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.
"I like the KQL query. It simplifies getting data from the table and seeing the logs. All you need to know are the table names. It's quite easy to build use cases by using KQL."
"The main benefit is the ease of integration."
"Another area where it is helping us is in creating a single dashboard for our environment. We can collect all the logs into a log analytics workset and run queries on top of it. We get all the results in the dashboard. Even a layman can understand this stuff. The way Microsoft presents it is really incredible."
"The native integration of the Microsoft security solution has been essential because it helps reduce some false positives, especially with some of the impossible travel rules that may be configured in Microsoft 365. For some organizations, that might be benign because they're using VPNs, etc."
"In Azure Sentinel, we have found, they do have a store in their capability. AI and intelligence features. We found that to be very helpful for us because some other things we do need to integrate again or find another vendor for the store"
"It's pretty powerful and its performance is pretty good."
"The features that stand out are the detection engine and its integration with multiple data sources."
"The most valuable feature is the alert notifications, which are categorized by severity levels: informational, low, medium, and high."
"The tool sends an automated mail to all the operators, which makes it easy to share the information and reporting."
"The real-time analysis adds value."
"Once the rules are defined, it is capable of detecting minute changes in the systems, which are effectively based on the entries in the log."
"The most important feature is ArcSight's event correlation capabilities. It's powerful and easy. I also like the flex connector capability. It's easy to develop a new connector that isn't fully supported out of the box. For example, say you created a solution internally that's completely different, and it's not unsupported by the solution. You can write your own connector using the flex connector."
"It is a very useful tool for intelligence building because it has many use cases and many rule sets."
"Usability is the most valuable feature. The accessibility is quite good."
"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."
"What I found most valuable in ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is its good integration with third-party products. The solution also has good core capabilities."
"Out-of-the-box, it seems very powerful."
"I have also been able to take advantage of some of the more complex statistical capabilities when analyzing logs."
"It provides a lot of analytics with the underlying AI engine, and it is a lot easier than other solutions. There are some products that do automated AI-based detection and drawing up charts, but for network monitoring and all of the monitoring aspects, it is quite a nice tool. It is very convenient for business users because they get more or less a lot of data readily available. If you're familiar with the Splunk query language, you can pretty much do whatever you want."
"Splunk incorporates a lot of elements that help to reduce security risks. For it to reach certain compliance, we need to have some security insight. Splunk is a very good SIEM, it’s a top solution, but the best feature is its cost of visibility. We have all the most important features to detect vulnerabilities or risks."
"We have found all the features useful. However, the dashboarding and logging have been very helpful. Additionally, the log analysis does a great job."
"Its huge, versatile AppBase helped me to configure and bring data from different sources to a unified platform."
"Splunk Enterprise Security helped us with faster detection of threats."
"UBA, User Behavior Analytics, is a key feature."
"I would like to see more AI used in processes."
"They should integrate it with many other software-as-a-service providers and make connectors available so that you don't have to do any sort of log normalization."
"Its documentation is not so simple. It is easy for somebody who is Microsoft certified or more closely attached to Microsoft solutions. It is not easy for those who are working on open-source platforms. There isn't a central point where everything is documented, and there is no specific training or certification."
"If I can use Sentinel offline at home and use it on a local network, it would be great. I'm not sure if I can use Sentinel offline versus the tools I have."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in entity behavior and the integration site."
"I would like Sentinel to have more out-of-the-box analytics rules. There are already more than 400 rules, but they could add more industry-specific ones. For example, you could have sets of out-of-the-box rules for banking, financial sector, insurance, automotive, etc., so it's easier for people to use it out of the box. Structuring the rules according to industry might help us."
"The interface could be more user-friendly. It''s a small improvement that they could make if they wanted to."
"I would like for them to integrate mobile devices. Integration or any kind of functionality which will act as a substitute for IBM so that we can really track our mobile devices as well as look at SIEM."
"The customer experience could be improved."
"The security area has room for improvement."
"The way that scaling is set up isn't very cost-effective."
"HPE ArcSight has a quite steep learning curve."
"Micro Focus does not have a physical presence here in Pakistan, although IBM does."
"The roadmap is not clear."
"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."
"Splunk Enterprise Security should provide a better and richer integration."
"The administration of the cluster and app deployment to indexers or search heads can be done only using ssh access and command line, there is no GUI tools for that."
"There are a lot of competitive products that are doing better than what Splunk is doing on the analytics side."
"The level of scalability depends on the license you have. You can expand or reduce it based on the environment. It does cost more money to scale, however."
"Enterprise security: Splunk must work on clarifying the solution to customers and explain how to gain more from it."
"I'd say I am happy with the technical support, not elated. They provide great support, but sometimes they don't have the answers that I need."
"DMC should be a little more intuitive with better dashboarding. Seeing the cause of data flow can be tough to track down."
"The integration with all our tool sets felt like we were reinventing the wheel, which was a pain point for us."
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 1st in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 235 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, Elastic Security and LogRhythm SIEM, whereas Splunk Enterprise Security is most compared with Wazuh, Dynatrace, IBM Security QRadar, Elastic Security and Datadog. See our ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) vs. Splunk Enterprise Security report.
See our list of best Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) vendors.
We monitor all Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.