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NetWitness Platform 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

NetWitness Platform
Ranking in Log Management
22nd
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
22nd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Log Management
2nd
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
305
Ranking in other categories
IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 0.6%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 9.5%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

MdZaman - PeerSpot reviewer
Really scalable for enterprise customers
The solution should have more integration capabilities with different platforms. The API is nearly open and scalable, so the solution can integrate with many platforms. The solution has more than 200 log sources in the scalability to support, but this is its limit. Installation is pretty easy. However, there are a couple of modules involved, so it is not as easy as it could be. We are talking about a distributed module, not a single-module type. This is what makes things a bit complex, instead of easier. I rate it as a seven out of ten on its installation and configuration capabilities.
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

"Performance and reporting are very good."
"The most valuable features are the integration and ease of use."
"The most valuable features are the threat prediction and network forensics."
"The most valuable feature is the correlation. It can report in real-time and monitor the management."
"NetWitness can be highly beneficial for incident detection and response."
"The most valuable features are its ingestion of logs and raising of alerts based on those logs."
"The development of use cases on the SSA console is quite user friendly. This means that the security analyst or the researcher does not have to learn another language."
"The software is scalable to whatever is required, and you can also put a lot of resources in the cloud."
"Deployment server for deploying changes in one go."
"It gives me notifications of notable events."
"The solution is the market leader."
"This is a straightforward solution, easy to configure."
"It is a one stop shop as a full monitoring and alerting solution for operations and application analysis for most of our back-end systems."
"Splunk Enterprise Security enhances business resilience and assists with threat detection by centralizing security data."
"We solve issues that we previously could not since we now have the data."
"The metrics and trends that Splunk Enterprise Security generates using all the data points we send allow customers to understand better what their users are doing."
 

Cons

"More customizability is required, which is something that they need to improve on."
"The initial setup is complex. There are other solutions that are easier to implement."
"The multi-tenant capabilities are lagging compared to IBM QRadar."
"There is no support for this product in this country, so problems have to be resolved through global technical teams."
"The initial setup was complex because it takes a lot of time to complete the implementation."
"The system looks like it is a mix of a bunch of different systems, and nothing looked like it was quite together."
"Its technical support could be better."
"We have encountered issues with unresolved crashes."
"One issue is that we are getting a lot of false positives. We are trying to reduce them by customizing the default rules, changing thresholds, and using white-listing and black-listing. It's getting better and better as a result. But they need to build components that would reduce the false positives."
"Splunk Enterprise Security can provide more details and help CISOs resolve vulnerability situations better. The reason is that the tools we choose for data analysis and log collection cannot collect all the data and logs. Splunk Enterprise Security should help me with this, but it cannot."
"The product could be cheaper."
"I would like Splunk to add more integration. QRadar has many indications with more products than Splunk."
"It needs to improve the way to install third-party apps and enable installation without logging into splunk.com."
"If possible, we would like to have not only a log monitoring system but a network monitoring feature in this solution as well."
"Its reporting can be improved. That's the only complaint I have heard. I don't need the reporting part, but I know that other people in the organization need it."
"It currently has limited default rules and customizations. If they can concentrate more on the compliance part and the security information part, it would be helpful. The platform part is good, but it requires many features from the security aspect."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is very expensive, so I rate the pricing a ten out of ten. The solution has an annual subscription."
"Our license is for one year."
"It provides tools to assist in selecting the appropriate license and usage scenarios."
"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."
"The new pricing and licensing mechanisms are fair. I would advise always to get the full solution (i.e., not only Logs)."
"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."
"Compared to the competition, the is price is not that high."
"It can be cost-prohibitive when you start to scale and have terabytes of data. Its cost model is based on how much data it processes a day. If they're able to create scaled-down niche or custom package offerings, it may help with the cost. Instead of the full-blown features, if they can narrow the scope where it can only be used for a specific purpose, it would kind of create that market for the product, and it may help with the costing. When you start using it as a central aggregator and you're pumping tons of logs at it, pretty soon, you'll start hitting your cap on what it can process a day. Once you've got that, you're kind of defeating the purpose because you're going to have to scale back."
"The licensing costs are high for Splunk Enterprise Security."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is expensive."
"In addition to the licensing fee, there is also a support and maintenance charge."
"It is not cheap."
"The price of Splunk is too high for our market."
"The price can always be lower, but it is fair at the moment. The cost efficiencies depend on the licensing and how much data we are bringing in. We have a fairly large footprint, so it is cost-effective."
"It is pretty straightforward and based on the sizing. If I compare it with other competitors, it makes sense."
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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
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
6%
Insurance Company
6%
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 NetWitness Platform?
The product's initial setup phase was not at all difficult.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetWitness Platform?
The product price was reasonable for my region and the market.
What needs improvement with NetWitness Platform?
From an improvement perspective, the NetWitness Platform needs to release new features and improve in areas like log correlation. The tool needs to have easier integrations with the cloud. Building...
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

RSA Security Analytics
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
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 NetWitness Platform vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.