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Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs. SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Secure Network Analytics

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ACisco Stealthwatch is a network behavior analysis product based on technology acquired by Cisco with its Lancope acquisition in 2015.N/A

    SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)

    Score8 out of 10
    N/ASolarWinds LEM is security information and event management (SIEM) software.N/A
    Pricing
    Cisco Secure Network AnalyticsSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Secure Network AnalyticsSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco Secure Network AnalyticsSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    SolarWinds
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    12 Answers
    88%
    Would buy again
    30 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    11 Answers
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    28 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    12 Answers
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    31 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    12 Answers
    89%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    16 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    92%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    89%
    Implementation went as expected
    25 Answers
    Features
    Cisco Secure Network AnalyticsSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
    Comparison of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) features of Cisco Secure Network Analytics and SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Feature
    Cisco Secure Network Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    8.9
    18 Ratings
    12% above category average
    Centralized event and log data collection00 Ratings9.018 Ratings
    Correlation00 Ratings8.015 Ratings
    Event and log normalization/management00 Ratings8.018 Ratings
    Deployment flexibility00 Ratings10.018 Ratings
    Integration with Identity and Access Management Tools00 Ratings8.013 Ratings
    Custom dashboards and workspaces00 Ratings9.017 Ratings
    Host and network-based intrusion detection00 Ratings10.03 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Cisco Secure Network AnalyticsSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    IBM Security QRadar SIEM
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft Sentinel
    Score8.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco Secure Network AnalyticsSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.5
    (14 ratings)
    8.0
    (46 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    7.3
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.9
    (2 ratings)
    7.5
    (17 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Secure Network AnalyticsSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    Few products operate off the Netflow or RAP/SPAN traffic versus the endpoint. Of those products, many operate from the aggregate traffic of uplinks/downlinks, whereas Secure Network Analytics focuses on viewing all traffic to give per-endpoint comprehensive data analytics. SNA is a great product for network visibility and detection, and to preserve that focus, other options such as remediation or quarantined are deferred to other products in the security ecosystem. SNA uses Machine Learning models to determine traffic behavioral compliance, which is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it mitigates zero day attacks changing traffic patterns, but conversely, it requires training to know acceptable traffic patterns. Unfortunately, many adopters of SNA do not spend the time giving it the user input and so the ML models never gets the correct weights and parameters to work from.
    Incentivized
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    SolarWinds
    Optimal for SolarWinds Security Event Manager needs for smaller companies - it is a very cool product but has some limitations around EPS (which gets chewed up quickly if you're doing it the right way & adding servers/storage/FW & other network devices)... Also pricing model is GREAT (not consumption-based, which is the greatest grift the SIEM industry has created).
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Cisco
    • A silent tool.
    • A great way to get visibility of all the conversations of the network.
    • Easy to find out the internal and the external threats.
    • Easy to track performance.
    • Network monitoring is very easy to understand and control.
    • Attacks can be easily detected along with encrypted traffic.
    • Historic records of the attack and reports make it even better.
    Incentivized
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    SolarWinds
    • It does a great job of notifying us when accounts have been locked out. We can then find out the device on the network where the login attempt occurred.
    • Searching for incidents is now a lot faster with the implementation of the HTML 5 interface.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cisco
    • Some of the jobs can be difficult to setup until you know how they were designed
    • Unless coupled with other Cisco products, you may not get all of the information you would like to have
    • If you have a network that already has many issues it may take a lot of time to see the value in the product; it would take time to weed everything which this product will detect for you to use it to find that needle in the haystack
    Incentivized
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    SolarWinds
    • All SolarWinds product suffer from slow response times in management portals. SolarWinds SEM is no exception. While it is much preferred over a "thick client" there is much room for improvement in speed.
    • If you use the email alert features with SolarWinds make sure to prepare you staff and team for the large amount of emails they could receive. Make sure to reduce the number of alerts so your team does not ignore the alerts.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    Cisco Secure Network Analytics is a fantastic tool, but does require some setup and upkeep which may turn off smaller IT Security teams. However, once all the flows are set up and the product is functioning with the proper rules, the insight into your network is fantastic. For us, the product has a significant ROI and will be a product we keep up on.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    It is pretty likely that we will renew SEM when the time comes up. It is easy to use and maintain so there isn't much of a need to replace this product. It is also a pretty fair price for the capabilities provided by the SEM
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Cisco
    Strong and complete tool which gives comprehensive methods to discover cyber security incidents and prevent data leakage. In case of common use of Cisco StealthWatch and Cisco ISE, you will receive [the] ability [to] not just discover cyber security incidents but also dynamically respond to them. This makes StealthWatch one of most valuable products through[out] [the] whole Cisco Security product portfolio.
    Incentivized
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    SolarWinds
    If you are familiar with SolarWinds then you can use this product it's as easy as that. If you have never used a SolarWinds product then it will take a minute to get how they do reports and make dashboards but that being said the tool is great and can make things very easy once you get a feel for how it works and get everything setup how you like it.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    I would rate Cisco Secure Network Analytics’ availability as 8 out of 10. The platform is highly stable and reliable, with users reporting minimal downtime and consistent performance once the system is properly deployed and configured.
    Incentivized
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    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Cisco
    Overall winner because it exceeds our expectations by answering all our requirements and at the same time empowers our operations thru other built-in capabilities it has. Visibility is a key to security operations and Cisco StealthWatch really gives us a magnifying glass to check all logs in the network for threat intelligence and threat hunting.
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    The quality of support can vary depending on whom you end up speaking with. I was fortunate enough to work with a support representative who was very familiar with the product. He had even authored some of the support documentation on the website. On the flip side, I had two other experiences where I was simply directed to online training material.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    Implementation of the product can be tedious, especially fine tuning its rules to customize it to your environment. However, after that is done, CSNA is a very useful and flexible product that would enhance the security posture of any corporate network.
    Incentivized
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    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    I wasn't involved in the decision-making when it happened. It was a couple of years ago, but I can't think of the vendor's name. They used to be here at Cisco Live. But it was another NetFlow vendor, but they were strictly NetFlow and all they did was just a net flow and the Secure Network Analytics has like some of the security anomaly detection stuff built into it. And that was kind of a deciding factor of wanting more of the security focus of the net flow. The net flow was a bonus, but the security stuff was what we were looking for.
    Incentivized
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    SolarWinds
    Fortianalzyer can only do logs from FortiGate so usefulness is limited. Elasticsearch was a lot slower than Solarwinds and the filters were a lot harder to set up and use. The connectors for SEM were far more stable.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • It is a little pricey - in my organization, with budget cuts, I eventually had to replace it with an open source product (NTOP). While it works well for visibility, it simply isn't the same. If you can afford it, don't bother looking anywhere else - just get it.
    • Being able to detect, pivot out, and remmediate from one console was awesome.
    Incentivized
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    SolarWinds
    • For the price, it produced a decent value. It did a lot of the easy stuff well. I can't give any specific data given the objective of the product was to monitor very basic events in the environment.
    • There are free options that can do a better job.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) Screenshots

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