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Change Auditor for Windows File Servers vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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

Change Auditor for Windows ...
Ranking in Log Management
37th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Log Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
306
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Change Auditor for Windows File Servers is 0.1%, down from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 7.4%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

KF
Provides granular queries of security logs and real-time alerting helps me mitigate risks
The real-time alerting helps me mitigate risks. For example, someone adds a member to the domain admin group. We have an alert set up, so if someone does this unexpectedly, we get notified. Then, we can check and verify if the action is legitimate or a potential threat to the environment.
ROBERT-CHRISTIAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Has many predefined correlation rules and is brilliant for investigation and log analysis
It is very complicated to write your own correlation rules without the help of Splunk support. What Splunk could do better is to create an API to the standard SIEM tools, such as Microsoft Sentinel. The idea would be to make it less painful. In ELK Stack, Kibana is the query language with which you can search log files. I believe Splunk has also a query language in which they search their log files, but once you have identified the log file that you want to use for further security correlation, you want to very quickly transport that into your SIEM tool, such as Microsoft Sentinel. That is something that Splunk could make a little bit less painful because it is a lot of effort to find that log file and forward it. An API with Microsoft Sentinel or a similar SIEM tool would be a good idea.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's most valuable aspect is that it can be fully integrated with Microsoft solutions and it doesn't impact the productivity order."
"In terms of features, the querying is great."
"Splunk has helped improve our company's resilience level."
"The ability to digest any information and then correlate it in accordance with what you need is valuable. The ability to connect to pretty much everything and bring the information in the same format is also valuable. On top of that, we can use their language in order to create and customize the dashboards, correlations, or analytics that we want to incorporate."
"The correlation capabilities are the first value that our clients say they like with Splunk."
"The feature that we use the most is the correlation search engine within ES."
"We are much faster finding and addressing issues with Splunk."
"It provides a lot of analytics with the underlying AI engine, and it is a lot easier than other solutions. There are some products that do automated AI-based detection and drawing up charts, but for network monitoring and all of the monitoring aspects, it is quite a nice tool. It is very convenient for business users because they get more or less a lot of data readily available. If you're familiar with the Splunk query language, you can pretty much do whatever you want."
"Its alerting is most valuable. We have alerts set up in our environment for certain attacks, such as an SQL injection attempt. We have a front-facing server for the website. It is out there, and anybody can access it. When those SQL injection attempts come in, we are able to detect that with the alert."
"The most valuable function is the notable events. When I joined the team, I asked them what they could currently see, and they said nothing. I was pretty shocked. I know for a fact that they're using Enterprise Security or at least they had purchased it. I told them that there are several dashboards within Splunk that we can leverage. There is also notable events where we can see potential incidents or potential alerts about the infrastructure and the network itself."
 

Cons

"The pricing could be improved. It needs to be reduced."
"The customer service and support could improve their approach to questioning issues. They tend to ask questions one at a time, which creates a lot of back-and-forth communication."
"Splunk is more expensive than other solutions."
"Enterprise security: Splunk must work on clarifying the solution to customers and explain how to gain more from it."
"The solution could improve by giving more email details."
"They should make data onboarding easier."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is complicated in terms of developing specific cybersecurity use cases."
"The presence of multiple layers creates a significant challenge for monitoring across cloud environments."
"Resource usage can probably be described as an area with shortcomings in the product where improvements are required."
"The case management area of the ES could be improved. The ability to move cases through various stages and states. The ability to close a case would be key improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is per user. The cost is approximately $15/user on a yearly basis. If you need to, you can always upgrade as well."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is a worthwhile investment given the comprehensive range of features it offers."
"My customers have found the price of the solution to be high."
"Truly evaluate the data you want to ingest and go slow. Pulling in data that can provide no use to your mission only wastes data against your license."
"It's definitely worth it."
"Splunk is priced higher than other solutions."
"Splunk is not a cheap solution and the license is billed annually."
"Pricing and licensing is quite expensive. But for the value the product provides, it seems at par in the market."
"The Splunk licensing is high."
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Comparison Review

VS
Feb 26, 2015
HP ArcSight vs. IBM QRadar vs. ​McAfee Nitro vs. Splunk vs. RSA Security vs. LogRhythm
We at Infosecnirvana.com have done several posts on SIEM. After the Dummies Guide on SIEM, we are following it up with a SIEM Product Comparison – 101 deck. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Let me know what you think by posting your comments below. The key products compared here are…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Change Auditor for Windows File Servers?
They've already made improvements! They have a tool called IT Security Search, which lets you perform queries outside of Change Auditor. It's much faster. This is a really good addition and helps u...
What is your primary use case for Change Auditor for Windows File Servers?
I use Change Auditor for Windows File Servers to log history. It's helpful when we have critical changes in Active Directory, like adding or removing items. I use it extensively for monitoring.
What SOC product do you recommend?
For tools I’d recommend: -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is asking to miss details that are critical, and ending up a statistic. Also, rememb...
What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?
It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingestion of anything, but the charge per GB/Day Indexed and it gets expensive as log ...
How does Splunk compare with Azure Monitor?
Splunk handles a high amount of data very well. We use Splunk to capture information and as an aggregator for monitoring information from different sources. Splunk is very good at alerting us if we...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dragon Capital, Howard County MD
Splunk has more than 7,000 customers spread across over 90 countries. These customers include Telenor, UniCredit, ideeli, McKenney's, Tesco, and SurveyMonkey.
Find out what your peers are saying about Change Auditor for Windows File Servers vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.