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Microsoft Sentinel 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

Microsoft Sentinel
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (6th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (6th)
NetWitness Platform
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
39th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (38th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Sentinel is 4.0%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Sentinel4.0%
NetWitness Platform0.9%
Other95.1%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
Centralized monitoring has improved threat response but cost control still needs refinement
Based on real operations used in our corporate IT environment, the key features include log correlation and incident view. Microsoft Sentinel's biggest strength is how it correlates multiple related alerts into a single incident. This significantly reduces alert noise and helps the SOC focus on real threats instead of isolated events. Another valuable feature is KQL-based threat hunting with Kusto Query Language. The flexibility of this language allows us to build custom hunting queries based on our environment's behavior. This is extremely useful for detecting low and slow threats or hidden threats that default rules may miss. Cloud-native scalability and stability is another important feature. Being cloud-native, Microsoft Sentinel scales well for medium to large corporate environments without infrastructure management. Stability has been solid in day-to-day production. SOAR automation using playbooks is a feature we highly recommend. Microsoft Sentinel's SOAR functionality helps automate repetitive SOC tasks like alert enrichment and notification. This saves analyst time and improves response consistency.
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

"We are able to deploy within half an hour and we only require one person to complete the implementation."
"For us, at least, the price point is justified, and we have not had any issues."
"The features of Microsoft Sentinel that I appreciate the most include the app integration."
"It is always correlating to IOCs for normal attacks, using Azure-related resources. For example, if any illegitimate IP starts unusual activity on our Azure firewall, then it automatically generates an alarm for us."
"If you have cloud-based workloads and different cloud or cloud lookalike services that require security data, or if you are looking for SOAR functionalities, then it's a no brainer."
"The automation feature is valuable."
"Good monthly operational cost model for the detection and response outcomes delivered, M365 logs don't count toward the limits which is a good benefit."
"Microsoft Sentinel stands out mainly for its signal-to-noise reduction; LogRhythm required numerous AI rules to reach a similar level of noise reduction."
"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."
"Since the solution has been under way we have seen a large decrease of threats and proactive reactions to incidents."
"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."
"Thanks to this tool, we have a small SOC running in our company."
"RSA NetWitness is a SIEM and real-time network traffic solution that collects logs and packets, applies a set of alerting, reporting, and analysis rules on them, and thus provides the enterprise with full visibility of the networks and activities of the systems."
"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 solution is really scalable for the high-end power, enterprise customer."
 

Cons

"The solution could improve the playbooks."
"They should integrate it with many other software-as-a-service providers and make connectors available so that you don't have to do any sort of log normalization."
"Its implementation could be simpler. It is not really simple or straightforward."
"Microsoft Sentinel can be improved in that the way it is built today means if you have a third party and you pay for ingestion, this is different than how some of the traditional SIEMs work."
"If their UI was a bit more streamlined and easy to find when I need it, then that would be a great improvement."
"Microsoft Sentinel can be improved in terms of automation or connecting with security products so that it is easier to use for general IT admins."
"We're satisfied with the comprehensiveness of the security protection. That said, we do have issues sometimes where there have been global outages and we need to raise a ticket with Microsoft."
"We have been working with multiple customers, and every time we onboard a customer, we are missing an essential feature that surprisingly doesn't exist in Sentinel. We searched the forums and knowledge bases but couldn't find a solution. When you onboard new customers, you need to enable the data connectors. That part is easy, but you must create rules from scratch for every associated connector. You click "next," "next," "next," and it requires five clicks for each analytical rule. Imagine we have a customer with 150 rules."
"The initial setup is complex. It requires some knowledge in order to set it up."
"The initial setup was complex because it takes a lot of time to complete the implementation."
"The threat detection capability and centralizing and upgrading capability need to be improved. The threat alert capability needs to be improved as well because there is some lag time at present. They need to work on their database search too."
"I believe that integrating the solution with other products such as Oracle would be beneficial."
"It is not so easy to customize this product."
"The initial setup is complex. There are other solutions that are easier to implement."
"RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets can improve the threat level aspect, it is lacking compared to other solutions. Whenever any hacking activity or any other threat factor occurred they used to provide the coverages very fast when comparing RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets. I heard the other three solutions, from a discussion with my team members who had experience in other solutions, they used to say that. Whenever any issues happened across the globe RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets are a little bit slow improving those detection mechanisms."
"The multi-tenant capabilities are lagging compared to IBM QRadar."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"No license is required to make use of Sentinel, but you need to buy products to get the data. In general, the price of those products is comparable to similar products."
"Microsoft Sentinel requires an E5 license."
"It is kind of like a sliding scale. There are different tiers of pricing that go from $100 per day up to $3,500 per day. So, it just kind of depends on how much data is being stored. There can be additional costs to the standard license other than the additional data. It just kind of depends on what other services you're spinning up in Azure, or if you're using something like Azure log analytics."
"There are no additional costs other than the initial costs of Sentinel."
"I am just paying for the log space with Azure Sentinel. It costs us about $2,000 a month. Most of the logs are free. We are only paying money for Azure Firewall logs because email logs or Azure AD logs are free to use for us."
"I'm not happy with the pricing on the integration with Defender for Endpoint. Defender for Endpoint is log-rich. There is a lot of information coming through, and it is needed information. The price point at which you ingest those logs has made a lot of my customers make the decision to leave that within the Defender stack."
"Cost-wise, Sentinel is based on the volume of information being ingested, so it can be quite pricey. The ability to use strategies to control what data is being ingested is important."
"I have had mixed feedback. At one point, I heard a client say that it sometimes seems more expensive. Most of the clients are on Office 365 or M365, and they are forced to take Azure SIEM because of the integration."
"The licenses are good but the cost is very expensive."
"Our license is for one year."
"In comparison to other SIEM solutions such as Splunk, NetWitness is less costly."
"The new pricing and licensing mechanisms are fair. I would advise always to get the full solution (i.e., not only Logs)."
"We have yearly licensing costs. The license fee can be based on the volume of EPS. Some organizations may have, as a gentlemanly gesture, 10,000 EPS and get a 3,000 EPS license but actually use 5,000 EPS."
"Compared to the competition, the is price is not that high."
"There is a licensing fee and the customer can choose whether he wishes this to be subscription-based or perpetual."
"It’s cheaper to run virtual machines in a VMware environment."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions are best for your needs.
893,244 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
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
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 Business44
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise46
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

Is there a common threat intelligence tool that aggregates multiple threat intelligence sources?
Yes, Azure Sentinel is a SIEM on the Cloud. Multiple data sources can be uploaded and analyzed with Azure Sentinel and its Threat Hunting functionality with AI available as templates or customized ...
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 ...
Which is better - Azure Sentinel or AWS Security Hub?
We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel is auto-scaling - you will not have to worry about performance impact, you will...
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

Azure Sentinel
RSA Security Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Sentinel vs. NetWitness Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.