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Elastic Security vs NetWitness Platform 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

Elastic Security
Ranking in Log Management
7th
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (16th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (8th)
NetWitness Platform
Ranking in Log Management
34th
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
32nd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 2.9%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Elastic Security2.9%
NetWitness Platform0.4%
Other96.7%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Laurentiu Popescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Has improved threat detection with deep log analysis and streamlined investigation workflows
The most useful features I find in Elastic Security are the forensic ones that allow us to carry deeper analysis into the logs for in-depth investigations, and the dashboards, with the reporting dashboard being quite user-friendly. Elastic Security is quite good at identifying threats, as it is part of the deep investigation tool that I mentioned before. Unless we need to look further into a certain log, we can carry out a deeper analysis and forensics on those particular logs. I can assess the impact of Elastic Security's real-time data analysis on our threat response efficiency as working pretty good. We are looking for real-time analysis because we have a continuous inflow of logs from different sources: from our cloud, from Active Directory, from our network. So it works pretty well.
MOTASHIM Al Razi - PeerSpot reviewer
It is a stable solution, but they should make the user interface easier to understand
The solution's initial setup takes work. We have to organize multiple paths and many features. The deployment process takes less than a week. But it takes a month to complete if we want to make the solution smarter by integrating it with various devices. I rate the process as a six out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its flexibility is most valuable. We can have a number of scenarios, and we can get logs from anything. If we know how to use Logstash, we can tweak it in many ways. This makes the logging search on Elastic very easy."
"Elastic has a lot of beats, such as Winlogbeat and Filebeat. Beats are the agents that have to be installed on the terminals to send the data. When we install beats or Elastic agents on every terminal, they don't overload the terminals. In other SIEM solutions such as Splunk or QRadar, when beats or agents are installed on endpoints, they are very heavy for the terminals. They consume a lot of power of the terminals, whereas Elastic agents hardly consume any power and don't overload the terminals."
"The solution's most valuable features are anomaly detection and connectivity reporting."
"The indexes allow you to get your results quickly. The filtering and log passing is the advantage of Logstash."
"The most valuable feature of Elastic Security is that you can install agents, and they are not separately licensed."
"It's very stable and reliable."
"It's a good platform and the very best in the current market. We looked at the Forester report from December 2022 where it was said to be a leader."
"It's simple and easy to use."
"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."
"NetWitness can be highly beneficial for incident detection and response."
"Alerting Module: It provides real-time event processing language on all the logs/packets stream for advanced alerting, i.e., using SQL LIKE statements."
"The most valuable feature is the correlation. It can report in real-time and monitor the management."
"The most valuable features are the threat prediction and network forensics."
"Their technical support responds quickly and are knowledgable."
"The software is scalable to whatever is required, and you can also put a lot of resources in the cloud."
"The newer 11.5 version that my team is using has found it to have good mapping."
 

Cons

"There is an area of improvement in the Logs list. The load list may need to be paginated as there are limits."
"We'd like to see some more artificial intelligence capabilities."
"There should be a simulation environment to check whether my Elastic implementation is functioning perfectly fine. Other solutions have their own Android and iOS applications that I can install on my mobile so that I am continuously connected to the SIEM."
"The initial configuration and setup are complicated and not straightforward."
"The biggest challenge has been related to the implementation."
"I do not have any specific recommendations for improvements in Elastic Security, but I feel that the AI module should get more mature."
"In terms of improvement, there could be more automation in responding to and evaluating detections."
"If the documentation were improved and made more clear for beginners, or even professionals, then we would be more attracted to this solution."
"The system architecture is complex and sometimes it’s hard to troubleshoot potential problems."
"The initial setup is very complex and should be simplified."
"Lots of competing products have vulnerability protection built into their products, and this solution would be improved by including that support."
"The multi-tenant capabilities are lagging compared to IBM QRadar."
"The tool's integration capability isn't so great."
"The solution should have more integration capabilities with different platforms."
"Sometimes, it gives me static when integrating Windows-based systems. It should produce a precise log of sorts as to where the problem is. For example, a few days ago because of the McAfee application firewall, I couldn't get access to the particular Windows machine. So, my team and I had to figure out by ourselves that there was a virus responsible for the obstacle. This solution should trigger a meaningful log or message indicating the reason the user or implementer can't get into the machine."
"RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets can improve the threat level aspect, it is lacking compared to other solutions. Whenever any hacking activity or any other threat factor occurred they used to provide the coverages very fast when comparing RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets. I heard the other three solutions, from a discussion with my team members who had experience in other solutions, they used to say that. Whenever any issues happened across the globe RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets are a little bit slow improving those detection mechanisms."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to other products such as Dynatrace, this is one of the cheaper options."
"Elastic Security is free to use."
"The licensing cost of Elastic Security is based on the daily ingestion rate. I can't recall the exact figure, but for 10GB of log action daily, it would cost around $20,000."
"When compared to other products, the price is average or on the low side."
"I can say that the product is cheaply priced."
"The solution is not expensive and costs around ten dollars a month."
"The price is reasonable. It probably costs the same as ArcSight and LogRhythm SIEM. FortiSIEM might cost less than Elastic Security. There are no hidden or additional costs."
"Elastic Stack is an open-source tool. You don't have to pay anything for the components."
"The product price was reasonable for my region and the market."
"The NetWitness Platform may be affordable only for enterprise-level customers, as it may not be within the budget of small and medium-sized businesses."
"This is a pricey solution; it's not cheap."
"Compared to the competition, the is price is not that high."
"RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets do not have a subscription model, it's a one-time purchase. There is only a perpetual license."
"There is a licensing fee and the customer can choose whether he wishes this to be subscription-based or perpetual."
"We are on an annual license for the use of the solution."
"The licenses are good but the cost is very expensive."
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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
14%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Performing Arts
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
What do you like most about Elastic Security?
Elastic provides the capability to index quickly due to the reverse indexes it offers. This data is crucial as it contains critical information. The reverse index allows fast data indexing because ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
I am satisfied with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing cost. It is a pure 10.
What do you like most about NetWitness Platform?
The product's initial setup phase was not at all difficult.
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.
 

Also Known As

Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
RSA Security Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Security vs. NetWitness Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
873,085 professionals have used our research since 2012.