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ManageEngine ADAudit Plus vs. SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    ManageEngine ADAudit Plus

    Score9.1 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    ADAudit Plus offers real-time monitoring, user and entity behaviour analytics, and change audit reports that helps users keep AD and IT infrastructure secure and compliant. Track all changes to Windows AD objects including users, groups, computers, GPOs, and OUs. Achieve hybrid AD monitoring with a single, correlated view of all the activities happening across both on-premises AD and Azure AD. Monitor every user's logon and logoff activity, including…

    $595

    per year based on 2 Domain Controllers

    SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)

    Score8 out of 10
    N/ASolarWinds LEM is security information and event management (SIEM) software.N/A
    Pricing
    ManageEngine ADAudit PlusSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Editions & Modules
    Standard
    $595
    per year Both licensed based on number of Domain Controllers, Azure AD tenants, file servers, Windows member servers, and Workstations.
    Professional
    $945
    per year Both licensed based on number of Domain Controllers, Azure AD tenants, file servers, Windows member servers, and Workstations.
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    ManageEngine ADAudit PlusSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsADAudit Plus is licensed based on number of Domain Controllers (not per-user). Add-ons are available for Windows File Servers, NAS File Servers, Azure AD tenants, Windows Servers, Workstations, AD Backup and Recovery, and File Analysis. For more than 20 domain controllers, ManageEngine directs customers to contact sales for a personalized quote. Pricing is dependent on the number of domain controllers and starts at $595/year for the Standard edition, and $945/year for the Professional edition.—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    ManageEngine ADAudit PlusSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Considered Both Products
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    Chose ManageEngine ADAudit Plus
    All products have their niche.
    What stood out for us - 1) we use other products from manageengine. Made sense to keep it to one pane of glass, so to speak.
    2) price. at the price point we got a lot for our buck. 3) features. It does exactly what we needed.
    Incentivized
    SolarWinds
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    98%
    Would buy again
    64 Answers
    88%
    Would buy again
    30 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    63 Answers
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    28 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    64 Answers
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    31 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    59 Answers
    89%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    16 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    61 Answers
    89%
    Implementation went as expected
    25 Answers
    Features
    ManageEngine ADAudit PlusSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
    Comparison of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) features of ManageEngine ADAudit Plus and SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Feature
    ManageEngine ADAudit Plus
    -
    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
    ManageEngine ADAudit PlusSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
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    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
    ManageEngine ADAudit PlusSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.4
    (65 ratings)
    8.0
    (46 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.1
    (5 ratings)
    7.3
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    8.0
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.1
    (57 ratings)
    7.5
    (17 ratings)
    Online Training
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.7
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    ManageEngine ADAudit PlusSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    I would recommend ADAuditPlus (and/or Log360) to any org that is trying to achieve PCI DSS Compliance and is struggling with some of the monitoring and reporting aspects, provided that the org is prepared to spend a little time and effort in truly understanding the requirements and is prepared to document requirements and match them to the ADAuditPlus product features.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Pros
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    • ManageEngine ADAudit Plus changes for user and group management can be looked up in builtin reports
    • You can build your own reports based on almost every logic you can think of
    • You have the ability to create alerts based on logic and filters and sendout custom alerts to email, SMS or other means.
    • First you need to understand the basics of the software, after that the software itself is very helpfull in configuring specific items.
    • I really love the support that ManageEngine is giving the customer, for all questions I use the chat on their website. This is for me the best remote support I ever saw, and I saw a lot in my 20 years of experience in IT.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    • It's based on Java engine that is slow -- reports are often difficult to build (we are going to upgrade the machine it's running on to see if this is the issue)
    • Keeping this software up to date is a pain; there should be a better "update" function
    • The naming and navigation are terrible -- it's never clear which feature you're looking for and where it's hidden in the menus
    • Adding machines is not as easy as it should be; occasionally there are IP conflicts that are nearly impossible to resolve
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    It works great for everything we need and use. Any issues in the software are pretty easy to resolve with tech support. And they are very responsive to resolving issues. Even ones where a fix/patch are required. At present, the software does everything we need it to for compliance, audit, and account review.
    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
    Read full review
    Usability
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    ADAudit with its cloud and on prem install option allows any organization to get in on AD report management. Whether you need to report internally only for for external audit controls its a great tool with flexibility to handle most any user or group report capability. Since this also includes m365 integration it enables IT pros to administer usage, license, cost control and permission access to most anything in Microsoft's portfolio. Its a great tool all around for AD integrated access needs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    uptime good
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    Integration/overlap between products could be improved
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    I'd give their support a 10 if it weren't for the fact that sometimes, the support team (I believe they are overseas) can take a little bit to respond, but not too long. I may submit a ticket in the morning and won't hear about it until later in the afternoon. However, my tickets were not "urgent," so that may have been the reason for the delay. Other than that, support is great, and the ManageEngine account team has visited us in the past. It's always nice to see your product representatives take a white-glove approach like that.
    Incentivized
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    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
    Read full review
    Online Training
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    knowledgable and prompt response
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    The remote setup team helped when i needed it and setup weas very straight forward and easy. The advanced setup for an external db and customizations for our latest version AD environment went pretty easy once they found documentation on customization.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    In terms of features, ADAudit Plus offers a comprehensive set of features for monitoring and auditing Active Directory, including real-time alerts, detailed reports, and user behavior analytics. The platform also offers support for multiple platforms, including Windows, UNIX, and Linux, as well as integration with other ManageEngine tools.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Scalability
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    updates are effective and system is reliable
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    I like the ability to customize reports and provided great visibility to AD and some servers.
    • It helped greatly with customer support issues when we used ADAudit with the hundreds of customer accounts used for SSON to the LOB application server to users over Citrix.
    • It saved time on some issues with accounts and Group Policy changes that affected customer experience.
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    ManageEngine ADAudit Plus Screenshots

    Screenshot of Active Directory Audit Dashboard
Track all critical AD changes — user modifications, group updates, GPO changes, and logon events — from a single console.Screenshot of User Logon Failures Report
Spot and investigate failed logon attempts across your environment with drill-down reports showing who, when, and from where.Screenshot of Attack Surface Analyzer Dashboard
Detect 25+ AD attack indicators including Kerberoasting, Golden Ticket, and DCSync attacks before they cause damage.Screenshot of Cloud Directory Audit Dashboard
Monitor sign-ins, role changes, and config modifications across Microsoft Entra ID with correlated on-premises and cloud visibility.Screenshot of Kerberoasting Attack Detection Report
Surface suspicious service ticket requests and identify compromised service accounts before attackers escalate privileges.Screenshot of Real-Time Alert Dashboard
Centralize and prioritize security alerts across your environment with configurable real-time email and SMS notifications.

    SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) Screenshots

    Product screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshot