No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Elastic Stack vs NetWitness Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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 Stack
Ranking in Log Management
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetWitness Platform
Ranking in Log Management
38th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (39th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Stack is 2.5%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 1.0%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Elastic Stack2.5%
NetWitness Platform1.0%
Other96.5%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

LB
Senior Consultant at Skillfield
Offers robust out-of-the-box integrations and streamlines logging processes effortlessly
There are improvements needed for Elastic Stack. It is mostly based on Lucene, and the heart of Elastic Stack is Lucene, which has some limitations. Anything built on top of Lucene often feels an add-on, and that includes vector databases. Elastic Stack can store vector embeddings as well and perform AI and machine learning tasks out of the box without excessive configuration. The main improvements involve increasing speed and compression capabilities; I have seen databases that claim to achieve significantly better compression. While Elastic Stack can manage vast amounts of data, if the mapping is not specified correctly, the indexing time can be slow, especially with many events per second. Improper mapping usually means that every document received gets indexed for all fields, which is not desired. Elastic consultants typically optimize this, but out of the box, as data volume increases, scaling becomes necessary. They are working on these improvements in new versions.
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 machine learning capabilities are valuable."
"I think the ecosystem is well supported, and for logs, it was faster compared to our previous previous log management."
"The tool's most powerful aspect is its search engine capability. It's a highly effective and powerful solution for searching. We use it in professional and student projects at universities, and it delivers promising results."
"Prior to the latest updates, data lake management was a standout feature. The hybrid capability for on-premise and cloud integration was also crucial. Now, with Elastic Defense, the agent simplifies security monitoring, making it a key asset."
"The detection rules in Elastic Stack are the most valuable feature. The search capabilities are excellent and fast. As we collect logs from workstations and devices, the detection rules run on top of the logs and detect any suspicious activity, raising alerts accordingly. Integration with Elastic Stack depends on the specific integration. Elastic provides some bridging integrations that make it easy, but require custom integration. Most integrations are simple, but customization can be challenging because we need to do some parsing. There's something called Elastic Common Schema, and we need to parse the source logs to match this schema, which can be a bit challenging."
"I have benefited from the security features provided by X-Pack in Elastic Stack, particularly the SIEM capability, which is very good for checking security issues."
"It is an excellent tool for monitoring purposes."
"The only beneficial aspect of Elastic Stack is that it's open source."
"The newer 11.5 version that my team is using has found it to have good mapping."
"NetWitness Platform is valuable for creating rules that the solution must detect."
"The most valuable feature is the correlation, as it can report in real-time and monitor the management."
"The most valuable feature of RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets are the alerts and correlations tools."
"Overall, it is easy to implement."
"The most valuable features are the integration and ease of 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."
"Setting up NetWitness is straightforward. There are multiple connectors, including standard and specialized connectors. One purpose of the connectors is the enhanced capability integrate the custom applications. NetWitness comes with E6 appliances and application images that we use for the initial configurations and for the OS stack information. From there, you can consider the correlation rules, integrate the different log sources, and easily create correlation rules and backlog reports."
 

Cons

"When people try to move the data from another source to Elastic Stack for visualization, they face challenges when connecting to Elastic Stack from such different sources."
"I would rate the technical support by Elastic as five or six out of ten. They should improve their response time and first-level support, particularly knowledge, which is very important for using Elasticsearch."
"It lacks a clear NDR (Network Detection and Response) feature. If Elastic could enhance this aspect, it would significantly boost its capabilities."
"Elastic Stack's search capabilities can be challenging, especially when searching for precise data from past years, such as two or ten years ago. Its indexing performance for exact data retrieval may decrease as the data volume grows. Therefore, I believe there is room for improvement in the product's search functionality. It needs to improve its pricing as well."
"Support could be improved. The error code is not helpful. We have to ask for it or pass it on to community forums."
"The main issue related to Elastic Stack is in the area of its licensing."
"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"AI-enablement would be a big improvement in Elastic Stack...If there is room for an ML model in Elastic Stack, then it would be good."
"We have encountered issues with unresolved crashes."
"An area for improvement would be better automation and more inbuilt use cases."
"Technical support could be improved."
"There is no support for this product in this country, so problems have to be resolved through global technical teams."
"More customizability is required, which is something that they need to improve on."
"Nowadays, their support is a little subpar compared to other solutions. I rate RSA support six out of 10."
"The product's licensing models are complex to understand. This particular area needs improvement."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is reasonable."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."
"We are using the open-source community version of the product."
"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."
"The product is expensive."
"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
"If I compare Elastic Stack to the other products in the market, I would say that the tool is available at a competitive price."
"RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets do not have a subscription model, it's a one-time purchase. There is only a perpetual license."
"It provides tools to assist in selecting the appropriate license and usage scenarios."
"It’s cheaper to run virtual machines in a VMware environment."
"In comparison to other SIEM solutions such as Splunk, NetWitness is less costly."
"The licenses are good but the cost is very expensive."
"The new pricing and licensing mechanisms are fair. I would advise always to get the full solution (i.e., not only Logs)."
"Our license is for one year."
"Many clients are not able to purchase the packet capability because there is a huge amount of data, and the cost depends on the number of EPS (Events per second), as well as the number of gigabytes of data per day."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
8%
Performing Arts
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Stack?
My experience with Elastic Stack pricing indicates that it is node-based. While I do not have complete pricing details, they are available online. If I choose Elastic Cloud, it includes licensing a...
What needs improvement with Elastic Stack?
I would like to improve Elastic Stack by addressing the current big problem we face with importing logs and log files, such as syslogs. To import these log files, we need to design the ingest pipel...
What is your primary use case for Elastic Stack?
Elastic Stack is primarily used for everything related to security, including security systems, checking the security system, and also servers and networks.
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

No data available
RSA Security Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Stack vs. NetWitness Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.