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Cisco XDR vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 30, 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

Cisco XDR
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (23rd)
Splunk Enterprise Security
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
312
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (2nd), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco XDR is designed for Extended Detection and Response (XDR) and holds a mindshare of 1.8%, up 0.1% compared to last year.
Splunk Enterprise Security, on the other hand, focuses on Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), holds 9.5% mindshare, down 12.4% since last year.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Aruna Udawatte - PeerSpot reviewer
Network visibility improves with centralized maintenance and responsive support
The single point of maintenance and dashboards are the strong points of Cisco XDR ( /categories/extended-detection-and-response-xdr ). The visibility of the network is the main valuable feature. Customers frequently request features that offer better system visibility. The solution also offers automated response capability, which I would rate around eight out of ten.
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 features of Cisco XDR benefit my company since time is money. When outages happen and when a customer can't reach the internet, they get agitated. Therefore, the quicker we can mitigate an issue, our customers get happier in a quicker fashion."
"The feature I appreciate the most about Cisco XDR is the reliability."
"Cisco XDR offers threat intelligence and links with the Firewall."
"The feature I appreciate the most about Cisco XDR is the reliability."
"Technical support from Cisco is good and very helpful."
"Cisco XDR offers threat intelligence and links with the Firewall."
"One of my favorite features of Cisco XDR is the automation tool, which saves a lot of time because we can craft these automations and workflows."
"One of my favorite features of Cisco XDR is the automation tool, which saves a lot of time because we can craft these automations and workflows."
"Splunk can deliver more information by going deeper. By creating a dashboard, we can identify the root cause of the threat. Let's say I have a firewall from Check Point. Splunk will find the dashboard for Check Point, implement it in our environment, and connect it to the Check Point firewall logs, which are shown on the dashboard. If we request a custom dashboard, the engineer will take longer to complete the task."
"The community marketplace is useful; often, you do not need to rely on Splunk Enterprise Security support due to the wealth of online documentation available—Splunk docs are truly beneficial."
"Speeds up root cause analysis and can help identify issues that your organization never realized were occurring."
"I find it beneficial that Splunk Enterprise Security easily integrates with other tools. Due to its excellent API capabilities, it facilitates connections with various cybersecurity tools."
"It's very flexible. If you look from the cloud implementation it is there. Reports are made quickly. Unlike other tools, it caters to all kinds of technical information on the front very easily. There's no need to put in any technical information. You can pull on the reports very easily, take action, and notify stakeholders."
"The features of Splunk Enterprise Security that I have found most valuable include the risk-based score and UBA/UEBA, user behavior analytics, or user and entity behavior analytics."
"The correlation searches are most valuable just because we are able to do things like RBA."
"They are a good partner for Google Cloud. It provides great visibility, threat detection, and proactive mitigation of risks for our mutual consumers."
 

Cons

"If we have a list of domains we need to block, such as 4,000 domains, I can only block 100 domains at a time because if I put in more than 100 domains, I hit that 2,000 character max and can't continue with an investigation. Being able to put in all 4,000 domains, without a character limit or observable limit, would make doing those case books a whole lot easier and blocking those domains a whole lot easier too."
"The licensing of Cisco XDR is a bit complicated. The cost can depend on what it is, and the process can be a little complicated."
"Cisco XDR can be improved by addressing the upfront cost."
"Cisco XDR can be improved by addressing the upfront cost. Everything matters for us since we're small, mom and pop, so every dollar counts."
"My only complaint about Cisco XDR is related to licensing, which is complicated."
"When we first started with Cisco XDR in August, everybody was having issues. There were three people in our organization, including me, who couldn't even log in to Cisco XDR."
"They need to provide better pricing and bundle XDR licenses with products like Meraki solutions or Firepower Threat Defense."
"They need to provide better pricing and bundle XDR licenses with products like Meraki solutions or Firepower Threat Defense."
"Stability is there, but every release has some bugs."
"Our two main complaints are about the difficulty of the initial setup and the licensing model."
"We'd like to have the number of devices covered under the license to be increased."
"Queries are not always as easy or straightforward as they might be, so it can be difficult to figure out what you need to look for."
"Splunk can improve regex/asset analysis as we do not want to crawl until it is done."
"The threat detection library needs to increase the frequency at which the playbooks are updated."
"Being a SIEM solution with a centralized dashboard, we would like to have more options to customize it."
"I would like to see an updated dashboard. The dashboard is a little out-of-date. It could be made prettier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing of Cisco XDR is a bit complicated. The cost can depend on what it is, and the process can be a little complicated."
"It is expensive, but it is a good tool. It is worth the cost."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is expensive."
"Splunk is not free."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is expensive but the solution is equipped with a lot of features."
"The pricing modules could be improved."
"Our customers often complain that the price of Splunk is too high."
"Splunk is really expensive compared to all the other tools on the market, including Microsoft Sentinel."
"My customers have found the price of the solution to be 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
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco XDR?
Costs vary depending on dollar fluctuations. Cisco requires conversion to dollars, which affects the cost compared to local competitors who bill in local currency. Overall, the price is a bit expen...
What needs improvement with Cisco XDR?
An issue that we have with Cisco XDR is the observable list. These observables are basically similar to a chess board where you have a certain number of spots to put pieces. It's the same concept w...
What is your primary use case for Cisco XDR?
I use Cisco XDR because I'm a SOC analyst. It's something I use every single day. The majority of my work has been in Cisco XDR looking through incidents, reading reports that it gives, and making ...
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...
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Microsoft and others in Extended Detection and Response (XDR). Updated: June 2025.
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