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Splunk Enterprise Platform vs Splunk Security Essentials comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 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

Splunk Enterprise Platform
Ranking in Data Visualization
3rd
Ranking in IT Alerting and Incident Management
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Security Essentials
Ranking in Data Visualization
18th
Ranking in IT Alerting and Incident Management
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Security Incident Response (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Platform is 1.6%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Security Essentials is 0.3%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

UzairKhan - PeerSpot reviewer
Delivers financial benefits and operational efficiency with impactful data analytics capabilities
My advice for those looking to implement Splunk Enterprise Platform is to know the product well and have hands-on workshops or create a lab to gain complete knowledge before proceeding. Regarding maintenance, it does not require much as it is on-premises. Overall, I would rate Splunk Enterprise Platform an eight.
Srinivas Prudhivi Reddy - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables us to examine the parameters of the events found and take appropriate actions as necessary
Once we've configured our logs, for example, if we need to monitor processes and IP addresses, we ensure these logs are being ingested into our Splunk instance. The logs gathered from various endpoints are then consolidated into our Splunk platform. Once the data is collected, we can create searches and dashboards to analyze it. With these searches and dashboards, we gain insights into events and can make informed decisions based on them. We'll examine the parameters of these events and take appropriate actions as necessary.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Easy setup and maintenance"
"It can handle large datasets, swiftly consolidating outputs from every server and device across the network."
"The most valuable feature of Splunk Enterprise Platform is that it's a customizable solution."
"The product helps monitor and visualize data. It allows you to handle various tasks. You can store, visualize, and analyze data with the Splunk Enterprise Platform. It offers features like virtual folders and heavy folders for filtering data. Additionally, you can create dashboards to showcase data to different teams and stakeholders. The tool also enables the creation of analytics and alerts and sends reports, making it a valuable tool for our system."
"I found the incident notification to be very helpful."
"The most valuable features of Splunk Enterprise Platform include its performance, ease of implementation, and user interface, which are superior compared to other on-premises products."
"The solution is very good for monitoring compared to other tools."
"From a stability perspective, the tool is good."
"I would have to rate Splunk Security Essentials a 10 out of 10 because it's free and there's tons of usable content."
"The network monitoring feature is particularly valuable for gathering information about users, login times, and other statistics."
"They have a good catalog of plans to use to resist the attacks."
"We are focusing on security to ensure incidents are reported efficiently. In addition to that, for reporting purposes, we are utilizing our dashboards or creating new ones. We will be using free visualization tools for this purpose."
 

Cons

"The solution's license cost is high and can be improved."
"he product's initial setup phase needs to be made easy since it looks like it is very complex compared to the other tools in the market."
"Areas for improvement include enhancing dashboards, reports, alerts, and the monitoring console."
"Splunk Enterprise Platform could improve in the area of basic log readability. When performing basic searches without advanced filters, the logs often contain timestamps and various unknown codes or other elements that can be confusing. Removing or simplifying these parts would make it easier for users who are not developers or do not have a development background to understand and find relevant information easily."
"The platform is too expensive for small businesses. Splunk should focus more on delivering something for small businesses and entrepreneurs."
"Splunk can be used primarily to port log files, allowing for easy and quick management of large amounts of logs. However, this can also be a drawback due to the configuration, parsing, and dashboard creation limitations. Communication is stream-based, which means you need to do a lot of pre-emptive setup to get a nice export."
"There should be continuous customer engagement and training programs on the new features and capabilities introduced by the solution."
"There is room for improvement in introducing more AI capabilities onto Splunk Enterprise Platform."
"They could add more AI content or AI and machine learning."
"The reporting feature needs to be more user-friendly."
"The price could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive, so I rate its pricing a four out of ten."
"The product is expensive, and the cost depends on the amount of data ingestion."
"There are yearly payments to be made towards the licensing costs attached to the solution."
"The tool is expensive."
"Product pricing is typically annual, and discounts are often available for longer-term commitments."
"Splunk Enterprise Platform is an expensive solution."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing around seven or eight out of ten."
"I rate the product's pricing a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive. It is a very pricey tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Hospitality Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Insurance Company
11%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Splunk Enterprise Platform?
The most valuable features of the solution are the load balancing technique, the forwarding technique, and SSL certification.
What needs improvement with Splunk Enterprise Platform?
For future updates of Splunk Enterprise Platform, I would like to see integration by GUI. The integration should be improved with the UI.
What is your primary use case for Splunk Enterprise Platform?
The use cases for Splunk Enterprise Platform ( /products/splunk-enterprise-platform-reviews ) vary depending on the specific scenario. Splunk Enterprise Platform ( /products/splunk-enterprise-platf...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Splunk Security Essentials?
Our SecOps manager and CISO were more familiar with Splunk, and the price was right. That was probably the primary driver, and we did evaluation as well with strict criteria and Gartner ratings.
What needs improvement with Splunk Security Essentials?
I cannot say there is any room for improvement because it is free.They could add more AI content or AI and machine learning.
What is your primary use case for Splunk Security Essentials?
We use Splunk Security Essentials ( /products/splunk-security-essentials-reviews ) to create new Splunk searches, as it has many pre-canned searches for security detection.The advanced detection co...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Splunk Enterprise Platform vs. Splunk Security Essentials and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.