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Microsoft Sentinel vs Netwrix Auditor 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

Microsoft Sentinel
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (6th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (5th)
Netwrix Auditor
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
28th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
GRC (11th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (15th), Active Directory Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Sentinel is 4.8%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Netwrix Auditor is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Sentinel4.8%
Netwrix Auditor0.7%
Other94.5%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
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.
RishiPandit - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead - Technical Services at Impetus
Optimizing time and effort through comprehensive auditing features
Netwrix Auditor doesn't have many competitors at the level in which it is placed. All other companies provide auditing solutions but not up to the feature list; it is very broad and robust. The best features include flexibility to interact directly with MS-SQL. Real-time alerts help identify potential security threats. The ability to streamline audits with insights into configuration states is helpful, as the access reviews and audit reports are really insightful. This is a good tool. The search functionality is available, but comparative to other vendors, this is a bit slower. Reports are effective; the compliance reports and all the reports are very insightful. That is good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The connectivity and analytics are great."
"We can use Sentinel's playbook to block threats. It covers all of the environment, giving us great visibility."
"Custom workbooks are valuable. It is one of the crucial points in dealing with potential security threats in an automated way without requiring too much manpower."
"Azure Application Gateway makes things a lot easier. You can create dashboards, alert rules, hunting and custom queries, and functions with it."
"The UI of Sentinel is very good and easy to use, even for beginners."
"The most valuable feature is the alert notifications, which are categorized by severity levels: informational, low, medium, and high."
"I've worked on most of the top SIEM solutions, and Sentinel has an edge in most areas. For example, it has built-in SOAR capabilities, allowing you to run playbooks automatically. Other vendors typically offer SOAR as a separate licensed solution or module, but you get it free with Sentinel. In-depth incident integration is available out of the box."
"It has basic out-of-the-box integrations with multiple log sources."
"What I find the most valuable about Netwrix Auditor is the way it shows risk. The reports are very clear."
"The most valuable features of Netwrix Auditor are its affordability compared to similar products and its comprehensive monitoring of admin activities."
"The most valuable feature is the real-time monitoring."
"Netwrix provides features that no other solution on the market does."
"I have found user behavior analysis and the ability to run risk assessments important features. Additionally, the interface and online documentation are very good."
"It maintains audit logs for the duration of time that you wish, as long as you have the storage capacity to do so."
"I am impressed with the tool's reporting feature and notifications."
"Netwrix Auditor doesn't have many competitors at the level in which it is placed; all other companies provide auditing solutions but not up to the feature list—it is very broad and robust."
 

Cons

"We'd like to see more connectors."
"Microsoft Sentinel's search efficiency can be improved, especially for queries spanning large datasets or long timeframes like 90 days compared to competitors like Splunk."
"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."
"We have been working with multiple customers, and every time we onboard a customer, we are missing an essential feature that surprisingly doesn't exist in Sentinel. We searched the forums and knowledge bases but couldn't find a solution. When you onboard new customers, you need to enable the data connectors. That part is easy, but you must create rules from scratch for every associated connector. You click "next," "next," "next," and it requires five clicks for each analytical rule. Imagine we have a customer with 150 rules."
"I would like Sentinel to have more out-of-the-box analytics rules. There are already more than 400 rules, but they could add more industry-specific ones. For example, you could have sets of out-of-the-box rules for banking, financial sector, insurance, automotive, etc., so it's easier for people to use it out of the box. Structuring the rules according to industry might help us."
"Our SIEM is only as good as the information we are ingesting. We are all human and we forget to ingest things."
"We do have in-built or out-of-the-box metrics that are shown on the dashboard, but it doesn't give the kind of metrics that we need from our environment whereby we need to check the meantime to detect and meantime to resolve an incident. I have to do it manually. I have to pull all the logs or all the alerts that are fed into Sentinel over a certain period. We do this on a monthly basis, so I go into Microsoft Sentinel and pull all the alerts or incidents we closed over a period of thirty days."
"When compared to other industry standard SIEM solutions like Splunk or Palo Alto, Microsoft Sentinel can improve a lot."
"I expect usability features to become more refined over time. I'm interested to see how it evolves and continues to improve."
"There is room for improvements when it comes to the licensing."
"There is room for improvement with the introduction of AI functionality."
"An improvement would be if there was an another way to manage the logs besides email because it's not so practical."
"The solution lacks self-service on password reset. It also needs to improve its scalability."
"If you buy direct, there is a minimum of 150 licenses that must be procured. The price point and barrier of entry is a little bit higher than it would be if you purchased the solution from an authorized reseller partner, rather than buying it and managing yourself."
"The Linux compatibility of this solution could be improved."
"When there are issues I would like remediation to be in one place."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Sentinel is costly compared to other solutions, but it's fair. SIEM solutions like CrowdStrike charge based on daily log volume. They generally process a set number of logs for free before they start charging. Microsoft's pricing is clearer. It's free under five gigabytes. Some of these logs we ingest have a cost, so they don't hide it. I believe the tenant pays the price, and Microsoft helps create awareness of the cost."
"Microsoft Sentinel is expensive."
"Pricing is pay-as-you-go with Sentinel, which is good because it all depends on the number of users and the number of devices to which you connect."
"There are no additional costs other than the initial costs of Sentinel."
"For us, it is not expensive at this time, but if we start to collect all logs from our on-premise SIEM solutions, it will cost more than QRadar. If we calculate its cost over the next five or ten years, it will cost more than what we paid for QRadar."
"It's costly to maintain and renew."
"The price is reasonable because Sentinel includes features like user behavior analytics and SOAR that are typically sold separately. Overall, a standalone on-prem solution would require some high-end servers, and there's a different cost. It is a cloud-based solution, so there are backend cloud computing costs, but they are negligible."
"There is a license for this solution and we are on an annual license. The price is reasonable."
"The tool's price is fair."
"This solution is reasonably priced. I would rate it a nine out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise45
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

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 do you like most about Netwrix Auditor?
The most valuable features of Netwrix Auditor are its affordability compared to similar products and its comprehensive monitoring of admin activities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Netwrix Auditor?
I don't know about the pricing of this, but it is good at this price point because our organization has purchased it, which means it was in budget. We usually do not buy expensive solutions, so the...
What needs improvement with Netwrix Auditor?
The areas of improvement include the front end, as the UI should be more intuitive and there should be fewer bugs. In the UI, we have to adjust and resize our console many times, and sometimes it a...
 

Also Known As

Azure Sentinel
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
AT&T, SanDisk, Siemens, Verizon, Electrolux, Allianz, Societe Generale
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Sentinel vs. Netwrix Auditor and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.