograf."
"The solution's scalability depends on the team managing the Grafana instance."
"We face some bugs when we install the latest version of Grafana Loki."
"My main concern is the recommended production-grade setup. They suggest using tools like Tanka or Jsonnet. They should simplify the process to increase adoption."
"In Grafana Loki, the creation of metrics is not so easy, making it an area that could be made easier."
"There is a need for some change in the alerting types of the product. In short, a few changes in the alert area are needed due to minor shortcomings."
"It would be beneficial if Loki could directly access Windows Server logs or events directly from the servers."
"Better directions on search head clusters."
"The difficult part is related to integration with sources of data that are used to create the logs as this depends on the infrastructure of the client."
"An improved user interface along with multi-tenancy support would be beneficial."
"While Splunk offers SOAR as a separate product, integrating it into the next version of Splunk Enterprise Security as a unified solution would be beneficial."
"My company could benefit from doing more Splunk training with Splunk consultants teaching us how to use it."
"It needs more thoroughly tested releases. Every new big version (6, 7, etc.) has had so many bugs that it makes me wary of customers upgrading right away."
"Stability is there, but every release has some bugs."
"It is very complicated to write your own correlation rules without the help of Splunk support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You can use the free version of Grafana Loki on-premises."
"I use the solution's open-source version. Grafana Loki is a completely free solution for me."
"Grafana Loki is an open-source solution."
"Since we are using the open-source version of Grafana Loki, we are not paying anything for the solution."
"My company doesn't need to pay for the licensing cost of the solution."
"I use the open-source version of the product."
"I find the licensing structure quite reasonable, as the free license effectively meets my requirements."
"The solution is open source."
"As a team, we prefer the old pricing model with a perpetual license. We are still evaluating the whole subscription-based model."
"The tool's pricing model is great. You can choose between workloads or volume."
"The pricing is a little bit on the higher side, but looking at what Splunk provides us, it is reasonable."
"The tool's licensing is good and we haven't received any complaints from the team handling it."
"It can be tough to determine if you are getting all of the value out of your investment at times."
"Expensive compared to other options."
"I believe that Splunk Enterprise Security is worth the price, but it is expensive."
"ROI is estimated at saving my team roughly 10 to 12 man hours per week in troubleshooting for our company as well as what our profits had been from our services of installing, configuring, and supporting other clients with the product."
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Comparison Review

VS
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
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Grafana Loki?
We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana Loki?
We use the open-source version of Loki. The cloud version is competitively priced compared to other market solutions.
What needs improvement with Grafana Loki?
It would be beneficial if Loki could directly access Windows Server logs or events directly from the servers.
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...
 

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 Grafana Loki vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
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