Datadog vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jul 20, 2023

We compared Datadog and Splunk Enterprise Security based on our users reviews in five parameters. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:

  • Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Datadog is generally regarded as uncomplicated and direct, with available support if necessary. On the other hand, the setup for Splunk Enterprise Security differs in its level of difficulty, with opinions ranging from it being straightforward to it being demanding, necessitating familiarity with the Splunk language and potentially requiring assistance from Splunk engineers.

  • Features: Datadog offers valuable features including dashboards and reporting, error reporting and log centralization, user-friendliness for development teams, and flexibility with AI and ML capabilities. Meanwhile, Splunk Enterprise Security is highly regarded for its ease of deployment and learning, log aggregation and data analytics, user-friendly interface, and ability to handle large volumes of data effectively. 
    Datadog can improve its usability, integration, user interface intuitiveness, learning curve, monitoring of external websites and SSL security, setup complexity, security features, management of organizational structure, customization flexibility and AI and ML concepts. 
    Splunk Enterprise Security could benefit from improvements in terms of user-friendliness, performance, search algorithms, AI-enabled functionalities, pricing flexibility, documentation quality, installation process, integration capabilities and interface design.


  • Pricing

    Users have mixed opinions about the setup cost for Datadog, with some finding it expensive and others considering it reasonable. They recommend trying out the free plan before committing to a paid subscription. Similarly, some users find Splunk Enterprise Security to be expensive, particularly when handling large amounts of data. Splunk's pricing model, which is based on data processing capacity, can also be constraining. Therefore, when evaluating both products, it is important to take cost into consideration.

  • ROI

    Users found Datadog to be beneficial in terms of time-saving, eliminating blindspots, and promptly identifying incidents. On the other hand, Splunk Enterprise Security's return on investment may be challenging to quantify, but it has proven to be crucial in addressing unforeseen issues and improving overall security.

  • Service and Support

    The customer service for Datadog has been positively received, with users appreciating the helpfulness and responsiveness of the support team. They value the availability of 24/7 support. However, there have been occasional instances of slow or unresponsive support, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. In contrast, the customer service for Splunk Enterprise Security has received both positive and negative feedback. Some users find the support team to be good and helpful. However, others express dissatisfaction with response times and believe that the support team lacks knowledge and care. Overall, there are areas that need improvement for both products in terms of customer service.

Comparison Results

In comparing Datadog to Splunk Enterprise Security, Datadog is praised for its user-friendly features, flexibility, and strong performance. It offers ease of use, effective dashboards and reporting capabilities, and centralized error reporting and log management. It also provides a wide range of integrations and is highly valued by development teams. However, there are areas where Datadog can improve, including usability, setup complexity, security features, and pricing clarity. On the other hand, Splunk Enterprise Security is appreciated for its easy deployment and learning, efficient log aggregation, data analytics, and user-friendly interface. Suggestions for improvement include enhancing user-friendliness, performance, pricing flexibility, and support responsiveness.

To learn more, read our detailed Datadog vs. Splunk Enterprise Security Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It is easy to navigate the menu and create tests.""The most valuable aspect of the solution is the APM.""Datadog has so far been a breeze to use and set up.""The seamless integration between Datadog and hundreds of apps makes onboarding new products and teams a breeze.""The most valuable feature of Datadog is its logs.""Even if we don't end up using Datadog, it revealed problems and optimizations to us that weren't obvious before.""The product has offered increased visibility via logging APM, metrics, RUM, etc.""Dashboards and their versatility are among the most valuable features."

More Datadog Pros →

"The visibility is amazing with easy dashboard creation.""With good domain knowledge, one can build almost anything. If you throw in Alert Manager or an integration with ServiceNow. Then, you have your own SIEM""The ability to quickly search logs, performance data, and other inputs has helped tremendously with troubleshooting.""It is very simple to tweak or write a small piece of glue code to go ahead and create a new dashboard for a business unit to make near real-time decisions to focus more on other geographies when launching the product.""Splunk has give us the capability to easily track problems and their status.""The product is adept at log mining.""We were able to create a catalog of dashboards and have a holistic view at all levels. We could understand our business much better. Real-time errors, which were buried in emails before now, surfaced up on dashboards.""Splunk's interface is user-friendly, and it has apps and add-ons for most applications. We can easily normalize the data to make it readable and understand the logs. We easily get all the field extractions and enrichment done by using the apps and add-ons. This helps us understand the application logs because the raw data is useless unless we extract some useful information from it. These add-ons make it so much easier."

More Splunk Enterprise Security Pros →

Cons
"I would like the tooling to have better integration in Slack, specifically sending out reminders to the relevant people to take breaks, do a retrospective, and specify with emojis which messages to log.""Stability of the product has been a concern for us outside of the primary monitoring agents.""I would love to see support for front-end and mobile applications. Right now, it is mostly all back-end stuff. Being able to do some integration with our front-end products would be awesome.""We would like to see smaller or shorter tutorials and video sessions.""The way data is represented can be limiting. When I first tried it out a long time ago, you could graph a metric and another metric, and they'd overlay, but you couldn't take the ratio between the two.""The solution should provide alerts for cloud outages.""ECS could be improved by including more tutorials for beginners to reduce the barriers to entry.""We have recently had a number of issues with stability and delays on logging, monitoring, metric evaluation, and alerts."

More Datadog Cons →

"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.""I'd like to see more integration with more antivirus systems.""For on-premise, it's more about optimization. With such a heavy byte scale of data that we are operating on, the search for disparate data sometimes takes about a minute. This is understandable considering the amount of data that we are pumping into it. The only optimization that I recommend is better sharding, when it comes to Splunk, so that data retrieval can be faster.""It will be helpful for customers if they can create some real-world cases, and we can find a case study to align with. I know that Splunk has tremendous potential. We only include a tiny piece of it. There is a lot of stuff that we need to learn. If Splunk can provide more real-time examples, that will be helpful for customers.""We usually have to follow up with technical support on our open cases.""It can be tough to get a hold of somebody in technical support depending on the complexity of the issue.""The product is relatively expensive.""While there aren't any major areas where the solution has to be improved, there are certain integrations that are still not available. I would specifically like to see legacy applications integrated."

More Splunk Enterprise Security Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "​Pricing seems reasonable. It depends on the size of your organization, the size of your infrastructure, and what portion of your overall business costs go toward infrastructure."
  • "It has always scaled for us. Cost scales up too, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It's reasonable for what they're providing."
  • "Pricing and licensing are reasonable for what they give you. You get the first five hosts free, which is fun to play around with. Then it's about four dollars a month per host, which is very affordable for what you get out of it. We have a lot of hosts that we put a lot of custom metrics into, and every host gives you an allowance for the number of custom metrics."
  • "At my last company, we did see ROI, specifically around response time. We could get to mission critical things that were down and losing revenue on immediately. So, the product paid itself back."
  • "The pricing and licensing through AWS Marketplace has been good. It would be nice if it was cheaper, but their pricing is reasonable for what it is. Sometimes, for their newer features, they charge as if it's fully fleshed out, even though it is a newer feature and it may have less stuff than their other items."
  • "It costs the same amount it would if we were hosting it ourselves, so we are incredibly happy with the cost."
  • "The pricing came up a bit compared to their competitors. It is not that the price has risen, but that the competitors have gone down. They keep adding more features that I would have expected to be baked in at a more nominal price. I have been increasingly dissatisfied with the pricing, but not enough to jump ship."
  • "It didn't scale well from the cost perspective. We had a custom package deal."
  • More Datadog Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Pricing and licensing is quite expensive. But for the value the product provides, it seems at par in the market."
  • "Although Splunk is an expensive product, it is designed to be utilized across your organization in order to maximize your ROI and lower your TCO."
  • "It is not cheap."
  • "Splunk Enterprise becomes extremely expensive after the 20GB/month license."
  • "You will eat up whatever you purchase quickly. The level of insights that Splunk empowers is addictive."
  • "Splunk licensing model might seem expensive but with all the gain in functionalities you will have compared to traditional SIEM solutions I think it’s worth the price."
  • "Pricing is pretty fair."
  • "While licensing can be a concern, there are ways to reduce the licensing costs including filtering some events."
  • More Splunk Enterprise Security Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Vinod Shankar
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra… more »
    Top Answer:With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good core… more »
    Top Answer:Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Datadog or Dynatrace network monitoring software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Dynatrace. Dynatrace offers network… more »
    Top Answer: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,… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
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    Overview

    Datadog is a cloud monitoring solution that is designed to assist administrators, IT teams, and other members of an organization who are charged with keeping a close eye on their networks. Administrators can use Datadog to set real-time alerts and schedule automated report generation. They can deal with issues as they arise and keep up to date with the overall health of their network while still being able to focus on other tasks. Users can also track the historical performance of their networks and ensure that they operate at the highest possible level.

    Datadog Benefits

    Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by deploying Datadog include:

    • Gain an integrated view of the services and programs that IT teams are employing across their networks. Users can view and monitor all of the disparate programs that they have running across their networks with this one solution. They can track these programs across the entirety of the data’s life cycle.
    • Analyze and utilize massive amounts of data in real time. Datadog’s dashboards gather data in real time. Administrators can utilize their network’s data the minute that it becomes relevant to them. Decisions can be made based on the most current information available.
    • Keep your cloud network secured against digital threats. Datadog enables users to create alerts that will notify the minute that threats arise. IT teams and administrators can rapidly address any issue that comes up and prevent any existing problem from growing worse.
    • Easily get it up and running. Users can set up Datadog, configure it, and employ API integrations to connect it to external solutions with ease.

    Datadog Features

    • Customizable and prefabricated monitoring dashboards. Administrators are supplied with two different types of dashboards that they can choose from when they are setting up Datadog. They can customize the dashboards to fit any specialized monitoring need. Additionally, users can choose to use prefabricated dashboards that come with the solution.
    • Disaster recovery feature. Datadog has a built-in feature that enables organizations to continue functioning if some disaster strikes their network. If the network suffers damage, Datadog can restore lost data and infrastructure. Should a digital threat do damage to the network, Datadog ensures that the damage is not irreparable.
    • Vulnerability scanning tool. Users can keep ahead of threats to their networks by employing Datadog’s vulnerability scanning feature. This tool scans the entirety of a user’s network and warns them if a vulnerability is detected. Users can then move to patch these holes in their security before the threat to their network can escalate.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Datadog is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. It can offer organizations many advantages. Two major advantages are the dashboards that users can create and the monitoring capability that it gives system administrators.

    A senior manager in charge of site reliability engineering at Extra Space Storage writes, “The dashboards we created are core indicators of the health of our system, and it is one of the most reliable sources we have turned to, especially as we have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately. We can usually rely on logs to tell us what the apps are doing.”

    Housecall Pro’s senior director of DevOps writes, “We value the monitoring capability since it allows us to be pushed alerts, rather than having to observe graphs continually.

    Splunk Enterprise Security is a SIEM, log management, and IT operations analytics tool. The solution provides users with the ability to secure their information and manage their data in the cloud, data centers, or other applications. Splunk Enterprise Security also offers visibility from different areas, levels, and devices, rather than from a single system, thus, providing its users with flexibility. Splunk Enterprise Security can monitor data and analyze, detect, and prevent intrusions. This benefits users as it provides alerts to possible intrusions, helps users to be proactive, and reduces risk factors. 

    Full visibility across your environment

    Break down data silos and gain actionable intelligence by ingesting data from multicloud and on-premises deployments. Get full visibility to quickly detect malicious threats in your environment.

    Fast threat detection

    Defend against threats with advanced security analytics, machine learning and threat intelligence that focus detection and provide high-fidelity alerts to shorten triage times and raise true positive rates.

    Efficient investigations

    Gather all the context you need and initiate flexible investigations with security analytics at your fingertips. The built-in open and extensible data platform boosts productivity and drives down fatigue.

    Open and scalable

    Built on an open and scalable data platform, you can stay agile in the face of evolving threats and business needs. Splunk meets you where you are on your cloud journey, and integrates across your data, tools and content.

    Sample Customers
    Adobe, Samsung, facebook, HP Cloud Services, Electronic Arts, salesforce, Stanford University, CiTRIX, Chef, zendesk, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, mercardo libre, Slashdot, Ziff Davis, PBS, MLS, The Motley Fool, Politico, Barneby's
    Splunk has more than 7,000 customers spread across over 90 countries. These customers include Telenor, UniCredit, ideeli, McKenney's, Tesco, and SurveyMonkey.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm22%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Manufacturing Company5%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization31%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Government10%
    Energy/Utilities Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Government9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise43%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business16%
    Midsize Enterprise38%
    Large Enterprise46%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise57%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise68%
    Buyer's Guide
    Datadog vs. Splunk Enterprise Security
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Datadog is ranked 2nd in Log Management with 136 reviews while Splunk Enterprise Security is ranked 1st in Log Management with 221 reviews. Datadog is rated 8.6, while Splunk Enterprise Security is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Datadog writes "Very good RUM, synthetics, and infrastructure host maps". 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 ". Datadog is most compared with Dynatrace, Azure Monitor, New Relic, AWS X-Ray and Sentry, whereas Splunk Enterprise Security is most compared with Wazuh, Dynatrace, IBM Security QRadar, Elastic Security and AppDynamics. See our Datadog vs. Splunk Enterprise Security report.

    See our list of best Log Management vendors.

    We monitor all Log Management 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.