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Graylog vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 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

Graylog
Ranking in Log Management
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Log Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
327
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Graylog is 6.4%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 7.4%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ivan Kokalovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates backend service monitoring with efficient log retrieval and API flexibility
Graylog is valuable because it bridges technical knowledge to non-technical teams, presenting complex backend processes in a simple timeline. It boosts the knowledge of sales and customer support teams by allowing them to see the backend operations without needing to read the code. Its API is flexible for visualization, and its powerful search engine efficiently handles large volumes of log data. Moreover, its stability, fast search capabilities, and compatibility with languages like ANSI SQL enhance its utility in IT infrastructure.
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

"Real-time UDP/GELF logging and full text-based searching."
"Graylog is very handy."
"Graylog is valuable because it bridges technical knowledge to non-technical teams, presenting complex backend processes in a simple timeline."
"The Graylog features that have proven to be most beneficial for our data analysis in particular are that we tend to use it as a big data store, so we have the correlation rules that, if something matches under certain conditions, it raises an alarm."
"It is used as a log manager/SIEM. It provides visibility into the infrastructure and security related events."
"UDP is a fast and lightweight protocol, perfect for sending large volumes of logs with minimal overhead."
"Allowing us to set up alerts and integrate with platforms we already use, such as Slack and OpsGenie to alert users of these errors proactively, is also a very useful feature."
"It has data adapters and lookup tables that utilize HTTP calls to APIs."
"Splunk is extremely flexible, which allows us to create custom visualizations along with other customizations."
"Splunk incorporates a lot of elements that help to reduce security risks. For it to reach certain compliance, we need to have some security insight. Splunk is a very good SIEM, it’s a top solution, but the best feature is its cost of visibility. We have all the most important features to detect vulnerabilities or risks."
"It definitely does help with both auditing and as well as regular monitoring. SOC does more monitoring, but ES also gives you other features that are auditing-related. The dashboards are also beneficial."
"The flexibility of the search capability is most valuable. You can use it for more than just a basic log aggregator. It is powerful in that regard."
"The solution's most valuable features are its ability to transact in the cloud and its ability to onboard data easily with minimum connectors."
"Splunk has facilitated the correlation of information security logs to look for incidents which could cause damage to the company's infrastructure, as well as financial losses from leaks."
"I have found the installation can be of medium difficulty to very complex depending on the use case."
"They are a good partner for Google Cloud. It provides great visibility, threat detection, and proactive mitigation of risks for our mutual consumers."
 

Cons

"When it comes to configuring the processing pipeline, writing the rules can be very tedious, especially since the documentation isn't extensive on how the functions provided for these rules work."
"I would like to see a default dashboard widget that shows the topology of the clusters defined for the graylog install."
"When it comes to configuring the processing pipeline, writing the rules can be very tedious, especially since the documentation isn't extensive on how the functions provided for these rules work."
"With technical support, you are on your own without an enterprise license."
"I would like to see some kind of visualization included in Graylog."
"More customization is always useful."
"Graylog needs to improve their authentication. Also, the fact that Graylog displays logs from the top down is just ridiculous."
"The infrastructure cost is the main issue. I like the rest. If the infrastructure costs could be lower, it would be fantastic."
". Having a trial version or more training on Splunk would be helpful."
"The solution's automation could be improved."
"It needs to improve the way to install third-party apps and enable installation without logging into splunk.com."
"Its user interface for everything other than the charts can be improved. Some parts of it can be simplified a bit, such as when importing documents that have the network traffic. When you're going through the information about the network traffic, you have to have the expertise, but even if a program is supposed to be for IT support, it is good to make it user-friendly because it gets easier to train people. When something goes wrong, the more difficult a program is in terms of UI, the harder it is to fix the issue."
"The product must improve insider threat detection."
"The price of the solution could be cheaper."
"It is a good product, but the Achilles heel for a lot of organizations is the cost model for it because it gets expensive. That's because the model is based on how much data it processes a day, which can be prohibitive, especially if you have a lot of data. A lot of customers may not be ready for the sticker shock on how to fully leverage the product. I realized that the reason for that is that when it was originally designed, it was kind of like a big data modeling application. If they want to have a bigger customer base, they can come out with subsets of their product that are focused on specific things and have different pricing models. It may help with the cost."
"My biggest struggle with Splunk in general is memorizing all the commands. If I want to know which users have logged in between certain hours, I cannot write that query out. It would be helpful to have AI so that I can explain in simple terms what I want and then the search gives that back to me. I am waiting for that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am using a community edition. I have not looked at the enterprise offering from Graylog."
"We are using the free version of the product. However, the paid version is expensive."
"Having paid official support is wise for projects."
"​You get a lot out-of-the-box with the non-enterprise version, so give it a try first."
"We're using the Community edition."
"Graylog is a free open-source solution. The free version has a capacity limitation of 2 GB daily, if you want to go above this you have to purchase a license."
"There is an open source version and an enterprise version. I wouldn't recommend the enterprise version, but as an open source solution, it is solid and works really well."
"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."
"It is not cheap."
"While Splunk offers generous developer licenses and obtaining annual licenses is straightforward, the cost is a major consideration."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is expensive."
"Unlike other security tools, Splunk provides a fixed amount of gigabytes per day, and we are required to pay for any additional usage beyond that limit, in addition to our monthly cost."
"The licensing costs are high for Splunk Enterprise Security."
"We have an unlimited one, and we pay yearly, but I don't know how much it costs. Previously, I worked for a startup, and when they started building it up, it was complicated for them because they didn't have the budget for that many licenses. It was very costly for them. So, startups might find it a little bit problematic because of the licensing, but for bigger companies, there is no issue."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is an expensive solution."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is expensive."
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Comparison Review

VS
Feb 26, 2015
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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
17%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
8%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Graylog?
The product is scalable. The solution is stable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Graylog?
I am not familiar with the pricing details of Graylog, as I was not responsible for that aspect. It was determined that we didn't need an enterprise plan, which is more suited for clients with less...
What needs improvement with Graylog?
An improvement I would suggest is in Graylog's user interface, such as allowing for font size adjustments. A potential enhancement could be the integration with Ollama to run large language models ...
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...
 

Also Known As

Graylog2
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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 Graylog vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.