We compared Splunk Enterprise Security and ArcSight ESM across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Splunk Enterprise Security stands out for its efficiency, extensive integration options, and powerful search functionality. Users say Splunk is a highly scalable and customizable solution. ArcSight ESM is praised for its well-designed dashboard, real-time reporting, and threat intelligence capabilities that leverage AI and correlation tools.
Room for Improvement: Splunk users recommended improvements in AI capabilities, user-friendliness, and analytics. ArcSight ESM users have recommended improvements in training, speed, and data administration.
Service and Support: While some users found Splunk support to be responsive and helpful, others reported slow response times and a lack of expertise. Some ArcSight ESM users have found the support to be responsive and helpful, while others have faced issues with slow response times and a lack of expertise.
Ease of Deployment: Some users thought Splunk Enterprise Security was easy to deploy, while others found it challenging and needed assistance from Splunk engineers or third-party integrators. Some said that ArcSight ESM is straightforward to set up, while others noted that integration with other systems can be challenging and requires specialized knowledge.
Pricing: Some users consider Splunk Enterprise Security to be expensive, but others said the price is reasonable. A few users expressed concerns about the cost of scaling up the solution and managing large volumes of data. Users consider the pricing of ArcSight ESM to be reasonable and affordable.
ROI: Users said that it’s challenging to calculate an ROI for Splunk Enterprise Security, and the return varies depending on individual circumstances. While some users have observed a substantial ROI, others have not actively explored or been engaged in ROI conversations. Splunk Enterprise Security offers varying ROI outcomes based on different situations, with certain users achieving significant returns. ArcSight ESM delivers an ROI by helping clients achieve compliance objectives and prevent incidents.
Comparison Results: Splunk is highly regarded for its efficient data processing and powerful search features, but users suggested improvements to its AI capabilities and analytics. ArcSight ESM offers robust threat intelligence and real-time reporting but falls short in terms of data administration and speed.
"Previously, it was a little bit difficult to find where an incident came from, including which IP address and which country. So in Sentinel, it's very easy to find where the incident came from since we can easily get the information from the dashboard, after which we take action quickly."
"Log aggregation and data connectors are the most valuable features."
"Sentinel uses Azure Logic Apps for automation, which is really powerful. This allows us to easily automate responses to incidents."
"Mainly, this is a cloud-native product. So, there are zero concerns about managing the whole infrastructure on-premises."
"Sentinel is a SIEM and SOAR tool, so its automation is the best feature; we can reduce human interaction, freeing up our human resources."
"Sentinel also enables you to ingest data from your entire ecosystem and not just from the Microsoft ecosystem. It can receive data from third-party vendors' products such firewalls, network devices, and antivirus solutions. It's not only a Microsoft solution, it's for everything."
"I've worked on most of the top SIEM solutions, and Sentinel has an edge in most areas. For example, it has built-in SOAR capabilities, allowing you to run playbooks automatically. Other vendors typically offer SOAR as a separate licensed solution or module, but you get it free with Sentinel. In-depth incident integration is available out of the box."
"Sentinel has features that have helped improve our security poster. It helped us in going ahead and identifying the gaps via analysis and focusing on the key elements."
"SmartConnector: Normalization parses raw logs and converts them into CEF (common event format). This is the core of the product."
"I value the event correlation of this product."
"What I found most valuable in ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is its good integration with third-party products. The solution also has good core capabilities."
"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."
"Usability is the most valuable feature. The accessibility is quite good."
"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."
"The filters and the ability to do what you want are the most valuable features. There is nothing that you cannot do in this solution. It has all the features, which makes it very dynamic."
"Once the rules are defined, it becomes easy to detect changes and generate automated logs."
"It provides a risk score for each object, device, or user. We can then take action if they are at a higher risk."
"Splunk is stable, and this is why many customers want it."
"We were able to create a catalog of dashboards and have a holistic view at all levels. We could understand our business much better. Real-time errors, which were buried in emails before now, surfaced up on dashboards."
"This is a straightforward solution, easy to configure."
"The best part of Splunk Enterprise Security is its customizable settings."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the dashboard. It's very intuitive."
"From the class that I took this week, being able to create notable events from whatever you find in the data set is pretty useful."
"The additional vendors we've brought on board, particularly the elastic, have been quite beneficial."
"If you're looking to use canned queries, the interface could be a little more straightforward. It's not immediately intuitive regarding how you use it. You have to take a canned query and paste it into an operational box and then you hit a button... They could improve the ease of deploying these queries."
"Currently, the watchlist feature is being utilized, and although there have been improvements, it is still not fully optimized."
"I would like Sentinel to have more out-of-the-box analytics rules. There are already more than 400 rules, but they could add more industry-specific ones. For example, you could have sets of out-of-the-box rules for banking, financial sector, insurance, automotive, etc., so it's easier for people to use it out of the box. Structuring the rules according to industry might help us."
"The playbook development environment is not as rich as it should be. There are multiple occasions when we face problems while creating the playbook."
"While I appreciate the UI itself and the vast amount of information available on the platform, I'm finding the overall user experience to be frustrating due to frequent disconnections and the requirement to repeatedly re-authenticate."
"Sentinel's reporting is complex and can be more user-friendly."
"If their UI was a bit more streamlined and easy to find when I need it, then that would be a great improvement."
"The KQL query does not function effectively with Windows 11 machines, and in the majority of machine-based investigations, KQL queries are essential for organizing the data during investigations."
"Currently lacks SOAR feature."
"Sometimes, it takes ages to get an issue resolved. I have ArcSight experience, so I normally try to fix things on my own or find a workaround, but it's tough to get support when I need it."
"When I asked our networking juniors for a comparison between LogRhythm and ArcSight, they said that both platforms are almost the same. It is just that LogRhythm is more modern with a digital platform, which probably gives it some advantage over ArcSight. ArcSight is a very old and mature product that is running on an old platform. It is an old legacy platform. In terms of new features, it just requires platform upgrades so that it becomes lighter and easily adaptable, specifically in the cloud. It would be a good thing if they can also make reporting easier."
"It would be nice if the interface were more user-friendly, with, for example, a minimal number of tabs to navigate."
"What could be improved in ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is its analytics feature. That feature should be more powerful and have more correlation in terms of AI/ML, though MicroFocus has done a good job in adding analytics to ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) which has become a big draw to customers. What I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is the addition of AI/ML features."
"ArcSight ESM is not easy to use and it should be integrated with other tools that have infrastructure capabilities."
"In certain cases, this product does have false positives, which the company should work on."
"Deployment typology could be improved. Difficult to scale across all the different lines of businesses."
"Splunk ES could have more pre-built integrations and rules. The detection is fairly accurate, but it depends on the rules you create. Splunk's out-of-the-box configuration isn't that useful."
"Endpoint access is the only issue I can think to mention, even though the endpoint access we have with Cisco is fine."
"If possible, we would like to have not only a log monitoring system but a network monitoring feature in this solution as well."
"Spam has different plugins but by default, the logs are not organized, it shows that there are roll-ups that are out of the box. I saw many plugins that can help improve or extend Splunk's functionality but I haven't tried any of them."
"Splunk can improve regex/asset analysis as we do not want to crawl until it is done."
"It can be tough to get a hold of somebody in technical support depending on the complexity of the issue."
"Could be more user friendly."
"The UI could be better. This is applicable to Splunk in general. I know that a lot of people who get their hands on Splunk are hesitant to use it just because they find it overwhelming. There are a lot of options."
More ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) Pricing and Cost Advice →
ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is ranked 12th in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 93 reviews while Splunk Enterprise Security is ranked 2nd in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 228 reviews. ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is rated 7.8, while Splunk Enterprise Security is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) writes "Allows for monitoring logs according to industry standards within ESM but has a total capacity capped at 12 TB, limiting real-time data retention periods". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Splunk Enterprise Security writes "It has a drag-and-drop interface, so you don't need to know SQL or Java to construct a query ". ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is most compared with ArcSight Intelligence, Trellix ESM, IBM Security QRadar, AWS Security Hub and LogRhythm SIEM, whereas Splunk Enterprise Security is most compared with Wazuh, Dynatrace, IBM Security QRadar, Elastic Security and Azure Monitor. See our ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) vs. Splunk Enterprise Security report.
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