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Graylog vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 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

Graylog
Ranking in Log Management
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Log Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
327
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Graylog is 6.4%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 7.4%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Splunk Enterprise Security7.4%
Graylog6.4%
Other86.2%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ivan Kokalovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates backend service monitoring with efficient log retrieval and API flexibility
Graylog is valuable because it bridges technical knowledge to non-technical teams, presenting complex backend processes in a simple timeline. It boosts the knowledge of sales and customer support teams by allowing them to see the backend operations without needing to read the code. Its API is flexible for visualization, and its powerful search engine efficiently handles large volumes of log data. Moreover, its stability, fast search capabilities, and compatibility with languages like ANSI SQL enhance its utility in IT infrastructure.
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

"I like the correlation and the alerting."
"Graylog is very handy."
"Graylog is valuable because it bridges technical knowledge to non-technical teams, presenting complex backend processes in a simple timeline."
"Allowing us to set up alerts and integrate with platforms we already use, such as Slack and OpsGenie to alert users of these errors proactively, is also a very useful feature."
"Graylog's search functionality, alerting functionality, user management, and dashboards are useful."
"Storing logs in Elasticsearch means log retrieval is extremely fast, and full text search is available by default."
"Everything stands out as valuable, including the fact that I can quantify and qualify the logs, create pipelines and process the logs in any way I like, and create charts or data maps."
"It is used as a log manager/SIEM. It provides visibility into the infrastructure and security related events."
"It has virtual visualization, and other products do not."
"There are a lot of third-party applications that can be installed."
"The two features I appreciate most in Splunk Enterprise Security are the content management system and the inter-incident review dashboard."
"Splunk Enterprise Security offers valuable features like seamless integration and a SQL-standard Structured Query Language for easy searching."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is a valuable tool that allows us to monitor data from the APS daily."
"I am satisfied with the support."
"The most valuable features of Splunk Enterprise Security are the enterprise search bar and the dashboards."
"The tool helps with advanced reports and keeps the system scalable and flexible. It provides a clear picture of the current status of any incidents. As a CISO, I see a lot of potential for future innovation, which is interesting. I've noticed better performance, especially with the reports."
 

Cons

"More customization is always useful."
"Over six months, I had two similar issues where searches were performed on field "messages". It exhausted all the memory of the ES node causing an ES crash and a Graylog halt."
"Its scalability gets complicated when we have to update or edit multiple nodes."
"Dashboards, stream alerts and parsing could be improved."
"With technical support, you are on your own without an enterprise license."
"Lacks sufficient documentation."
"The biggest problem is the collector application, as we wanted to avoid using Graylog Collector Sidecar due to its architecture."
"I would like to see a date and time in the Graylog Grok patterns so that I can save time when searching for a log. I like how the streams and the search query work, but adding a date and time will allow me to pull out a log in a milli-second."
"It'd be really nice if Splunk Enterprise Security had a better and solid configuration guide."
"We'd like Splunk to reduce false positives."
"Splunk should have more regional data centers in the Middle East."
". Having a trial version or more training on Splunk would be helpful."
"Writing queries is a bit complicated sometimes."
"Endpoint access is the only issue I can think to mention, even though the endpoint access we have with Cisco is fine."
"I didn't face any major issues with Splunk Enterprise Security. There were only one or two issues related to the user account, but nothing major."
"The UI can be improved. Dashboards and reports can be better in terms of graphics."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am using a community edition. I have not looked at the enterprise offering from Graylog."
"Having paid official support is wise for projects."
"Graylog is a free open-source solution. The free version has a capacity limitation of 2 GB daily, if you want to go above this you have to purchase a license."
"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."
"If you want something that works and do not have the money for Splunk or QRadar, take Graylog.​​"
"There is an open source version and an enterprise version. I wouldn't recommend the enterprise version, but as an open source solution, it is solid and works really well."
"It's open source and free. They have a paid version, but we never looked into that because we never needed the features of the paid version."
"We're using the Community edition."
"As a team, we prefer the old pricing model with a perpetual license. We are still evaluating the whole subscription-based model."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is not a cheap product, but I think it is worth every dollar that you pay."
"It is expensive, but it is a good tool. It is worth the cost."
"Splunk is expensive based on our current requirements, but it's obviously worth what we pay."
"Splunk licensing model might seem expensive but with all the gain in functionalities you will have compared to traditional SIEM solutions I think it’s worth the price."
"I am fine with the licensing, but in terms of the cost, it is expensive for the data that we have. We have an open discussion with our account rep about this."
"The tool's licensing is good and we haven't received any complaints from the team handling it."
"The pricing can be better. We are already considering Elastic because Splunk is too expensive. You have to pay based on per-day ingestion. There should be a more flexible model for the use cases where one day you have a huge amount, and on other days, it is quite less."
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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
17%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
8%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business104
Midsize Enterprise44
Large Enterprise225
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Graylog?
The product is scalable. The solution is stable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Graylog?
I am not familiar with the pricing details of Graylog, as I was not responsible for that aspect. It was determined that we didn't need an enterprise plan, which is more suited for clients with less...
What needs improvement with Graylog?
An improvement I would suggest is in Graylog's user interface, such as allowing for font size adjustments. A potential enhancement could be the integration with Ollama to run large language models ...
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...
 

Also Known As

Graylog2
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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 Graylog vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,985 professionals have used our research since 2012.