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Microsoft Sentinel vs SolarWinds Security Event Manager comparison

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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)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (5th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (5th)
SolarWinds Security Event M...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
38th
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 November 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Sentinel is 3.5%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Sentinel3.5%
SolarWinds Security Event Manager1.1%
Other95.4%
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.
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

"There are a lot of things you can explore as a user. You can even go and actively hunt for threats. You can go on the offensive rather than on the defensive."
"We have seen at least a 60% increase in efficiency with Microsoft Sentinel and the ability to reduce the MTTD down to under five minutes and MTTR down to under fifteen."
"Sentinel is a SIEM and SOAR tool, so its automation is the best feature; we can reduce human interaction, freeing up our human resources."
"We didn't have anything similar, so it really provides value from the incidents and automation point of view, and the overview of the security fabric is most valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the alert notifications, which are categorized by severity levels: informational, low, medium, and high."
"Microsoft Sentinel stands out mainly for its signal-to-noise reduction; LogRhythm required numerous AI rules to reach a similar level of noise reduction."
"The product can integrate with any device."
"The main benefit is that as companies migrate their systems and services into the Cloud, especially if they're migrating into Azure, they've got a native SIEM available to them immediately."
"This tool is simple to use."
"The graphical user interface is very user-friendly. SolarWinds is a hybrid solution so you can use it across many platforms."
"SolarWinds' stability is fine. I don't think we've had any software issues."
"Technical support for this solution is good."
"The pricing was low, around 30K so ROI is less than one year."
"If you have no monitoring tool in place, SolarWinds SIEM is a good place to start and very inexpensive."
"The product's most effective part in improving security stems from the fact that the solution is deployed for event management, log viewing, and information management."
"It has in-depth monitoring capabilities and an easy way for setting up dashboards."
 

Cons

"However, I do have challenges with KQL, and I believe they could work on making the language more user-friendly."
"Its documentation is not so simple. It is easy for somebody who is Microsoft certified or more closely attached to Microsoft solutions. It is not easy for those who are working on open-source platforms. There isn't a central point where everything is documented, and there is no specific training or certification."
"Everyone has their favorites. There is always room for improvement, and everybody will say, "I wish you could do this for me or that for me." It is a personal thing based on how you use the tool. I do not necessarily have those thoughts, and they are probably not really valuable because they are unique to the context of the user, but broadly, where it can continue to improve is by adding more connectors to more systems."
"Depending on when Microsoft releases the updates, it can be challenging, but they usually notify us ahead of time."
"In terms of features I would like to see in future releases, I'm interested in a few more use cases around automation. I do believe a lot of automation is available, and more is in progress, but that would be my area of interest."
"The learning curve could be improved. I am still learning it. We were able to implement the basic features to get them up and running, but there are still so many things that I don't know about all its features. They have a lot of features that we have not been able to use or apply. If they could work on reducing the solution's learning curve, that would be good. While there is a training course held by Microsoft to learn more about this solution, there is a cost associated with it."
"We'd like to see more connectors."
"Multi-tenancy, in my opinion, needs to be improved. I believe it can do better as a managed service provider."
"The product should improve the ease with which you can create event alerts. They are not as hard now but you need to have an easier way."
"I would like to be able to dig deeper into the visibility of events or incidents to determine whether they are malicious, such as by doing behavior analysis."
"It can be difficult for users who are inexperienced with the solution."
"SolarWinds should improve its correlation capabilities. The correlation does not automatically detect and reduce the events fast enough. You have to manually do a correlation report, which means the tool is not scalable in many ways."
"It takes a long time to perform a root cause analysis."
"I imagine we will have to develop our own reports soon, this seems to be more cumbersome."
"The solution's technical support is okay, but we don't have an SLA, and sometimes the response times are very slow."
"Not very scalable in my opinion. That's why I'm investigating new SIEM replacement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'm not happy with the pricing on the integration with Defender for Endpoint. Defender for Endpoint is log-rich. There is a lot of information coming through, and it is needed information. The price point at which you ingest those logs has made a lot of my customers make the decision to leave that within the Defender stack."
"There are no additional costs other than the initial costs of Sentinel."
"Microsoft Sentinel requires an E5 license."
"Sentinel is pretty competitive. The pricing is at the level of other SIEM solutions."
"The pay-as-you-go model is beneficial to customers."
"The pricing is based on how much you ingest, so it's pretty straightforward. There are no tiers, and you pay for what you use unlike with other types of SIEM solutions that are usually based on tiers."
"Some of the licensing models can be a little bit difficult to understand and confusing at times, but overall it's a reasonable licensing model compared to some other SIEMs that charge you a lot per data."
"It is a consumption-based license model. bands at 100, 200, 400 GB per day etc. Azure Sentinel Pricing | Microsoft Azure"
"The pricing model would benefit from having package deals with other SolarWinds products."
"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."
"Licenses can only be purchased in blocks of fifty at a time."
"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."
"Licensing is on devices, so if you have many, then this may be high."
"We do a yearly license renewal. For a year, the solution costs roughly $500,000 USD. There are no costs beyond this yearly fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise47
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

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 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...
What advice do you have for others considering SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
I am still dealing with SolarWinds products and use most of their solutions. User-friendly configuration is key, and the configurations are simple, not complex. The only important part is what we d...
 

Also Known As

Azure Sentinel
SolarWinds LEM, Solarwinds SIEM, TriGeo, Log and Event Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
NetSuite, EasyStreet, Legacy Texas Bank, and Energy Federal Credit Union, to name a few.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Sentinel vs. SolarWinds Security Event Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.