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OpenText Enterprise Security Manager vs SolarWinds Security Event Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 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

OpenText Enterprise Securit...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Security Event M...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
37th
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 January 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of OpenText Enterprise Security Manager is 1.6%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 0.8%, up from 0.6% 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 (%)
OpenText Enterprise Security Manager1.6%
SolarWinds Security Event Manager0.8%
Other97.6%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

NM
Senior Security Engineer at Valuepoint Systems
Interpreting data effectively despite challenges in integration and support
If someone lacks the budget for a new SIEM tool with advanced capabilities, I would recommend ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM). However, if they have the budget, I would suggest looking into other options. Overall, I would give ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) a rating of seven out of ten.
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

"I think that the overall experience with this solution is good, but in particular, I think that the dashboards are quite interactive."
"The stability of ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager is good."
"Customization. ArcSight gives you a platform to on-board out-of-the-box devices with a more accurate way of collecting desired logs/events."
"The most valuable feature of ArcSight ESM is its ease of use."
"It gives better overall visibility. Before, we didn't have a unified system for managing security alerts. ArcSight introduced various alerts, giving us a better visibility of potential problems."
"I really like the correlation part and the way the logs are correlated. I have never faced issues with parsing in this product. I like the way it parses, and everything is so clear to me."
"ESM has valuable features for event prediction and security analysis."
"The most useful features are directories, price, and live reporting."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the visibility into both attempted and failed logins."
"User-friendly configuration is key, and the configurations are simple, not complex."
"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's easy to build rules and actions based on the logs and event types we collect with the software."
"The solution helps you monitor database instances, application instances, other customer application things, Linux servers, IBM servers, and Oracle servers."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use for the end user."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is the analysis and the knowledge about the incidence that we trace."
"SolarWinds is effective for server, network, and log monitoring. It's also good for IP address management. We also have a patch manager, but we're still working on getting that operational."
 

Cons

"The stability isn't quite perfect. We occasionally run into problems."
"I faced some problems implementing certain attacks, which was my biggest concern. The visualization wasn't very good, and I couldn't create good monitoring dashboards."
"Currently lacks SOAR feature."
"ArcSight ESM needs to improve performance, user interface, and automation."
"ArcSight is incredibly complex when configuring and deploying, and if your organization doesn't know what they want and what they need, ArcSight will be a challenge for them."
"The stability of ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is not very robust."
"When I asked our networking juniors for a comparison between LogRhythm and ArcSight, they said that both platforms are almost the same. It is just that LogRhythm is more modern with a digital platform, which probably gives it some advantage over ArcSight. ArcSight is a very old and mature product that is running on an old platform. It is an old legacy platform. In terms of new features, it just requires platform upgrades so that it becomes lighter and easily adaptable, specifically in the cloud. It would be a good thing if they can also make reporting easier."
"Deployment typology could be improved. Difficult to scale across all the different lines of businesses."
"I don't think SolarWinds is scalable enough. It is somewhat limited when I need to deploy it across multiple environments in a distributed architecture."
"The only issue is the pricetag. SolarWinds is a costly solution."
"It is a very technical program. They can simplify it so that it isn't so hard to deal with."
"I think the customization area in the tool can be considered as an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Training for this solution needs to be improved, as new employees are sometimes unfamiliar with the product."
"There are no multiple dashboards which would allow you to see information side-by-side."
"It won't tell you when your backups are failing, but it will give you hints when your database is running on full recovery."
"Under the new system, it is not upgradable the way they say. When you try to do an upgrade, it doesn't really work unless you dump everything and start from scratch. You lose a lot of your nodes. Whenever you set your nodes up and everything else, they don't want to bring those nodes back in, so you have to really go back and restructure all your nodes. I went from version 6.5 to version 6.6 and then to version 6.7. I then went to version 2019, and now it is version 2020. It would be good if we can upgrade without having to delete everything and start from scratch. They can maybe build more KPIs and other things for the dashboard. Some of the other systems already have built-in KPIs. SolarWinds is starting to catch up, but it is not there yet. They can include some of the business or industry standards for tracking the time, that is, the meantime to detect (MTTD) and the meantime to resolve (MTTR). They can also find a way to build a KPI that measures the number of instances of port scans experienced in a week or a month."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing model is expensive compared to open-source alternatives."
"The licensing cost is affordable if you get an enterprise license. The licensing is based on EPS, so you can probably provide a package of license for multiple ESMs with their correlational end fees. It is cost-effective."
"The cost of the solution is not very high, although hiring a qualified analyst to work with the product is expensive."
"Pricing is good, I'd rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being low price. It's better than Splunk and IBM QRadar because their pricing is based on EPS."
"ArcSight can be a little bit expensive because of the area that we work in and the cost. Licensing is mostly on a yearly basis, not monthly."
"The product licenses are inexpensive."
"Customers without a ton of resources to dedicate to deployment may be better served by a managed ArcSight service."
"​It is best to be an institutional buyer and directly contact the sales team, as they can provide over-the-top discounts for bulk orders.​"
"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."
"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."
"We do a yearly license renewal. For a year, the solution costs roughly $500,000 USD. There are no costs beyond this yearly fee."
"Licensing is on devices, so if you have many, then this may be high."
"Licenses can only be purchased in blocks of fifty at a time."
"The pricing model would benefit from having package deals with other SolarWinds products."
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Comparison Review

VS
Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Jun 28, 2015
Qradar vs. ArcSight
Continuing with the SIEM posts we have done at Infosecnirvana, this post is a Head to head comparison of the two Industry leading SIEM products in the market – HP ArcSight and IBM QRadar Both the products have consistently been in the Gartner Leaders Quadrant. Both HP and IBM took over niche SIEM…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Performing Arts
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
University
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Performing Arts
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise57
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best SIEM tool for a mid-sized financial services firm: Arcsight or Securonix?
In my market, a lot of financial companies had or have an ArcSight installation. Just because in former times it was pretty good. Now a lot of them are looking for a more effective solution due to ...
What do you like most about ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM)?
We utilize ArcSight ESM for real-time threat detection in our organization. We have custom rules that we've developed on top of the WAN services, along with scheduled licensing activities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM)?
ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is very cheap compared to other tools. It is worth the investment if you are considering the cost.
What do you like most about SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
The solution helps you monitor database instances, application instances, other customer application things, Linux servers, IBM servers, and Oracle servers.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
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.
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...
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus ArcSight, HPE ArcSight, ArcSight
SolarWinds LEM, Solarwinds SIEM, TriGeo, Log and Event Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lake Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bank AlJazira, Banca Intesa, and Obrela.
NetSuite, EasyStreet, Legacy Texas Bank, and Energy Federal Credit Union, to name a few.
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText Enterprise Security Manager vs. SolarWinds Security Event Manager and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.