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Microsoft Sentinel vs NetWitness Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

Microsoft Sentinel
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (6th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (6th)
NetWitness Platform
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
37th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (37th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Sentinel is 4.0%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Sentinel4.0%
NetWitness Platform1.0%
Other95.0%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at HR Software Solution
Centralized monitoring has improved threat response but cost control still needs refinement
Based on real operations used in our corporate IT environment, the key features include log correlation and incident view. Microsoft Sentinel's biggest strength is how it correlates multiple related alerts into a single incident. This significantly reduces alert noise and helps the SOC focus on real threats instead of isolated events. Another valuable feature is KQL-based threat hunting with Kusto Query Language. The flexibility of this language allows us to build custom hunting queries based on our environment's behavior. This is extremely useful for detecting low and slow threats or hidden threats that default rules may miss. Cloud-native scalability and stability is another important feature. Being cloud-native, Microsoft Sentinel scales well for medium to large corporate environments without infrastructure management. Stability has been solid in day-to-day production. SOAR automation using playbooks is a feature we highly recommend. Microsoft Sentinel's SOAR functionality helps automate repetitive SOC tasks like alert enrichment and notification. This saves analyst time and improves response consistency.
reviewer2256927 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Information Security, Cyber Defense and IT Risk Management at HCT. at a transportation company with 201-500 employees
A solid SIEM solution that should improve technical support and online resources to be easier to use
A big problem with the product is that we don't have much professional experience in Israel installing, implementing, and integrating this product. There is not enough of a knowledge base. There is no support for this product in this country, so problems have to be resolved through global technical teams. We like to work locally because of the language, and when the product is only supported outside the country, it's a little difficult to implement and use this product. Moreover, AI is something that must be added immediately. Artificial intelligence is a part of the competitors' products, and it's not been implemented for us.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Sentinel helps us understand the areas that we have to improve and provides information on our current coverage."
"Microsoft Sentinel stands out among SIEM tools for its user-friendliness and powerful built-in query language."
"Sentinel is a Microsoft product, so they provide very robust use cases and analytic groups, which are very beneficial for the security team. I also like the ability to integrate data sources into the software for on-premise and cloud-based solutions."
"I like the KQL query. It simplifies getting data from the table and seeing the logs. All you need to know are the table names. It's quite easy to build use cases by using KQL."
"The SOAR playbooks are Sentinel's most valuable feature. It gives you a unified toolset for detecting, investigating, and responding to incidents. That's what clearly differentiates Sentinels from its competitors. It's cloud-native, offering end-to-end coverage with more than 120 connectors. All types of data logs can be poured into the system so analysis can happen. That end-to-end visibility gives it the advantage."
"The most valuable feature is the onboarding of the workloads. You can see all that has been onboarded in your account on the dashboards."
"The in-built SOAR of Sentinel is valuable. Kusto Query Language is also valuable for the ease of writing queries and ease of getting insights from the logs. Schedule-based queries within Sentinel are also valuable. I found these three features most useful for my projects."
"It's pretty powerful and its performance is pretty good."
"Alerting Module: It provides real-time event processing language on all the logs/packets stream for advanced alerting, i.e., using SQL LIKE statements."
"Technical support is very good; they try to resolve issues with the proper SLAs which are defined by them and they understand the client's requirements as well as the client's infrastructure in a better manner."
"Stability has not been an issue with this product."
"Technically speaking, this is a good product."
"The most valuable features are its ingestion of logs and raising of alerts based on those logs."
"Their technical support responds quickly and are knowledgable."
"Performance and reporting are very good."
"NetWitness Platform is valuable for creating rules that the solution must detect."
 

Cons

"Sentinel still has some anomalies. For example, sometimes when we write a query for log analysis with KQL, it doesn't give us the data in a proper way... Also, the fields or columns could be improved. Sometimes, it is not giving the desired results and there is a blank field."
"One key area that can be improved is by building a strong integration with our XDR platform."
"We have experienced some performance problems in the UK and, when we transferred to a different region, we lost some of our workspaces, which was shocking; if Microsoft needs to failover to another region, the customer should be informed because it affects many things."
"The pricing tiers of Microsoft Sentinel should be improved. There are complexities in calculating the right pricing tier for different customers, which makes it difficult for me as a consultant during upfront pricing."
"While I appreciate the UI itself and the vast amount of information available on the platform, I'm finding the overall user experience to be frustrating due to frequent disconnections and the requirement to repeatedly re-authenticate."
"Driving deeper integration with the Defender XDR portal within Microsoft Sentinel, which is being done, and continuing to increase the number of third-party data connectors available is important."
"The solution should allow for a streamlined CI/CD procedure."
"Sometimes, it is hard for us to estimate the costs of Microsoft Sentinel."
"RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets is far behind the competition."
"If we have the ability to run a dynamic analysis through malware in the same suite, it would be great to have a sandbox solution to analyze malware through dynamic analysis."
"I believe that integrating the solution with other products such as Oracle would be beneficial."
"It should have a monitoring feature. It would help us analyze the current state of attacks faster from a single platform."
"Advance monitoring and alerting feature is not stable (Event Stream Analysis)."
"RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets can improve the threat level aspect, it is lacking compared to other solutions."
"Health monitoring of the event sources and devices."
"The tool's integration capability isn't so great."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The current licensing is based on the logs that are being ingested on the platform. Most of the SIEM solutions utilize that pricing model, but Microsoft should give us a customization option for controlling the kind of logs that we feed into Microsoft Sentinel. That will be much better. Otherwise, the pricing is a bit higher."
"Microsoft Sentinel is pretty expensive, and they recently announced that they will increase the price of all Microsoft services running in Azure by 11 percent. Luckily, I'm not responsible for the financial side. For one of my clients, the estimated cost is 880,000 euros for one year. There are additional costs for the service agreement."
"Microsoft can enhance the licensing side. I feel there is confusion sometimes... They should have a single license in which we have the opportunity to use the EDR or CASB solution."
"Sentinel can be expensive. When you ingest data from sources that are outside of the cloud, you're paying a fair amount for that data ingestion. When you're ingesting data sources from within the cloud, depending on what your retention periods are, it's not that expensive."
"I am not involved on the financial side, but from an enterprise-wide use perspective, I think the price is good enough."
"The pricing is fair... With a traditional SIEM, you pay a lump sum for licenses. But with Sentinel, it's pay-as-you-go according to the amount of data you inject."
"Good monthly operational cost model for the detection and response outcomes delivered, M365 logs don't count toward the limits which is a good benefit."
"It comes with a Microsoft subscription which the customer has, so they don't have to invest somewhere else."
"It is cheap."
"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."
"The NetWitness Platform may be affordable only for enterprise-level customers, as it may not be within the budget of small and medium-sized businesses."
"Many clients are not able to purchase the packet capability because there is a huge amount of data, and the cost depends on the number of EPS (Events per second), as well as the number of gigabytes of data per day."
"We have yearly licensing costs. The license fee can be based on the volume of EPS. Some organizations may have, as a gentlemanly gesture, 10,000 EPS and get a 3,000 EPS license but actually use 5,000 EPS."
"We have a perpetual license, so the total cost of ownership is not very expensive. It's a good investment."
"Our license is for one year."
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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
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise46
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

Is there a common threat intelligence tool that aggregates multiple threat intelligence sources?
Yes, Azure Sentinel is a SIEM on the Cloud. Multiple data sources can be uploaded and analyzed with Azure Sentinel and its Threat Hunting functionality with AI available as templates or customized ...
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 ...
Which is better - Azure Sentinel or AWS Security Hub?
We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel is auto-scaling - you will not have to worry about performance impact, you will...
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.
What is your primary use case for NetWitness Platform?
I use NetWitness Platform ( /products/netwitness-platform-reviews ) in the financial industry as a good product with excellent capabilities and integration with various devices.
 

Also Known As

Azure Sentinel
RSA Security Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Sentinel vs. NetWitness Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.