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Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs NetWitness Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Cisco Secure Network Analytics
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (33rd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (5th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (6th), Cisco Security Portfolio (8th)
NetWitness Platform
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (37th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (36th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Secure Network Analytics and NetWitness Platform aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Secure Network Analytics is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 0.9%, down 1.2% compared to last year.
NetWitness Platform, on the other hand, focuses on Log Management, holds 1.1% mindshare, up 0.4% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Network Analytics0.9%
Zabbix3.8%
SolarWinds NPM3.7%
Other91.6%
Network Monitoring Software
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetWitness Platform1.1%
Splunk Enterprise Security7.0%
IBM Security QRadar4.5%
Other87.4%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Harun-Owr-Roshid - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at BRIGHT-i SYSTEMS LIMITED
Have streamlined network visibility and troubleshooting while seeing benefits from AI integration
In terms of improvements for Cisco Secure Network Analytics, from the implementation point of view, now that AI is in use, some other features need to be upgraded considering AI solutions. Proper management of the database is also important; it should be centralized for easier data collection from a single database. When precise manual analysis is needed, it's sometimes difficult, so having a centralized database will allow network admins to find actual scenarios more effectively, especially since some information may not be visible on the GUI. Cisco should upgrade their hardware part to run the database, because sometimes it cannot handle the load while all features are running in the network. The database management should indeed be centralized because while AI runs behind the systems, central management is essential. For example, in a network with 100 Cisco switches, a few routers, firewalls, and access points, all data generated should be preserved in a central database. This approach simplifies management and analysis for troubleshooting, as GUI interfaces may not always provide visible information. Centralizing the database will allow for better understanding of which information is preserved for each specific device.
reviewer2256927 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Information Security, Cyber Defense and IT Risk Management at HCT. at a transportation company with 201-500 employees
A solid SIEM solution that should improve technical support and online resources to be easier to use
A big problem with the product is that we don't have much professional experience in Israel installing, implementing, and integrating this product. There is not enough of a knowledge base. There is no support for this product in this country, so problems have to be resolved through global technical teams. We like to work locally because of the language, and when the product is only supported outside the country, it's a little difficult to implement and use this product. Moreover, AI is something that must be added immediately. Artificial intelligence is a part of the competitors' products, and it's not been implemented for us.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The beginning of any security investigation starts with net flow data."
"The solution has reduced our incident response times by at least 50% and also reduced the amount of time it takes to detect and remediate threats by around 50%."
"We use it to monitor for any anomaly behavior and analyze results."
"The best feature of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is its reliability, which I find to be the one that gets used the most."
"The most valuable feature about this solution is that it gives me insight into my network, with great analytics and threat protection capabilities to detect faults and find viruses and trojans, and I can definitely say that this solution saves us time, money, and administrative work."
"The network visibility has vastly improved for the organizations that I assist with their services."
"Being able to graph and show data to management has improved our organization. We can show the data to the higher-ups. It shows them that it's picking up on these anomalies and doing its job."
"Able to drill down into a center's utilization, then create reports based on it."
"The development of use cases on the SSA console is quite user friendly, which means that the security analyst or the researcher does not have to learn another language."
"The most valuable feature is the correlation, as it can report in real-time and monitor the management."
"Stability has not been an issue with this product."
"The solution is reliable."
"The solution is really scalable for the high-end power, enterprise customer."
"It gives the capability for the incident response team to correlate logs to identify any kind of problem like malware and incidents in a general sense, both for logs and packets."
"It's quite economical compared to other solutions in the market."
"Alerting Module: It provides real-time event processing language on all the logs/packets stream for advanced alerting, i.e., using SQL LIKE statements."
 

Cons

"Better integration between Cisco Secure Network Analytics and Cisco Secure Workload would be beneficial."
"Stealthwatch needs improvement when it comes to speed."
"This solution is a little expensive."
"Complexity on integration is not so straightforward and you really need an expert to help build it out."
"I would like to see more and cleaner reporting. For example, if I pull up Steven and I want to look and maybe compare him to what you've done in the past week, and compare that to the past six months, the point would be to see what the difference in activity looks like over this time. I don't see that capability in reporting to date. You see that trend but you don't really see a straightforward comparison. That right there is key to what we want to see about the normal activity."
"It's a good solid solution but integration with Network Access Control products with Cisco ISE would be good."
"One thing I would like to see improved is if it could automatically be tied through ISE, instead of you having to manually get notifications and disable it yourself."
"We are continuing down the road of ACI and ISE with Cisco, so we would like to see the continuation of Stealthwatch integrating into ISE for exchange of information, and also, more into the ACI environment too."
"It is not so easy to customize this product."
"The log system is a bit complex and has room for improvement."
"The user interface is a little bit difficult for new users and it needs to be improved."
"I believe that integrating the solution with other products such as Oracle would be beneficial."
"I cannot say that the solution was stable because it tended to crash."
"We have encountered issues with unresolved crashes."
"Lots of competing products have vulnerability protection built into their products, and this solution would be improved by including that support."
"The threat detection capability and centralizing and upgrading capability need to be improved. The threat alert capability needs to be improved as well because there is some lag time at present. They need to work on their database search too."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive. It costs several hundred thousand dollars per year (depending on how many flows you are collecting)."
"The yearly licensing cost is about $50,000."
"Today, we are part of the big Cisco ELA, and it is a la carte. We can get orders for whatever we want. At the end of the day, we have to pay for it in one big expense, but that is fine. We are okay with that."
"The licensing costs are outrageous."
"We pay for support costs on a yearly basis."
"One of the things which bugs me about Lancope is the licensing. We understand how licensing works. Our problem is when we bought and purchased most of these Lancope devices, we did so with our sister company. Somewhere within the purchase and distribution, licensing got mixed up. That is all on Cisco, and it is their responsibility. They allotted some of our sister company's equipment to us, and some of our equipment to them. To date, they have never been able to fix it."
"Pricing is much higher compared to other solutions."
"There are additional licenses needed for the number of so-called network flows. It's hard to plan the number of flows you need in the network, this is a problem. The price of the Cisco Stealthwatch is relatively inexpensive"
"The product is expensive."
"The product price was reasonable for my region and the market."
"The tool is very expensive, so I rate the pricing a ten out of ten. The solution has an annual subscription."
"It’s cheaper to run virtual machines in a VMware environment."
"We have a perpetual license, so the total cost of ownership is not very expensive. It's a good investment."
"There is a licensing fee and the customer can choose whether he wishes this to be subscription-based or perpetual."
"Compared to the competition, the is price is not that high."
"Our license is for one year."
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Comparison Review

VS
Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Government
8%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Stealthwatch?
Regarding cost, for the Bangladesh context, Cisco Secure Network Analytics is a little bit high-priced because we are a developing country, making it tough to manage affordable solutions. However, ...
What needs improvement with Cisco Stealthwatch?
Several features often look very promising during evaluation or implementation but end up being used only lightly in day-to-day operations. Advanced reporting and scheduled compliance reports look ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Stealthwatch?
My main use case for Cisco Secure Network Analytics has been network visibility and anomaly-based threat detection within the enterprise environment. In security operations and VAPT-related activit...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetWitness Platform?
The pricing is comparable to others, and I consider the cost to be intermediate. Specific cost details are unknown to me.
What needs improvement with NetWitness Platform?
There is currently no need for improvement in the SIEM ( /categories/security-information-and-event-management-siem ), though there could be potential enhancements by integrating with AI.
What is your primary use case for NetWitness Platform?
I use NetWitness Platform ( /products/netwitness-platform-reviews ) in the financial industry as a good product with excellent capabilities and integration with various devices.
 

Also Known As

Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco Stealthwatch Enterprise, Lancope StealthWatch
RSA Security Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Edge Web Hosting, Telenor Norway, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, Webster Financial Corporation, Westinghouse Electric, VMware, TIAA-CREF
Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
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