We compared Splunk Enterprise Security and ArcSight ESM across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Splunk Enterprise Security stands out for its efficiency, extensive integration options, and powerful search functionality. Users say Splunk is a highly scalable and customizable solution. ArcSight ESM is praised for its well-designed dashboard, real-time reporting, and threat intelligence capabilities that leverage AI and correlation tools.
Room for Improvement: Splunk users recommended improvements in AI capabilities, user-friendliness, and analytics. ArcSight ESM users have recommended improvements in training, speed, and data administration.
Service and Support: While some users found Splunk support to be responsive and helpful, others reported slow response times and a lack of expertise. Some ArcSight ESM users have found the support to be responsive and helpful, while others have faced issues with slow response times and a lack of expertise.
Ease of Deployment: Some users thought Splunk Enterprise Security was easy to deploy, while others found it challenging and needed assistance from Splunk engineers or third-party integrators. Some said that ArcSight ESM is straightforward to set up, while others noted that integration with other systems can be challenging and requires specialized knowledge.
Pricing: Some users consider Splunk Enterprise Security to be expensive, but others said the price is reasonable. A few users expressed concerns about the cost of scaling up the solution and managing large volumes of data. Users consider the pricing of ArcSight ESM to be reasonable and affordable.
ROI: Users said that it’s challenging to calculate an ROI for Splunk Enterprise Security, and the return varies depending on individual circumstances. While some users have observed a substantial ROI, others have not actively explored or been engaged in ROI conversations. Splunk Enterprise Security offers varying ROI outcomes based on different situations, with certain users achieving significant returns. ArcSight ESM delivers an ROI by helping clients achieve compliance objectives and prevent incidents.
Comparison Results: Splunk is highly regarded for its efficient data processing and powerful search features, but users suggested improvements to its AI capabilities and analytics. ArcSight ESM offers robust threat intelligence and real-time reporting but falls short in terms of data administration and speed.
"Having your logs put all in one place with machine learning working on those logs is a good feature. I don't need to start thinking, "Where are my logs?" My logs are in a centralized repository, like Log Analytics, which is why you can't use Sentinel without Log Analytics. Having all those logs in one place is an advantage."
"The SOAR playbooks are Sentinel's most valuable feature. It gives you a unified toolset for detecting, investigating, and responding to incidents. That's what clearly differentiates Sentinels from its competitors. It's cloud-native, offering end-to-end coverage with more than 120 connectors. All types of data logs can be poured into the system so analysis can happen. That end-to-end visibility gives it the advantage."
"The ability of all these solutions to work together natively is essential. We have an Azure subscription, including Log Analytics. This feature automatically acts as one of the security baselines and detects recommendations because it also integrates with Defender. We can pull the sysadmin logs from Azure. It's all seamless and native."
"The automation rules and playbooks are the most useful that I've seen. A number of other places segregate the automation and playbook as separate tools, whereas Microsoft is a SIEM and SOAR tool in one."
"The dashboard that allows me to view all the incidents is the most valuable feature."
"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."
"Microsoft Sentinel enables you to ingest data from the entire ecosystem and that connection of data helps you to monitor critical resources and to know what's happening in the environment."
"The machine learning and artificial intelligence on offer are great."
"Very good real-time reporting with a good dashboard."
"The feature that I have found the most useful is that it can be deployed to the cloud."
"When WannaCry attacks I can minimize the damage. My company had no protection at the time. We get alerts in ArcSight and then whenever a user got a copy of WannaCry and the WannaCry malware wants to connect to the mother ship, it alerts me in the ArcSight dashboard, and that helps us a lot. We then just go to the user and erase the malware."
"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."
"The solution has gone beyond signature-based monitoring and analysis and is AI-powered. It is good enough to cover the full range of cybersecurity services."
"The filters and the ability to do what you want are the most valuable features. There is nothing that you cannot do in this solution. It has all the features, which makes it very dynamic."
"It makes maintenance very easy."
"The stability of ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager is good."
"Splunk provides immediate visibility into key business metrics and new business insights that deliver immediate value."
"Its dashboard is valuable. If you have a good knowledge of how to create a dashboard, you can create any dashboard related to cybersecurity. If fine-tuned, the alarms that are triggered for instant review are also very valuable and useful."
"Splunk can extract all kinds of data. There's no limitation on what kind of structured and unstructured data one needs to extract — it can access any kind of data, including machine-generated data."
"To get visibility from your network devices, servers, and security devices is a great feature."
"The solution has made us more secure."
"Splunk setup is easy and straightforward. "
"The ability to manipulate data in Splunk is unparalleled. Splunk’s powerful, flexible query language can morph difficult to understand log formats into usable data."
"It has the ability to correlate data, analyze and review it."
"Improvement-wise, I would like to see more integration with third-party solutions or old-school antivirus products that have some kind of logging capability. I wouldn't mind having that exposed within Sentinel. We do have situations where certain companies have bought licensing or have made an investment in a product, and that product will be there for the next two or three years. To be able to view information from those legacy products would be great. We can then better leverage the Sentinel solution and its capabilities."
"The only thing is sometimes you can have a false positive."
"Sentinel provides decent visibility, but it's sometimes a little cumbersome to get to the information I want because there is so much information. I would also like to see more seamless integration between Sentinel and third-party security products."
"While I appreciate the UI itself and the vast amount of information available on the platform, I'm finding the overall user experience to be frustrating due to frequent disconnections and the requirement to repeatedly re-authenticate."
"For certain vendors, some of the data that Microsoft Sentinel captures is redacted due to privacy reasons."
"Sentinel can be used in two ways. With other tools like QRadar, I don't need to run queries. Using Sentinel requires users to learn KQL to run technical queries and check things. If they don't know KQL, they can't fully utilize the solution."
"I would like to see more AI used in processes."
"The built-in SOAR is not really good out-of-the-box. The SOAR relies on logic apps and you almost need to have some kind of developer background to be able to make these logic apps. Most security people cannot develop anything..."
"The initial setup could be more straightforward."
"Could benefit from a more modern interface."
"The solution could be more stable."
"Its search part can be improved. When I go to the console and search for a few logs or something else, it takes a lot of time. When I try to search for three days or one week, it takes too much time. This is a major area of improvement. I wanted them to include features like SOAR, threat intelligence, and automation, and they seem to have included all these features in version 7.3 or 7.4."
"The biggest requirement is that there is no cloud solution for this product yet. They need to create a cloud version. It's the biggest thing they can do to make the solution better."
"Currently lacks SOAR feature."
"It would be nice if the interface were more user-friendly, with, for example, a minimal number of tabs to navigate."
"In other products, I have found that they use some kind of GUI that is drag and drop. While in ArcSight they use still scripting. They should keep scripting because some people prefer scripting but they should have the option for those who prefer using drag and drop."
"We'd like Splunk to reduce false positives."
"We are waiting for Dashboard Studio to mature a little bit more. There are some things that we are using with Classic Dashboards which have not yet made it to Dashboard Studio. We are waiting for that."
"The Web Application Firewall will send you too much information because it's more dedicated to security than a normal firewall."
"The UI could be better. This is applicable to Splunk in general. I know that a lot of people who get their hands on Splunk are hesitant to use it just because they find it overwhelming. There are a lot of options."
"Its pricing is extremely high. There are other tools out in the market that are competitive. They do not necessarily have all the functionality, but they are competitive. The professional services we have used have been high as well in comparison to the market."
"The setup time is quite long."
"You do need a lot of training and certification with this product."
"Queries are not always as easy or straightforward as they might be, so it can be difficult to figure out what you need to look for."
More ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) Pricing and Cost Advice →
ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is ranked 12th in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 93 reviews while Splunk Enterprise Security is ranked 2nd in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 228 reviews. ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is rated 7.8, while Splunk Enterprise Security is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) writes "Allows for monitoring logs according to industry standards within ESM but has a total capacity capped at 12 TB, limiting real-time data retention periods". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Splunk Enterprise Security writes "It has a drag-and-drop interface, so you don't need to know SQL or Java to construct a query ". ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is most compared with ArcSight Intelligence, Trellix ESM, IBM Security QRadar, AWS Security Hub and LogRhythm SIEM, whereas Splunk Enterprise Security is most compared with Wazuh, Dynatrace, IBM Security QRadar, Elastic Security and Azure Monitor. See our ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) vs. Splunk Enterprise Security report.
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