We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiSIEM and Microsoft Sentinel based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Microsoft is considered one of the industry leaders in the SIEM space. Microsoft Sentinel allows users to investigate threats seamlessly and manage them quickly, all from one single place. Microsoft Sentinel is a complete solution. Many users feel Fortinet FortiSIEM's learning curve takes too long and tell us the solution should have better integrations with other third-party solutions.
"FortiSIEM is a great tool for making security processes transparent."
"I like FortiSIEM because it integrates natively with our other Fortinet solutions and the Fortinet Fabric, but it also integrates with Cisco, Palo Alto and other security fabrics."
"The primary valuable feature is that it has replaced a whole lot of other products with one platform."
"The most valuable features for us are the built-in reports and alerts, along with the extreme flexibility in reporting and rule generation."
"It's a very nice solution to work with."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiSIEM are the SD-WAN, Global LAN, and application controls."
"Technical support is helpful."
"I like the various options, including the option for CMDB and the easier access to create rules, playbooks, or use cases. It's also easier to use for creating dashboards and reports."
"I've worked on most of the top SIEM solutions, and Sentinel has an edge in most areas. For example, it has built-in SOAR capabilities, allowing you to run playbooks automatically. Other vendors typically offer SOAR as a separate licensed solution or module, but you get it free with Sentinel. In-depth incident integration is available out of the box."
"The log query feature has been the most valuable because it's very good. You can put your data on the cloud and run queues from Sentinel. It will do it all very fast. I love that I don't have to upload it to an Excel file and then manually look for a piece of information. Sentinel is much faster and is good for big databases."
"Sentinel pricing is good"
"Its inbuilt Kusto Query Language is a valuable feature. It provides the flexibility needed to leverage advanced data analytics rules and policies and enables us to easily navigate all our security events in a single view. It helps any user easily understand the data or any security lags in their data and applications."
"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."
"Sentinel's most important feature is the ability to centralize all the logs in one place. There's no need to search multiple systems for information."
"The most valuable feature is the UEBA. It's very easy for a security operations analyst. It has a one-touch analysis where you can search for a particular entity, and you can get a complete overview of that entity or user."
"Investigations are something really remarkable. We can drill down right to the raw logs by running different queries and getting those on the console itself."
"An improvement would be if FortiSIEM's licensing was based on the number of nodes rather than the EPS."
"Creating parsers to try make unknown events or currently unsupported devices produce meaningful information is extremely cumbersome."
"Network detection and response is a separate product."
"Not very good on non-API features, lacks that functionality."
"The backup and recovery process for this solution needs improvement."
"The dashboards need to be improved. It gives you so much detail, but sometimes too much detail, especially to an executive, it's too much."
"The stability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"We expect the latest patch from Fortinet FortiSIEM to give the ability to work with signature files."
"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 solution could be more user-friendly; some query languages are required to operate it."
"Given that I am in the small business space, I wish they would make it easier to operate Sentinel without being a Sentinel expert. Examples of things that could be easier are creating alerts and automations from scratch and designing workbooks."
"Currently, the watchlist feature is being utilized, and although there have been improvements, it is still not fully optimized."
"The performance could be improved. If I create 15 to 20 lines for a single-use case in KQL, sometimes it takes more time to execute. If I create use cases within a certain timeline, the result will show in .01 seconds. A complex query takes more time to get results."
"Sentinel could improve its ticketing and management. A few customers I have worked with liked to take the data created in Sentinel. You can make some basic efforts around that, but the customers wanted to push it to a third-party system so they could set up a proper ticketing management system, like ServiceNow, Jira, etc."
"We do have in-built or out-of-the-box metrics that are shown on the dashboard, but it doesn't give the kind of metrics that we need from our environment whereby we need to check the meantime to detect and meantime to resolve an incident. I have to do it manually. I have to pull all the logs or all the alerts that are fed into Sentinel over a certain period. We do this on a monthly basis, so I go into Microsoft Sentinel and pull all the alerts or incidents we closed over a period of thirty days."
"Sentinel's alerts and notifications are not fully optimized for mobile devices. The overall reporting and the analytics processes for the end user should also be improved. Also, the compatibility and availability of data sources and reports are not always perfect."
Fortinet FortiSIEM is ranked 9th in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 65 reviews while Microsoft Sentinel is ranked 2nd in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 85 reviews. Fortinet FortiSIEM is rated 7.6, while Microsoft Sentinel is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiSIEM writes "It's cheaper than other solutions with the same features but lacks integration with many third-party vendors". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Sentinel writes "Gives a comprehensive and holistic view of the ecosystem and improves visibility and the ability to respond". Fortinet FortiSIEM is most compared with IBM Security QRadar, Splunk Enterprise Security, Wazuh, LogRhythm SIEM and ThousandEyes, whereas Microsoft Sentinel is most compared with AWS Security Hub, IBM Security QRadar, Splunk Enterprise Security, Microsoft Defender for Cloud and LogRhythm SIEM. See our Fortinet FortiSIEM vs. Microsoft Sentinel report.
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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.
