Microsoft Sentinel vs. SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Sentinel
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Sentinel (formerly Azure Sentinel) is designed as a birds-eye view across the enterprise. It is presented as a security information and event management (SIEM) solution for proactive threat detection, investigation, and response.
$2.46
per GB ingested
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds LEM is security information and event management (SIEM) software.N/A
Pricing
Microsoft SentinelSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Editions & Modules
Azure Sentinel
$2.46
per GB ingested
100 GB per day
$123.00
per day
200 GB per day
$221.40
per day
300 GB per day
$319.80
per day
400 GB per day
$410.00
per day
500 GB per day
$492.00
per day
More than 500 GB per day
$492.00 + $98.40
per day/plus each additional 100 GB increment
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft SentinelSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft SentinelSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Features
Microsoft SentinelSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
Comparison of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Sentinel
7.8
25 Ratings
2% below category average
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
8.9
18 Ratings
12% above category average
Centralized event and log data collection8.525 Ratings9.018 Ratings
Correlation7.725 Ratings8.015 Ratings
Event and log normalization/management7.325 Ratings8.018 Ratings
Deployment flexibility7.123 Ratings10.018 Ratings
Integration with Identity and Access Management Tools7.623 Ratings8.013 Ratings
Custom dashboards and workspaces8.025 Ratings9.017 Ratings
Host and network-based intrusion detection7.321 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Data integration/API management7.123 Ratings00 Ratings
Behavioral analytics and baselining7.621 Ratings00 Ratings
Rules-based and algorithmic detection thresholds8.423 Ratings00 Ratings
Response orchestration and automation7.922 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting and compliance management9.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Incident indexing/searching8.523 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Microsoft SentinelSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Small Businesses
LevelBlue USM Anywhere
LevelBlue USM Anywhere
Score 7.0 out of 10
LevelBlue USM Anywhere
LevelBlue USM Anywhere
Score 7.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Sumo Logic
Sumo Logic
Score 9.3 out of 10
Sumo Logic
Sumo Logic
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Sumo Logic
Sumo Logic
Score 9.3 out of 10
Sumo Logic
Sumo Logic
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Microsoft SentinelSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(53 ratings)
8.0
(46 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.1
(2 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
Usability
6.5
(7 ratings)
8.0
(6 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(3 ratings)
7.5
(17 ratings)
Professional Services
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft SentinelSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
Microsoft Sentinel excels in centralized monitoring, AI-driven threat detection, and automation, but improvements in cost transparency, user experience, third-party integrations, and support for emerging technologies could make it even more effective. Addressing these areas would enhance its appeal for small-to-medium businesses, large enterprises, and organizations with complex or specialized IT environments.
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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).
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Pros
Microsoft
  • I appreciate that it keeps the data within our, what we call our, authorization boundary. The fact that the data remains within Microsoft's, I guess, walled garden if you will, is very helpful for certain compliance needs in particular.
  • The large library of ingestion: ability to ingest is basically as easy as I can basically get it to be most of the time. There's occasionally some vendors that it's a little bit more challenging for, but given the ease of integration for a lot of things, basically it's become one of my requirements when I am looking at other tools is how easily do they integrate with Sentinel.
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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.
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Cons
Microsoft
  • I think it should include more third party integration with non microsoft products as well as with other cloud providers. These integrations should be native.
  • It should improve ML and AI capabilities.
  • I find its documentation a little bit difficult to understand at the start. So the words should be simple.
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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.
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Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
it does the job reasonably well
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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
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Usability
Microsoft
The Microsoft Azure Sentinel solution is very good and even better if you use Azure. It's easy to implement and learn how to use the tool with an intuitive and simple interface. New updates are happening to always bring new news and improve the experience and usability. The solution brings reliability as it is from a very reliable manufacturer.
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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.
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Support Rating
Microsoft
Azure Sentinel is very easy to use and configure. If you are stuck somewhere, Microsoft support is excellent in assisting and solving your issue.
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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.
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Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
We decided to go with Microsoft Sentinel because it works really well with Microsoft tools we are already using. Microsoft Sentinel's intelligent features detect and resolve problems more quickly than Sumo Logic. It also allows us to pay for what we use and grow as we need. While Sumo Logic is good at analyzing data, Microsoft Sentinel fits our needs.
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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.
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Professional Services
Microsoft
Did not use professional services
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SolarWinds
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • As any cybersecurity product, this has to be more with risk to avoid loss in case of a ransomware that more than relate to a productivity increase. Maybe the impact could be that instead of having people that are checking 24/7 the dashboard, you could implement Sentinel and have less people checking that or people with less expertise. So the saving will be a minor but will be a saving in the cost of your team.
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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.
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ScreenShots

Microsoft Sentinel Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Microsoft Sentinel Capabilities

SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of