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SolarWinds Security Event Manager vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 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

SolarWinds Security Event M...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
24th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
369
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (2nd), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 9.2%, down from 11.2% 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 (%)
Splunk Enterprise Security9.2%
SolarWinds Security Event Manager0.7%
Other90.1%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Yashokanth Partkunan - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Kyle Vernham - PeerSpot reviewer
Built-in searches and unified data access streamline alert investigation and boosts analyst efficiency
The two features I appreciate the most in Splunk Enterprise Security are the built-in searches, which have been very easy for us to get started with right out of the box, and the fact that it accesses all of our other systems. You can access it as a pane of glass rather than having to search individually. We also have the option to compare our analysts from our service to service. Splunk Enterprise Security helps our SOC team prioritize and investigate high-fidelity alerts more effectively by providing a more in-depth look and the ability to access a lot more of our data. Instead of jumping from several segmented systems, it allows us to have everything brought together in one place. For example, you have to move from our purview to our build system and to Splunk Enterprise Security, and it enables us to streamline that process. The built-in features of Splunk Enterprise Security, which we recently procured, have given us a good starting point and demonstrated the value of the product, providing an easy way to sell it to our company. The ease of getting everything into our purview helps us, and it serves as a good start for the investigation part in one location rather than what we usually have, which is jumping from system to system to system. Splunk Enterprise Security plays a role in our company's strategy to combat insider threats and advanced persistent threats by currently being in its technical test phase. We are still rolling it out, and it should help us find any insider threats based on information that our policy states should not be present in our system. Splunk Enterprise Security's risk-based alerting (RBA) has impacted our alert volume and analyst productivity because we've got many different systems feeding into it. However, it has helped to make it easier for our analysts to go through a set of events rather than 100 alerts. RBA allows us to streamline the process and customize it for our analysts. When it comes to leveraging Splunk Enterprise Security's dashboards and visualizations to communicate security posture to executives, it's pretty straightforward for any type of information. The visualization is easy to understand, but I haven't had any direct conversations with our executives.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution helps me to go back in time and search for different events. For example, if you wanted to know who activated an account; you could go back in time and find out."
"The graphical user interface is very user-friendly. SolarWinds is a hybrid solution so you can use it across many platforms."
"The out of the box reports and dashboard. It was easy to trim down these windows to something we could quickly use."
"It supports high availability, which is very helpful."
"This tool is simple to use."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the visibility into both attempted and failed logins."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is the analysis and the knowledge about the incidence that we trace."
"SolarWinds' stability is fine. I don't think we've had any software issues."
"It helped us consolidate all our solutions into an easy tool to use for various employees."
"Splunk allows us to find insights that we were not able to with traditional BI tools using ETL​. It allows us to dig into raw events."
"We have created a few custom use cases for Splunk that have helped us detect threats faster. For example, we set up endpoint-related data models and specialized setups for various scenarios. It's more efficient than some other products I've used."
"The ability to rapidly diagnose problems in production and non-production, across hundreds of log files, is the most valuable feature."
"I would definitely recommend Splunk Enterprise Security because if you are really concerned about security and want to follow compliance rules, this product is really helpful."
"The risk-based alerting is excellent."
"One key advantage of Splunk over competitors like IBM QRadar is its superior device integration capabilities."
"I have not seen any outages in the product in the past two years that it has been running in our company, so I think it is good when it comes to the stability part."
 

Cons

"I think the customization area in the tool can be considered as an area of concern where improvements are required."
"One of the drawbacks of being so flexible is that it is also a fairly complicated software application to install, configure, and maintain."
"The reporting could be more robust. It can be a lot more granular and that will make it a lot more useful in comparison to how it is incorporated at the moment."
"The solution's technical support is okay, but we don't have an SLA, and sometimes the response times are very slow."
"We have automated threat detection in the Alliance Security, Antoinette. However, if these features could be further enhanced, it would simplify my work, potentially allowing me to allocate more time to address complex issues."
"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."
"It can be difficult for users who are inexperienced with the solution."
"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."
"Splunk should have more regional data centers in the Middle East."
"In terms of the interface, it could include some improvements for the look and feel."
"Splunk Enterprise Security would benefit from a more robust rule engine to reduce false positives."
"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."
"One main change I would suggest is related to the incident board: when an incident is resolved, it should not appear on the incident board. It's just a rare occurrence that we open up the incident."
"The most significant challenges I face when using Splunk Enterprise Security for advanced threat detection are the false positive alerts."
"The CIM model is the method Splunk uses to normalize data and categorize its important parts, but it is quite complex."
"Splunk Enterprise Security can be improved with more ease of configuration. It is pretty straightforward to get it started, however, to really check if my data is all available and how to activate the right use case and the right correlations is still sometimes a hassle."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing model would benefit from having package deals with other SolarWinds products."
"It is in the appropriate mid-range. It is not as expensive as some of the other solutions. It is also not cheap."
"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."
"Licenses can only be purchased in blocks of fifty at a time."
"The price of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is reasonable."
"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."
"The pricing of Splunk Enterprise Security is high."
"While Splunk offers generous developer licenses and obtaining annual licenses is straightforward, the cost is a major consideration."
"We have seen ROI and improvements as we have continued to use the product, but they are more reactive."
"It is quite expensive."
"We have an unlimited one, and we pay yearly, but I don't know how much it costs. Previously, I worked for a startup, and when they started building it up, it was complicated for them because they didn't have the budget for that many licenses. It was very costly for them. So, startups might find it a little bit problematic because of the licensing, but for bigger companies, there is no issue."
"It is expensive. I work for multiple clients. I am working for more than five clients, but most of the clients are switching from Splunk to Sentinel because of the cost. Even though Sentinel is very limited, clients are moving to Sentinel."
"Its price is fair. Like with anything else, if you go into the cloud, different providers cost more, and you are able to throttle back or throttle up. The cost is comparable with anything else."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is expensive but the solution is equipped with a lot of features."
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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
University
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business109
Midsize Enterprise49
Large Enterprise257
 

Questions from the Community

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 ?
I think the customization area in the tool can be considered as an area of concern where improvements are required In the future, I want to see the tool have better customization abilities with som...
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

SolarWinds LEM, Solarwinds SIEM, TriGeo, Log and Event Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NetSuite, EasyStreet, Legacy Texas Bank, and Energy Federal Credit Union, to name a few.
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 SolarWinds Security Event Manager vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.