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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

"The solution's most valuable features are anomaly detection and connectivity reporting."
"I use the stack every morning to check the errors and it's just so clear. I don't see any disadvantage to using Logstash."
"It is scalable."
"ELK Logstash is easy and fast, at least for the initial setup with the out of box uses."
"We like Elastic Security because it's a REST API-based solution. That's the primary reason we use it."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to collect authentication information from service providers."
"It is an extremely stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature for me is Discover."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to write rules and triggers for network communication, and then being able to investigate based on that."
"It's fully scalable. There is no limit. Of course, the license limits per day the number of terabytes. In my opinion, it's very flexible."
"Incident management is its most valuable feature."
"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 Platform is valuable for creating rules that the solution must detect."
"The product has a user-friendly interface and a valuable feature for threat intelligence integration."
"In my opinion, the solution's most valuable feature is its capacity to monitor network traffic, logs from devices within the network, and network captures. This capability extends beyond logs to include full network capturing."
"The most valuable features are the packet decoder, log decoder, and concentrator."
 

Cons

"Installation is a little bit overwhelming, so improvements on the installation site could make it easier."
"It would be better if Elastic Security had less storage for data. My customers do not like this. Other vendors have local support in different countries, but Elastic Security doesn't. I would like to have Operational Technology (OT) security in the next release."
"Technical support could respond faster."
"If the documentation were improved and made more clear for beginners, or even professionals, then we would be more attracted to this solution."
"The solution's query building is not that intuitive compared to other solutions."
"We're using the open-source edition, for now, I think maybe they can allow their OLED plugin to be open source, as at the moment it is commercialised."
"The Integration module could be improved. It is a pain to build integration with any product. We have to do parking and so on. It's not like other commercial solutions that use profile integration. I would also see more detection features on the SIEM side."
"Their visuals and graphs need to be better."
"Lots of competing products have vulnerability protection built into their products, and this solution would be improved by including that support."
"The documentation is not as structured as I would like, personally, and I think that it can be improved and made much more user-friendly."
"The user interface is a little bit difficult for new users and it needs to be improved."
"The initial setup is complex. There are other solutions that are easier to implement."
"Health monitoring of the event sources and devices."
"More customizability is required, which is something that they need to improve on."
"Log aggregation is an issue with this solution because there are a huge number of alerts in a single instance."
"I'd like to see improvement in its ease of use. It's basically unusable. It's overly complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to other products such as Dynatrace, this is one of the cheaper options."
"It is easy to deploy, easy to use, and you get everything you need to become operational with it, and have nothing further to pay unless you want the OLED plugin."
"Elastic Security is free to use."
"We are using the free, open-source version of this solution."
"When compared to other products, the price is average or on the low side."
"The product offers an amazing pricing structure. Price-wise, the product is very competitive."
"It's a monthly cost with Elastic SIEM, but I am not sure of the exact cost."
"The base product is open-source but if you need advanced security features then you need to pay for the subscription. Elastic Security's price is reasonable in some cases and in other cases it's not."
"It’s cheaper to run virtual machines in a VMware environment."
"It is cheap."
"The new pricing and licensing mechanisms are fair. I would advise always to get the full solution (i.e., not only Logs)."
"There is a licensing fee and the customer can choose whether he wishes this to be subscription-based or perpetual."
"In comparison to other SIEM solutions such as Splunk, NetWitness is less costly."
"We have a perpetual license, so the total cost of ownership is not very expensive. It's a good investment."
"Compared to the competition, the is price is not that high."
"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."
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Comparison Review

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Feb 26, 2015
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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.