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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)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (6th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (5th)
NetWitness Platform
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
30th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (33rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Sentinel is 6.2%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 0.6%, up from 0.6% 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 (%)
Microsoft Sentinel6.2%
NetWitness Platform0.6%
Other93.2%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Ivan Angelov - PeerSpot reviewer
Threat detection and response capabilities enhance investigation processes
My security team has been using Microsoft Sentinel for around two years. We also have Bastion and SolarWinds as part of our monitoring tools. We use a three-way tool, alongside Microsoft Sentinel, in our environment The most valuable features for us include threat collection, threat detection,…
MOTASHIM Al Razi - PeerSpot reviewer
It is a stable solution, but they should make the user interface easier to understand
The solution's initial setup takes work. We have to organize multiple paths and many features. The deployment process takes less than a week. But it takes a month to complete if we want to make the solution smarter by integrating it with various devices. I rate the process as a six out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can use Sentinel's playbook to block threats. It covers all of the environment, giving us great visibility."
"Azure Application Gateway makes things a lot easier. You can create dashboards, alert rules, hunting and custom queries, and functions with it."
"The standout feature of Sentinel is that, because it's cloud-based and because it's from Microsoft, it integrates really well with all the other Microsoft products. It's really simple to set up and get going."
"The dashboard that allows me to view all the incidents is the most valuable feature."
"It's pretty powerful and its performance is pretty good."
"Microsoft Sentinel has helped by streamlining our security. We have a nine-member network team, with three members managing security for the city, and Sentinel allows us to operate an unofficial SOC."
"Mainly, this is a cloud-native product. So, there are zero concerns about managing the whole infrastructure on-premises."
"Sentinel has reduced the work involved in the event investigation by quite a lot."
"Performance and reporting are very good."
"The most valuable features are the threat prediction and network forensics."
"Incident management is its most valuable feature."
"Possibility to investigate incidents based on logs and raw packets, such as extracting files sent over the network"
"The software is scalable to whatever is required, and you can also put a lot of resources in the cloud."
"I can have enterprise security, email security, next generation firewall security log, HIDS and NIDS logs, etc. all on the same dashboard. It makes it easy to pinpoint or correlate our server to this. I can find out if there is lateral movement. This is the biggest advantage of this solution."
"It gives the ability to investigate into network traffic in the Net and the organization what we couldn't do before."
"The most valuable feature of RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets are the alerts and correlations tools."
 

Cons

"Documentation is the main thing that could be improved. In terms of product usage, the documentation is pretty good, but I'd like a lot more documentation on Kusto Query Language."
"The dashboards can be improved. Creating dashboards is very easy, but the visualizations are not as good as Microsoft Power BI. People who are using Microsoft Power BI do not like Sentinel's dashboards."
"Microsoft should improve Sentinel, considering that from the legacy systems, it cannot collect logs."
"It has been a challenge with Azure Sentinel to onboard the Syslog server from FortiGate. Azure Sentinel can work better on that shift between the Syslog server and a firewall."
"Some of the data connectors are outdated, at least the ones that utilize Linux machines for log forwarding. I believe that Microsoft is already working on improving this."
"The solution could be more user-friendly; some query languages are required to operate it."
"Its implementation could be simpler. It is not really simple or straightforward. It is in the middle. Sometimes, connectors are a little bit complex."
"One key area that can be improved is by building a strong integration with our XDR platform."
"If we have the ability to run a dynamic analysis through malware in the same suite, it would be great to have a sandbox solution to analyze malware through dynamic analysis."
"The multi-tenant capabilities are lagging compared to IBM QRadar."
"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."
"I'd like to see improvement in its ease of use. It's basically unusable. It's overly complex."
"It should have a monitoring feature. It would help us analyze the current state of attacks faster from a single platform."
"The initial setup was complex because it takes a lot of time to complete the implementation."
"The product's licensing models are complex to understand. This particular area needs improvement."
"The system looks like it is a mix of a bunch of different systems, and nothing looked like it was quite together."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Sentinel is pretty competitive. The pricing is at the level of other SIEM solutions."
"Sentinel is expensive relative to other products of the class, so it often isn't affordable for small-scale businesses. However, considering the solution has more extensive capabilities than others, the price is not so high. Pricing is based on GBs of ingested daily data, either by a pay-as-you-go or subscription model."
"Microsoft Sentinel's pricing is relatively expensive and extremely confusing."
"For us, it is not expensive at this time, but if we start to collect all logs from our on-premise SIEM solutions, it will cost more than QRadar. If we calculate its cost over the next five or ten years, it will cost more than what we paid for QRadar."
"The price is reasonable because Sentinel includes features like user behavior analytics and SOAR that are typically sold separately. Overall, a standalone on-prem solution would require some high-end servers, and there's a different cost. It is a cloud-based solution, so there are backend cloud computing costs, but they are negligible."
"It comes with a Microsoft subscription which the customer has, so they don't have to invest somewhere else."
"We must have saved some money with this product. It is a cloud-native product, and the ingestion is per GB. Every GB costs a certain amount of money. That is how the license of Microsoft Sentinel works."
"Microsoft is costlier. Some organizations may not be able to afford the cost of Sentinel orchestration and the Log Analytics workspace. The transaction hosting cost is also a little bit on the high side, compared to AWS and GCP."
"It provides tools to assist in selecting the appropriate license and usage scenarios."
"Compared to the competition, the is price is not that high."
"It’s cheaper to run virtual machines in a VMware environment."
"We are on an annual license for the use of the solution."
"RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets do not have a subscription model, it's a one-time purchase. There is only a perpetual license."
"The product is expensive."
"The tool is very expensive, so I rate the pricing a ten out of ten. The solution has an annual subscription."
"The NetWitness Platform may be affordable only for enterprise-level customers, as it may not be within the budget of small and medium-sized businesses."
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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
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Performing Arts
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise41
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
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 do you like most about NetWitness Platform?
The product's initial setup phase was not at all difficult.
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.
 

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: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.