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IBM Watson for Cyber Security vs Sentinel vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of IBM Watson for Cyber Security is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sentinel is 3.8%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 9.3%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Splunk Enterprise Security9.3%
Sentinel3.8%
IBM Watson for Cyber Security0.4%
Other86.5%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Elena Stefanovska - PeerSpot reviewer
Knowledgeable support, reliable, and useful compliance policies
IBM Watson for Cyber Security can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud and it is used as a SIEM solution The most valuable features of IBM Watson for Cyber Security are ease of use and out-of-the-box reports and compliance policies. Additionally, if there are aspects that are missing IBM add…
Simon Johnston - PeerSpot reviewer
Simple antivirus solution integrates well but could improve pricing and currency options
I don't really have experience working with these solutions. I promote them for our clients, but I don't work with them. I can't share my experience with these tools as I make assumptions about that. For both Adlumin and CrowdStrike, both confirm that they're scalable and enterprise-ready and all those kinds of things. We haven't had any specific problem with either of those. We just have a preference for which one we would prefer. If somebody says they want to use a different one from the one that we prefer, then we have to find reasons why they aren't. But scalability is not one of the reasons that one is better over the other. I don't really have advice for people that are looking into using Sentinel; just do your research across what is available. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Sentinel a seven.
Kyle Vernham - PeerSpot reviewer
Built-in searches and unified data access streamline alert investigation and boosts analyst efficiency
The two features I appreciate the most in Splunk Enterprise Security are the built-in searches, which have been very easy for us to get started with right out of the box, and the fact that it accesses all of our other systems. You can access it as a pane of glass rather than having to search individually. We also have the option to compare our analysts from our service to service. Splunk Enterprise Security helps our SOC team prioritize and investigate high-fidelity alerts more effectively by providing a more in-depth look and the ability to access a lot more of our data. Instead of jumping from several segmented systems, it allows us to have everything brought together in one place. For example, you have to move from our purview to our build system and to Splunk Enterprise Security, and it enables us to streamline that process. The built-in features of Splunk Enterprise Security, which we recently procured, have given us a good starting point and demonstrated the value of the product, providing an easy way to sell it to our company. The ease of getting everything into our purview helps us, and it serves as a good start for the investigation part in one location rather than what we usually have, which is jumping from system to system to system. Splunk Enterprise Security plays a role in our company's strategy to combat insider threats and advanced persistent threats by currently being in its technical test phase. We are still rolling it out, and it should help us find any insider threats based on information that our policy states should not be present in our system. Splunk Enterprise Security's risk-based alerting (RBA) has impacted our alert volume and analyst productivity because we've got many different systems feeding into it. However, it has helped to make it easier for our analysts to go through a set of events rather than 100 alerts. RBA allows us to streamline the process and customize it for our analysts. When it comes to leveraging Splunk Enterprise Security's dashboards and visualizations to communicate security posture to executives, it's pretty straightforward for any type of information. The visualization is easy to understand, but I haven't had any direct conversations with our executives.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of IBM Watson for Cyber Security are ease of use and out-of-the-box reports and compliance policies. Additionally, if there are aspects that are missing IBM add them in the next release."
"The customer support is very good."
"IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very stable."
"The most valuable feature of this product is innovation, where the research and upgrading of technology never ends."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it provides a central locking system for many event sources."
"The solution's Kusto Query Language (KQL) execution time is pretty good."
"Sentinel gave us logs to tell us what's going right and wrong in your environment so we could secure the network."
"The tool is simple to use."
"It makes everything easier by automating some tasks and growing with our needs."
"The solution lets us get all the logs properly and regularly monitor customer infrastructure."
"The stability is phenomenal and we never had any issues with downtime or even had to restart."
"In my opinion, Sentinel's best features include that it's a very easy product to use, it's very simple, and the after-sale service is very good."
"While it might be an initial upfront investment on data onboarding, it's going to be something that makes your life incredibly easy once you get beyond that point."
"We can extract the metrics we want on the dashboards. We are able to react to the incidents."
"Splunk allows us to find insights that we were not able to with traditional BI tools using ETL​. It allows us to dig into raw events."
"Splunk Enterprise Security stands out for its ability to integrate with existing security tools, provide informative dashboards, and offer IT Service Assurance functionality that goes beyond basic threat detection to include service performance monitoring."
"I really appreciate the all-integrated SIEM feature of Splunk Enterprise Security, which serves as a one-stop shop to get all security tasks done."
"It definitely does help with both auditing and as well as regular monitoring. SOC does more monitoring, but ES also gives you other features that are auditing-related. The dashboards are also beneficial."
"The search lookups are useful."
"The solution's most valuable features are the granularity and analysis of the logs."
 

Cons

"In the future, I would like to see threat intelligence included."
"The dashboard could improve in IBM Watson for Cyber Security."
"This is an expensive product, so making it more cost-effective would be an improvement."
"They need to continue to build the AI capabilities."
"I rate Sentinel a six out of ten for scalability."
"The dashboard and customer view should be improved"
"The solution does not allow outsourced authorizations."
"Creating a drag-and-drop dashboard or workbook in Sentinel is a little more complex compared to other tools like LogRhythm and IBM QRadar."
"There are still a few vendor-specific devices for which Sentinel needs to work on integration, such as Netskope devices."
"Price is always a consideration, so the price would be nice if it were lower."
"This product's connection to certain types of cloud systems could be improved. We can do Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, but there are a lot of other things happening in the cloud that we do not connect well enough to. This product could be improved with better connection to cloud-based solutions."
"You need a lot of Unix scripting knowledge in order to manage the tool, which is one of the main issues that we faced."
"They could offer pre-built search queries for everyday use cases like brute force attacks, DDoS attacks, and other security threats."
"It would be nice to have more advanced UEBA in Splunk Enterprise Security. Additionally, it would be beneficial if they offered more threat intel feeds for free."
"The high cost of Splunk Enterprise Security prevented us from using its full capabilities."
"I would like to see future development in terms of ML (Machine Learning)."
"It could be more user friendly, in terms of the end-user experience."
"The prices are complicated as we operate in a small third-world country."
"Splunk could be improved by reducing the cost. The cost is one of the biggest challenges for us in keeping to our production requirements."
"The UI can be improved. Dashboards and reports can be better in terms of graphics."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very simple to license and is priced well."
"The price of this solution should be lower, although I understand why IBM charges a premium price."
"Sentinel is moderately priced."
"We inquired about getting support from the vendor, Micro Focus, but the cost was very high."
"The solution’s pricing is aligned with its competitors."
"Sentinel is a subscription-based solution."
"Sentinel's slightly on the expensive side."
"We receive a pricing discount because of our ongoing partnership with Micro Focus."
"While Splunk is more expensive than other solutions, we would still choose it because of its capabilities."
"I assume that the pricing is reasonable, because if it was too costly, there are other alternatives."
"Splunk Enterprise becomes extremely expensive after the 20GB/month license."
"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."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is expensive."
"Splunk is a bit pricier, but the benefits and ROI are huge."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is expensive."
"You will eat up whatever you purchase quickly. The level of insights that Splunk empowers is addictive."
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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
No data available
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business110
Midsize Enterprise48
Large Enterprise255
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about NetIQ Sentinel?
The solution lets us get all the logs properly and regularly monitor customer infrastructure.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetIQ Sentinel?
I don't have too many comments overall about pricing as we're in South Africa, so it makes more sense if it's billed ...
What needs improvement with NetIQ Sentinel?
I'm not sure what the room for improvement is for Sentinel. It needs to stay current, and it does, so I suppose that'...
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 a...
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 ingest...
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 monitor...
 

Also Known As

No data available
NetIQ Sentinel, Novell SIEM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Faysal Bank, GaVI, Handelsbanken, ISC Mªnster, Lambeth Council, Swisscard, The Municipality of Siena, Tukes, University of Dayton, University of the Sunshine Coast
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 Splunk, Wazuh, Microsoft and others in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM). Updated: August 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.