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Rapid7 InsightIDR vs Sentinel 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

Rapid7 InsightIDR
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
14th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (25th), Threat Deception Platforms (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (16th)
Sentinel
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
21st
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Rapid7 InsightIDR is 2.5%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sentinel is 3.8%, up from 2.3% 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 (%)
Rapid7 InsightIDR2.5%
Sentinel3.8%
Other93.7%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Asim Naeem - PeerSpot reviewer
Providing comprehensive insight into alerts while working towards AI enhancement
I definitely recommend Rapid7 InsightIDR. It is becoming better, with improvements being continuously made to the product. Right now, I do not have any advice about Rapid7 for other users because every organization or user has different criteria or multiple use cases, so I refrain from commenting on that. I rate the overall solution seven out of ten.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The log aggregation and storage provided by InsightIDR has shown no issues with scalability; aggregating over one hundred millions events daily."
"The solution's initial setup is easy."
"InsightIDR helps us investigate an environment to discover information about incidents."
"Intelligent alerting to avoid the common problem of alert fatigue associated with traditional SIEMs."
"During simulations or demonstrations, the tool generates alerts, providing details such as the specific application, its origin, and potential threats. For instance, it can identify if an application belongs to a known ransomware group. The system rates the threat, offering a clear detection ratio, such as 97 out of 100. It not only identifies threats but also illustrates the associated behaviors, helping us understand the potential risk to a particular endpoint."
"The incident case management is the most valuable feature. Even though there's always something I find I would like to add to that feature, the ability to quickly sort through all the logs, network and endpoint data, etc., and add it to an incident case as part of the investigation, is nice. Having it automatically timeline that additional data into the original incident timeline, and correlate it to other notable events and activities on the network, results in a huge improvement in our overall confidence that we've quickly traced down the right source of an issue."
"Integration with threat modeling from the Metasploit and InsightIDR repositories."
"Rapid7 is easy to use and deploy. It is a simple solution and has easy data pulling."
"The stability is phenomenal and we never had any issues with downtime or even had to restart."
"One of the most valuable features is the business intelligence engine. It's very important because it keeps track of everything that's happening and alerts us if something is different than expected. The first time I used it, I was shocked at how well it performed. Another valuable feature that I think makes this product worth the price you pay for it is that it connects to basically every system that provides some form of logging, and it's very easy to set up what triggers this."
"The solution's Kusto Query Language (KQL) execution time is pretty good."
"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."
"Sentinel gave us logs to tell us what's going right and wrong in your environment so we could secure the network."
"The most valuable feature is the flexible log for identifying security threats inside an application. Sentinel is very good at this."
"It makes everything easier by automating some tasks and growing with our needs."
"The tool is simple to use."
 

Cons

"There are certain limitations with Rapid7 that I am working on."
"The solution's XDR agents cannot compete with the XDR solutions out there yet."
"They should add more configuration and security features to it."
"It takes time for the product's support team to resolve issues, making it an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The solution needs improvement in threat intelligence. Increasing the depth of intelligence to help users understand more about threats is a possibility. My suggestion is to expand access to other websites or resources."
"The reporting is the weakest aspect. There needs to be multi-level grouping for events (for example, group by user and destination). Right now, we can do a group by user and a separate table or group by destination. But I'd be more interested in where a person was logging into instead of who was logging in or where he was logging in."
"The ability to tune the collector for custom logs would greatly help."
"InsightIDR is only available in a cloud version. Some of our customers prefer an on-prem solution because they want to manage the security within their environment."
"I rate Sentinel a six out of ten for scalability."
"There is no integration in the web-side of the tool."
"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."
"Price is always a consideration, so the price would be nice if it were lower."
"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."
"There is a need for more flexibility in customization, especially when working with different vendors and platforms."
"The solution does not allow outsourced authorizations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Rapid7 InsightIDR charges us based on the endpoints we connect to."
"I rate Rapid7 InsightIDR's price a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"Licensing is straightforward. If, for some reason, you don’t meet the minimum licensing requirements, there is a third-party managed service that can help."
"Licensing is by endpoint and amount of retention time (at least ours is). Default retention was one year, but we are able to push the retention further if needed. There's also a provide-your-own-S3 option for longer retention if you don't want to pay for the additional retention years in your Rapid7 agreement."
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"It is more reasonably priced than other vendors."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR's pricing is reasonable."
"The solution has a mid-range price point in the market"
"Sentinel's slightly on the expensive side."
"The solution’s pricing is aligned with its competitors."
"Sentinel is moderately priced."
"Sentinel is a subscription-based solution."
"We inquired about getting support from the vendor, Micro Focus, but the cost was very high."
"We receive a pricing discount because of our ongoing partnership with Micro Focus."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

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 do you like most about Rapid7 InsightIDR?
During simulations or demonstrations, the tool generates alerts, providing details such as the specific application, its origin, and potential threats. For instance, it can identify if an applicati...
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 in rand. They nearly always bill it in dollars, so if it can be billed in our cu...
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's fine. I don't have a high demand for what it should do. Price is always a cons...
 

Also Known As

InsightIDR
NetIQ Sentinel, Novell SIEM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Liberty Wines, Pioneer Telephone, Visier
Faysal Bank, GaVI, Handelsbanken, ISC Mªnster, Lambeth Council, Swisscard, The Municipality of Siena, Tukes, University of Dayton, University of the Sunshine Coast
Find out what your peers are saying about Rapid7 InsightIDR vs. Sentinel and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.