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Grafana Loki vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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

Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Log Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
306
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Grafana Loki is 8.7%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 7.3%, down from 10.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

CarlosPimentel - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient log filtering enhances quick network troubleshooting
We use Grafana Loki for various verticals including manufacturing, finance, health, and aerospatial sectors. It primarily helps in monitoring security and access to devices. Grafana dashboards are used to track access success and failure and audit commands issued on devices Loki significantly…
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 product's most valuable features are ease of installation, management, and reporting. It has an efficient ability to set thresholds for alerts, as well."
"There are new features like that pilot code and things like that for profiling."
"We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source tool that is stable and flexible."
"The tool can be used in multi-cluster environments."
"The solution's stability has never been a problem. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine to ten out of ten."
"Loki also utilizes the same service discovery mechanism as used by Prometheus. So, whatever labeled metadata you see in Prometheus, you have the exact same metadata in the Loki system. Given this level of intricacy and the attempt to address these challenges, I firmly believe that Loki deserves praise for the work."
"Grafana agent is very lightweight and does not cost significant resources of our cluster."
"The end-to-end visibility into our environment that Splunk provides is impressive. We just need to use it better."
"Its usability is the best part. It is easy for our developers to use if they want to search their logs, etc."
"The solution has proven to be quite stable."
"It has a rapid response search environment in the event of an incident."
"It follows MITRE ATT&CK and Cyber Kill Chain frameworks. There are certain notable events for which we can configure our security posture."
"It is very easy to use and integrate. There are connectors for every technology."
"The solution's most valuable feature is that it helps with our use cases to detect anomalies in our data and it is important to my company since we have a lot of data on different logs on the systems."
"The most valuable features for us include its robust log management capabilities, which allow us to efficiently handle and retain logs for extended periods as needed."
 

Cons

"We encountered certain limitations when it came to alerting, particularly when dealing with specific data sources."
"The Docker container partition feature needs improvement as they do not reuse the space and goes into a pending state."
"It would be beneficial if Loki could directly access Windows Server logs or events directly from the servers."
"Visualization-wise, Grafana Loki's dashboard looks a little outdated compared to other open-source visualization tools like Chronograf."
"It's not intended for proprietary services, so you have to struggle with configuration a lot."
"There is a need for some change in the alerting types of the product. In short, a few changes in the alert area are needed due to minor shortcomings."
"Enhancing speed could be a game-changer, and while it might vary depending on the application, it's a factor worth exploring."
"The correlation of requests is not simple in Grafana Loki and can be improved."
"The access and identity features could be improved. For example, let's say we have onboarded 65 logs. Now, we can identify the various processes, but we run into trouble when we're updating the processes for AWS CloudTrail, EDR, MDR, and XDR."
"A problem that we had recently had was we licensed it based on how much data you upload to them every day. Something changed in one our applications, and it started generating three to four times as many logs and. So now, we are trying to assemble something with parts of the Splunk API to warn ourselves, then turn it off and throttle it back more. However it would be better if they had something systematically built into the product that if you're getting close to your license, then to shut things down."
"The area of concern revolves around the fact that Splunk is an expensive product."
"Its user interface for everything other than the charts can be improved. Some parts of it can be simplified a bit, such as when importing documents that have the network traffic. When you're going through the information about the network traffic, you have to have the expertise, but even if a program is supposed to be for IT support, it is good to make it user-friendly because it gets easier to train people. When something goes wrong, the more difficult a program is in terms of UI, the harder it is to fix the issue."
"Splunk is more expensive than other solutions."
"It'd be really nice if Splunk Enterprise Security had a better and solid configuration guide."
"The incident response technique should be available out of the box. That isn't as available as we would expect."
"I find the graphical options really limited and you don't have enough control over how to display the data that you want to see."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I use the solution's open-source version. Grafana Loki is a completely free solution for me."
"I use the open-source version of the product."
"The solution is open source."
"I find the licensing structure quite reasonable, as the free license effectively meets my requirements."
"Since we are using the open-source version of Grafana Loki, we are not paying anything for the solution."
"Grafana Loki is a free, open-source solution."
"We use a free version."
"My company doesn't need to pay for the licensing cost of the solution."
"In terms of pricing, I believe Splunk is unreasonably costly for the majority of mid and small-sized companies."
"The price of this solution is expensive. However, it has great features. If you want a great solution you need to pay a price matching the features."
"I believe that Splunk Enterprise Security is worth the price, but it is expensive."
"I think that most of the log analytics solutions are expensive and I'm not sure if it's worth it."
"The pricing is based on the volume of data fed into it, which can lead to substantial costs. This pricing model is complex and unpredictable, making cost management difficult."
"It is economical than other solutions."
"It is expensive. That is why many customers have moved to IBM QRadar. The price is definitely a challenge for customers."
"Splunk's costing is a little more difficult. The pricing method is complicated, and the way that costing is calculated in Splunk is a little more difficult."
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Comparison Review

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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
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Grafana Loki?
We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana Loki?
We use the open-source version of Loki. The cloud version is competitively priced compared to other market solutions.
What needs improvement with Grafana Loki?
It would be beneficial if Loki could directly access Windows Server logs or events directly from the servers.
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...
 

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 Grafana Loki vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.