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ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) vs Fortinet FortiSIEM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

ArcSight Enterprise Securit...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
97
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortinet FortiSIEM
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is 1.1%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiSIEM is 3.3%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Gaurav Ranade - PeerSpot reviewer
Excels at performing regression and correlation on the data
ArcSight is a legacy technology, and many customers want AI-powered technologies integrated with it. That hasn't been done yet, but ArcSight needs to catch up with the newer solutions and technologies available in the market. It can't just rely on the legacy technology from 2010 or 2012. You can't run that in 2024. It's a legacy technology with its own limitations. Customers often face issues that other software or newer solutions can resolve easily. That's the main challenge we face from customers right now. So, the only concerns are that AI needs to be integrated and scalability improved. Those are the main areas to be improved.
Oliver Jackson - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems monitoring enhanced by firewall and intrusion detection features
My primary use case for Fortinet FortiSIEM is systems monitoring and alerting. I use it for standard functions like log monitoring, incident detection, and notification.  My customers are mostly medium-sized enterprises ranging from engineering companies, mining companies, independent schools, and…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) works perfectly. It's a stable and scalable product."
"The most important feature is ArcSight's event correlation capabilities. It's powerful and easy. I also like the flex connector capability. It's easy to develop a new connector that isn't fully supported out of the box. For example, say you created a solution internally that's completely different, and it's not unsupported by the solution. You can write your own connector using the flex connector."
"The webpage algorithm is the most valuable feature because it was the fastest feature for searching the logs, events, and correlation."
"The real-time analysis adds value."
"The product is quite mature. It's been around for a long time."
"ArcSight ESM provides us the flexibility to write our own passwords and customize the solution. It lets us search and log a variety of SmartConnectors. It has 480-plus SmartConnectors."
"The feature that I have found the most useful is that it can be deployed to the cloud."
"I would rate the ease of use for new users an eight out of ten, with ten being easy to use. It is a good tool."
"We have found the most important features in Fortinet FortiSIEM to be the correlation, file utility check, latest file, and hash changes. These features are important for us."
"This solution offers extensive customization options, making it possible to adapt it precisely to their requirements."
"The solution is easy to use and user-friendly."
"Our customer did not have security monitoring in the first place. With this solution, it provided security posture management and visibility about the security landscape and threats that they had."
"It gives us the opportunity to generate notifications based upon rules that get triggered, and the rules could be specific to PCI, HIPAA, GIBA, NIST, and so forth."
"One of the most valuable features is that we can combine SOC and NOC operations in the same tool. We can provide NOC and SOC services in the same tool for two separate teams. There are plenty of third-party solutions that integrate with FortiSIEM. All these solutions already have a ready integration, and we have the possibility to create a custom connector for these solutions. Its reports are also very good."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"The most valuable feature is the dashboard. CMDB database collects data from a lot of pre-configured devices."
 

Cons

"The centralized dashboard for the hybrid cloud environment needs to be more focused. It needs to be redefined because it's missing most of the information. It should be a little bit easy to use. Currently, integration with various applications and connectors is not that easy. Deployment is easy, but integration is not that easy. ArcSight also has a very high bandwidth consumption to pull the local servers. It should have some kind of better process or ability to transfer files from on-premises to the cloud, from the cloud to on-premises, and from a cloud to another cloud."
"They need to develop NetFlow appliances that can be installed in the customer network on span ports, collect NetFlow, and send it to ArcSight without relying on the devices' NetFlow capability and their position in the network."
"Micro Focus does not have a physical presence here in Pakistan, although IBM does."
"I am having issues with report generation with older versions. I don't know if this is because of compatibility issues, but report generation has been a little bit difficult in older versions. It is not similar to the newer and current versions. We are looking at moving to the cloud. It would be good if ArcSight ESM can move to the cloud. They already seem to be working on this. It would also be very helpful and great if we can integrate external threat intelligence, machine learning, and AI into this solution. It has good dashboards, but they can always be better. Its stability can also be improved."
"The initial setup is very complex. We had to architect a deployment which allowed us to incorporate an ever growing number of customers into our hosted instance of ArcSight."
"The solution could be more stable."
"The API integration could be better, and I'd like to see more machine-learning capabilities in the future."
"It is quite complex and could use a better UI. So the improvement would be a simplification. It is pretty complicated to use. The architecture is not complex but the setup and use are."
"They should enhance the solution's AI capabilities, including XDR and EDR."
"Patching is not great - we're not getting the support we'd expect."
"I would like to see more integration with other platforms."
"The solution's technical support didn't help our company a lot."
"Fortinet FortiSIEM could improve by having a signature update."
"We expect the latest patch from Fortinet FortiSIEM to give the ability to work with signature files."
"The built-in APIs in Fortinet FortiSIEM are somewhat lacking and could be improved for better integration with external ITSM products."
"Sometimes, if there are changes made by a user on a database server, it can be difficult to get that information on the fly. I would like to see a situation where once I specify a user with the database server I need, and with the changes they have performed on that, I don't need to continue my search pattern to drill down just to get the information."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Customers without a ton of resources to dedicate to deployment may be better served by a managed ArcSight service."
"We're paying a fee for an MSSP, and the cost of the total cost of ArcSight ESM was approximately three to four million dollars a year. The price was less than similar solutions. We did not have additional fees."
"ArcSight is pretty expensive compared with its competitors. I believe that is fine as it provides value."
"The product licenses are inexpensive."
"ArcSight can be a little bit expensive because of the area that we work in and the cost. Licensing is mostly on a yearly basis, not monthly."
"The cost of the solution is not very high, although hiring a qualified analyst to work with the product is expensive."
"Thanks to Micro Focus's licensing model, as an MSSP, we are able to see a complete return on our investment almost immediately."
"We have a license to use this solution. The price of ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager is expensive."
"The price of Fortinet FortiSIEM was reasonable compared to other solutions."
"The solution is available for both, perpetual and subscription licenses."
"There are additional features that cost more than the standard licensing fees."
"We pay for a license for FortiSIEM. We pay for the license and renewal."
"Manageable, however would be better as pay as you go versus CapEX."
"There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the product. The free version license of the product is available for two months."
"FortiSIEM's licensing is based on EPS, and its pricing is competitive in the market."
"We bought the perpetual license, so we own the product, but there is a three-year support renewal fee for that."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions are best for your needs.
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Comparison Review

VS
Jun 28, 2015
Qradar vs. ArcSight
Continuing with the SIEM posts we have done at Infosecnirvana, this post is a Head to head comparison of the two Industry leading SIEM products in the market – HP ArcSight and IBM QRadar Both the products have consistently been in the Gartner Leaders Quadrant. Both HP and IBM took over niche SIEM…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best SIEM tool for a mid-sized financial services firm: Arcsight or Securonix?
In my market, a lot of financial companies had or have an ArcSight installation. Just because in former times it was pretty good. Now a lot of them are looking for a more effective solution due to ...
What do you like most about ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM)?
We utilize ArcSight ESM for real-time threat detection in our organization. We have custom rules that we've developed on top of the WAN services, along with scheduled licensing activities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM)?
ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is very cheap compared to other tools. It is worth the investment if you are considering the cost.
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiSIEM?
Fortinet FortiSIEM needs to provide better API integrations to users.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiSIEM?
The pricing is reasonable, which is why it is preferred by government customers. Windows agent licenses cost around 3,000 Rupees per device per year.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiSIEM?
Fortinet FortiSIEM should broaden its remediation part to include more features for incident management. Currently, to manage repetitive incidents or for remediation, I need to use a separate softw...
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus ArcSight, HPE ArcSight, ArcSight
FortiSIEM, AccelOps
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lake Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bank AlJazira, Banca Intesa, and Obrela.
FortiSIEM has hundreds of customers worldwide in markets including managed services, technology, financial services, healthcare, and government. Customers include Aruba Networks, Compushare, Port of San Diego, Cleveland Indians, Infoblox, Healthways, and Referentia.
Find out what your peers are saying about ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) vs. Fortinet FortiSIEM and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.