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ServiceNow Security Operations vs Splunk Security Essentials comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 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

ServiceNow Security Operations
Ranking in Security Incident Response
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (9th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (11th)
Splunk Security Essentials
Ranking in Security Incident Response
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (15th), IT Alerting and Incident Management (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Security Incident Response category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Security Operations is 8.0%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Security Essentials is 2.9%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Incident Response Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow Security Operations8.0%
Splunk Security Essentials2.9%
Other89.1%
Security Incident Response
 

Featured Reviews

SH
Freelancer at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Gaining unified control over vulnerabilities has improved governance but pricing and support need work
The market price is slightly high. The pricing should be a little lower because this is a SaaS-based product. Everyone using ServiceNow might be getting many modules, but the overall module cost becomes high with license consumption one by one. I personally see that if ServiceNow is to grow over the next decade, they need to work on the pricing part. Cheap providers are emerging, and in the age of AI, it is evident that the chatbot and the virtual agent features, which are prominent features of ServiceNow, could be completely compromised and replaced by people choosing other tools. If ServiceNow develops a strategy to lower the price and increase the customer base, it could help ServiceNow to grow for another decade. I encountered one issue in ServiceNow Security Operations. The different tools, for example, Tenable and TVM, discovered vulnerabilities that had very limited information when imported. However, the same vulnerabilities from different sources, the TVM and Tenable, had shorter descriptions than what was present in the common vulnerabilities or CVE. If this depends on the implementer, such as Tenable or how other security operations implement them, the text was very limited. Customers were asking questions about why this was happening and if ServiceNow was working properly. The vulnerability information should be updated and the common text should be displayed every time, regardless of how many different tools are used for integration. The vulnerability database should be consistent when it comes to the description to avoid confusion for customers implementing it for the first time. This is an improvement that ServiceNow can make.
BM
Information Security Architect at UMMS
Offers a wide range of advanced detection capabilities for identifying suspicious activities
We already talked about Enterprise Security on May 28th.I'm using Splunk Enterprise. We do use SOAR Mission Control, but not AppDynamics or Phantom. We have another freemium app for infrastructure monitoring called ITSI, IT Essentials Work. We also have the ITSI module for virtualization. I would have to rate Splunk Security Essentials a 10 out of 10 because it's free and there's tons of usable content.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"ServiceNow is a convenient platform to raise tickets, and the respective support team will contact us to resolve any issues."
"The "follow" feature is really good. If the user is not responding, there's an option to "follow". Just click on the button, and it will automatically trigger an email to the end user."
"The ease of use is great."
"The SOAR module of ServiceNow Security Operations is the most valuable feature"
"Multiple projects use the ServiceNow tool because it is a low-cost and open-source tool."
"It has helped optimize security costs by consolidating multiple tools into one platform."
"Reduces time to closure and closure metrics for vulnerabilities."
"The solution is stable."
"We are focusing on security to ensure incidents are reported efficiently. In addition to that, for reporting purposes, we are utilizing our dashboards or creating new ones. We will be using free visualization tools for this purpose."
"They have a good catalog of plans to use to resist the attacks."
"The network monitoring feature is particularly valuable for gathering information about users, login times, and other statistics."
"I would have to rate Splunk Security Essentials a 10 out of 10 because it's free and there's tons of usable content."
 

Cons

"Customer awareness and understanding of ServiceNow's SecOps capabilities could be improved."
"There are limitations for the third-parties that are providing the inputs. They should increase the robustness of the solution."
"One area for improvement for the product is the need to tailor and alter some codes for customization, which can cause issues during upgrades. It does not support customized operations."
"​Process framework and best practices for ease of integration between IT and security teams via incident, problem, and change.​"
"It's very slow. When you click a button or update a field, it takes forever to actually react."
"The dashboard and playbook creation will need to improve"
"It is challenging for the customers to understand the processes for SecOps. It needs to be simplified."
"In future releases, I would like to add a follow-up and reminder feature. For the tickets in our queue, we could set reminders. This would help us prioritize older tickets before moving on to new ones."
"The reporting feature needs to be more user-friendly."
"They could add more AI content or AI and machine learning."
"The price could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to competitor tools, ServiceNow Security Operations is more affordable"
"The solution is more expensive than BMC Remedy, the other ITSM tool available in the market."
"This product is a good value for the money."
"It is an expensive product."
"If you're going to implement it on your own, there would be internal costs. If you're going to implement it through a contractor or consultant, you have to pay for that."
"The product is more expensive than other solutions."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ServiceNow Security Operations?
ServiceNow Security Operations is not specifically a vulnerability management or incident tool, but rather a data aggregator. It would be beneficial if, similar to the Discovery module which assess...
What advice do you have for others considering ServiceNow Security Operations?
Initially, acquire basic knowledge about the system and understand how ServiceNow Security Operations operates with other tools. This understanding is essential before starting the implementation p...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Splunk Security Essentials?
Our SecOps manager and CISO were more familiar with Splunk, and the price was right. That was probably the primary driver, and we did evaluation as well with strict criteria and Gartner ratings.
What needs improvement with Splunk Security Essentials?
I have not used Splunk Security Essentials' customizable dashboards. I have not taken advantage of the pre-built security use cases in Splunk.
What is your primary use case for Splunk Security Essentials?
We use Splunk Security Essentials. We have projects, though not many projects per year. The solution is used to resist cyber attacks. They have a good catalog of plans to use to resist the attacks.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

DXC Technology, Freedom Security Alliance, Prime Therapeutics, Seton Hall University, York Risk Services
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow Security Operations vs. Splunk Security Essentials and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.