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NetWitness Platform vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 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

NetWitness Platform
Ranking in Log Management
37th
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
29th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Log Management
2nd
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
315
Ranking in other categories
IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 0.6%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 9.4%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
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

"The software is scalable to whatever is required, and you can also put a lot of resources in the cloud."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to write rules and triggers for network communication, and then being able to investigate based on that."
"The development of use cases on the SSA console is quite user friendly. This means that the security analyst or the researcher does not have to learn another language."
"Alerting Module: It provides real-time event processing language on all the logs/packets stream for advanced alerting, i.e., using SQL LIKE statements."
"The product has a user-friendly interface and a valuable feature for threat intelligence integration."
"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."
"Incident management is its most valuable feature."
"The most valuable features are the packet decoder, log decoder, and concentrator."
"If I need to integrate devices for logs, it is easier with Splunk. We can integrate different applications, network devices, and databases. It is also very rich in documents. It is the best."
"Compared to IBM QRadar, Splunk Enterprise Security offers faster alert resolution."
"It has a drag-and-drop interface, so you don't need to know SQL or Java to construct a query on Splunk. The resolution time is about the same, but it took longer to discover the issue with ArcSight. Our previous solution took about an hour or more, but Splunk can do it within a few minutes or an hour at most."
"One of the most valuable features is threat hunting. We can do threat hunting and identify if there is any malicious activity happening within our environment, which is a key feature for us."
"The breadth of the data sources that Splunk can ingest data from is broad and deep and it does an exemplary job at handling structured data."
"It is a one stop shop as a full monitoring and alerting solution for operations and application analysis for most of our back-end systems."
"Splunk gives my clients the ability to bring multiple, disparate types of data together, then correlate and report on them."
"Splunk helps us be more proactive. We can take predictive action to identify and block threats so that nothing harmful gets into the system."
 

Cons

"The initial setup was complex because it takes a lot of time to complete the implementation."
"I believe that integrating the solution with other products such as Oracle would be beneficial."
"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."
"Lots of competing products have vulnerability protection built into their products, and this solution would be improved by including that support."
"The initial setup is very complex and should be simplified."
"They should implement algorithms to digest that data and produce additional, more advanced reporting, alerting and support of internal security teams."
"Its technical support could be better."
"The multi-tenant capabilities are lagging compared to IBM QRadar."
"Improving the infrastructure behind Splunk Enterprise Security is vital—enhanced cores, CPUs, and memory should be prioritized to support better processing power. When we execute heavy, resource-intensive queries over long periods, the performance dips."
"Being able to have a one-stop shop where you have the alert, but then you can generate the case right there from Splunk Enterprise Security instead of having to pivot to another tool such as Mission Control. You do not have to keep bouncing between them, so if you could do it all in one place, that would be great. The new release is supposed to start getting in that direction."
"The support and the pricing can be better"
"Splunk Enterprise Security can provide more details and help CISOs resolve vulnerability situations better. The reason is that the tools we choose for data analysis and log collection cannot collect all the data and logs. Splunk Enterprise Security should help me with this, but it cannot."
"The setup time is quite long."
"It would be nice if Splunk reduced the cost of training. Their training sessions are way too costly."
"DMC should be a little more intuitive with better dashboarding. Seeing the cause of data flow can be tough to track down."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is complicated in terms of developing specific cybersecurity use cases."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is a pricey solution; it's not cheap."
"There is a licensing fee and the customer can choose whether he wishes this to be subscription-based or perpetual."
"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."
"The new pricing and licensing mechanisms are fair. I would advise always to get the full solution (i.e., not only Logs)."
"The tool is very expensive, so I rate the pricing a ten out of ten. The solution has an annual subscription."
"It’s cheaper to run virtual machines in a VMware environment."
"It provides tools to assist in selecting the appropriate license and usage scenarios."
"We have a perpetual license, so the total cost of ownership is not very expensive. It's a good investment."
"It is expensive. I work for multiple clients. I am working for more than five clients, but most of the clients are switching from Splunk to Sentinel because of the cost. Even though Sentinel is very limited, clients are moving to Sentinel."
"Personnel costs are saved by not having to involve the domain developers from multiple teams when tracing a problem that spans multiple platforms."
"Splunk Enterprise Security's pricing is pretty competitive."
"It is pretty straightforward and based on the sizing. If I compare it with other competitors, it makes sense."
"This solution is costly. Splunk is obviously a great product, but you should only choose this product if you need all the features provided. Otherwise, if you don't need all the features to meet your requirements, there are probably other products that will be more cost-effective. It's cost versus the functionality requirement."
"We have an unlimited one, and we pay yearly, but I don't know how much it costs. Previously, I worked for a startup, and when they started building it up, it was complicated for them because they didn't have the budget for that many licenses. It was very costly for them. So, startups might find it a little bit problematic because of the licensing, but for bigger companies, there is no issue."
"It's more expensive than the other tools, but it's worth it. Every penny is worth it."
"While licensing can be a concern, there are ways to reduce the licensing costs including filtering some events."
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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
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
5%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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

RSA Security Analytics
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
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 NetWitness Platform vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.