What users are saying about
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
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Top Rated
93 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener noreferrer'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 5.9 out of 100
Based on 93 reviews and ratings
Top Rated
303 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener noreferrer'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 8.7 out of 100
Based on 303 reviews and ratings
Likelihood to Recommend
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
SEM is appropriate for all but the absolute largest networks. It works great for smaller, medium, and even some decent sized networks. Having options for all kinds of data to easily be ingested and have the events normalized out of the box is great. The price is really right when compared to other products. Some competitors are priced by number of events and in a locked down environment; this means millions of events so price climbs fast on these other products. Agents are easily deployed and can be used in images. The number of event connectors for ingesting data is large and built into the product and constantly updated. Updates are easy.

Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology
Defense & Space Company, 10,001+ employeesSplunk Enterprise
Pros: Splunk is very well suited if you have multiple log sources of related data. All of them can be correlated and tasks can be automated based on the requirement. Other than alerts, Splunk can also run a specific script of your choice, based on some defined conditions. Cons: If you have a few logs but a large number of log sources, Splunk can be very expensive.
Security Analyst
University of Colorado DenverHigher Education, 5001-10,000 employees
Feature Rating Comparison
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
7.7
Splunk Enterprise
8.9
Centralized event and log data collection
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
8.6
Splunk Enterprise
9.6
Correlation
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
7.8
Splunk Enterprise
9.1
Event and log normalization
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
7.5
Splunk Enterprise
9.1
Deployment flexibility
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
8.1
Splunk Enterprise
8.6
Integration with Identity and Access Management Tools
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
8.1
Splunk Enterprise
8.4
Custom dashboards and views
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
5.0
Splunk Enterprise
9.1
Host and network-based intrusion detection
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
8.9
Splunk Enterprise
8.5
Pros
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
- 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.

Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology
Utilities Company, 201-500 employeesSplunk Enterprise
- Allow for separation of control where we don't let some employees have access to production but still can diagnose issues.
- Common location to go for all logs even if the logs themselves aren't in the same place.
- Ability to ingest logs from different locations without having to change the code to put logs in a certain place (pro and con).

Verified User
Engineer in Engineering
Computer Software Company, 201-500 employeesCons
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
- 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.
Director of IT Engineering
Pearl River ResortGambling & Casinos, 1001-5000 employees
Splunk Enterprise
- Even though there is a search tool as a help function, you still have to read through many documentation to find the answers you're looking for and sometimes you don't find it. The help function in Splunk could be improved to be more intuitive or have a built-in help per report, panel or dashboard.
- Creating a Splunk dashboard is rather straightforward however, customization is not. Splunk could be improved to provide more tools or features for customization such as adding colors and font options for text and graphs or graphics.
- My dashboard has a lot of useful information and I want the important panels and reports at the top but there is no easy way to do this. Perhaps Splunk could be improved to allow features such as adding URL links to other dashboards or some other clever way to emphasize the important data in my dashboard without compromising space.

Verified User
Professional in Information Technology
Investment Management Company, 1001-5000 employeesLikelihood to Renew
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) 7.3
Based on 2 answers
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

Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology
Telecommunications Company, 1001-5000 employeesSplunk Enterprise
Splunk Enterprise 10.0
Based on 17 answers
We are using Splunk extensively in our projects and we have recently upgraded to Splunk version 6.0 which is quite efficient and giving expected results. We keep track of updates and new features Splunk introduces periodically and try to introduce those features in our day to day activities for improvement in our reporting system and other tasks.

Verified User
Consultant in Information Technology
Retail Company, 10,001+ employeesUsability
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) 6.7
Based on 5 answers
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.
Infrastructure Administrator
Compsource MutualInsurance, 201-500 employees
Splunk Enterprise
Splunk Enterprise 9.0
Based on 3 answers
You can literally throw in a single word into Splunk and it will pull back all instances of that word across all of your logs for the time span you select (provided you have permission to see that data). We have several users who have taken a few of the free courses from Splunk that are able to pull data out of it everyday with little help at all.
Splunk Architect / Engineer
CRGT Inc.Information Technology and Services, 1001-5000 employees
Reliability and Availability
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Splunk Enterprise
Splunk Enterprise 10.0
Based on 1 answer
When properly setup and configured, Splunk is extremely reliable.

Verified User
Engineer in Other
Computer Software Company, 1001-5000 employeesSupport Rating
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) 7.0
Based on 26 answers
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.
Systems Administrator
SEKISUI SPIPlastics, 201-500 employees
Splunk Enterprise
Splunk Enterprise 8.7
Based on 24 answers
Splunk maintains a well resourced support system that has been consistent since we purchased the product. They help out in a timely manner and provide expert level information as needed. We typically open cases online and communicate when possible via e-mail and are able to resolve most issues with that method.

Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology
Information Technology & Services Company, 201-500 employeesImplementation Rating
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Splunk Enterprise
Splunk Enterprise 9.0
Based on 2 answers
Smooth without too many major issues.

Verified User
Consultant in Information Technology
Transportation/Trucking/Railroad Company, 1001-5000 employeesAlternatives Considered
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
I inherited SolarWinds and did my best with it. Once I felt like I pushed it to it's limits and my expectations of what a SIEM should do over time changed, I started looking at other products. SolarWinds: Has great support, a good amount of online documentation, the best native alerting rules and triggersOSSIM: Has cross-source correlation built in, threat pulses are updated hourly, completely freeElastic SIEM: What we eventually moved to. It took some time to get up and running. It does the best job with event retention and searching, has anomaly exploring machine learning jobs, and feels like it gives the best view of what's going on in the environment. With Wazuh HIDS deployed on every machine, it also gives FIM capabilities while also providing extra context in any threat hunting incidents.

Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology
Marketing and Advertising Company, 201-500 employeesSplunk Enterprise
Splunk is proving to be a formidable replacement for Qradar, which we had as our previous SIEM. Qradar was powerful, but not easy to customize and quite limited. Splunk is not per se a "SIEM" but it can be in the way you used it. Also there is an Enterprise Security App that is available to buy and sit on top of Splunk, and that will take care of any concerns with needing a full-fledged SIEM. Splunk wins.

Verified User
Manager in Information Technology
Higher Education Company, 501-1000 employeesScalability
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Splunk Enterprise
Splunk Enterprise 9.1
Based on 1 answer
Splunk can scale in to the petabyte per day range which of course is awesome
Regional Director
ePlus inc.Information Technology and Services, 501-1000 employees
Return on Investment
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
- SolarWinds LEM has made a positive impact on our organization because we are now able to demonstrate to auditors that we are compliant with the various regulations such as PCI, HIPAA, etc.
- The license renewal costs are reasonable and fall within our budget every year. Much less than if we were to incur fines of being out of compliance.
- We were able to save money by deploying the system into our VM infrastructure and not have to spend money on physical appliances/servers.
Sr. IT Systems Administrator
Zombie ComputersGovernment Administration, 1001-5000 employees
Splunk Enterprise
- I'm not a data analyst so I can not provide concrete examples on how the business has benefited from implementing Splunk. However, the analysts I have worked with have provided a wealth of support in reducing workstation issues across the enterprise. This alone reduces the time it takes to determine where the exact problem lies between a workstation and the servers it tries to communicate with.

Verified User
Professional in Professional Services
Information Technology and Services Company, 51-200 employeesScreenshots
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
See All (4) SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) ScreenshotsSplunk Enterprise
—Pricing Details
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
General
Free Trial
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Splunk Enterprise
General
Free Trial
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No