SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) vs. Splunk Cloud Platform

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
Splunk Cloud Platform
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Splunk Cloud Platform is a data platform service thats help users search, analyze, visualize and act on data. The service can go live in as little as two days, and with an IT backend managed by Splunk experts.N/A
Pricing
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)Splunk Cloud Platform
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)Splunk Cloud Platform
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)Splunk Cloud Platform
Features
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)Splunk Cloud Platform
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
Comparison of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) features of Product A and Product B
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
8.9
18 Ratings
12% above category average
Splunk Cloud Platform
8.4
19 Ratings
6% above category average
Centralized event and log data collection9.018 Ratings8.718 Ratings
Correlation8.015 Ratings8.318 Ratings
Event and log normalization/management8.018 Ratings9.419 Ratings
Deployment flexibility10.018 Ratings7.919 Ratings
Integration with Identity and Access Management Tools8.013 Ratings7.917 Ratings
Custom dashboards and workspaces9.017 Ratings8.819 Ratings
Host and network-based intrusion detection10.03 Ratings8.916 Ratings
Data integration/API management00 Ratings8.49 Ratings
Behavioral analytics and baselining00 Ratings7.77 Ratings
Rules-based and algorithmic detection thresholds00 Ratings8.39 Ratings
Response orchestration and automation00 Ratings8.07 Ratings
Reporting and compliance management00 Ratings8.79 Ratings
Incident indexing/searching00 Ratings8.810 Ratings
Best Alternatives
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)Splunk Cloud Platform
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
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)Splunk Cloud Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(46 ratings)
9.5
(19 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.3
(2 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(6 ratings)
9.0
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
7.5
(17 ratings)
7.2
(4 ratings)
User Testimonials
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)Splunk Cloud Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
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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Cisco
Splunk is excellent when all your data is in one location. Its ability to correlate all that data is intuitive (once the hurdle of learning the query language is overcome). It is also easy to standardize the presentation of information to the company. When data is siloed/standalone, other systems can be cheaper and faster to implement.
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Pros
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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Cisco
  • This SIEM consolidates multiple data points and offers several features and benefits, creating custom dashboards and managing alert workflows.
  • Splunk Cloud provides a simple way to have a central monitoring and security solution. Though it does not have a huge learning curve, you should spend some time learning the basics.
  • Splunk Cloud enables me to create and schedule statistical reports on network use for Management.
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Cons
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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Cisco
  • The SPL programming language that the queries are built in is not very intuitive.
  • There should be a better repository of pre-built queries for what I would think of as common Active Directory usage monitoring.
  • I would like to see more free training/familiarization information made available.
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Likelihood to Renew
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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Cisco
Ease of use and have all the features we need
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Usability
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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Cisco
What it does well:
- Powerful SPL query language for advanced users
- Excellent visualization dashboards
- Comprehensive documentation and community support
Where it needs work:
- Steep learning curve for SPL syntax
- Non-Intuitive UI for beginners
- Complex administration and data model configuration
- Search performance degrades with poor query optimization
Bottom line: Enterprise-grade tool requiring dedicated training investment. Best for teams with experienced analysts.
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Support Rating
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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Cisco
Splunk Cloud support is sorely lacking unfortunately. The portal where you submit tickets is not very good and is lacking polish. Tickets are left for days without any updates and when chased it is only sometimes you get a reply back. I get the feeling the support team are very understaffed and have far too much going on. From what I know, Splunk is aware of this and seem to be trying to remedy it.
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Alternatives Considered
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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Cisco
Search Processing Language really is a game changer for writing easy-to-understand and maintainable queries on your data base logs. Once understood, setting up and validating a query can be done in no time- which leaves us the option to focus on more monitoring and improved services. We have no other tools that utilizes data this efficiently
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Return on Investment
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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Cisco
  • End-end visibility across your departmental silos
  • Strengthen the overall global monitoring posture
  • Move from Reactive to Proactive Monitoring
  • Highly secure environment at your finger-tips
  • Takes you away from managing infrastructure/administration, allows saving time & money. Reduce the overall TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)
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ScreenShots

SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) Screenshots

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