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Splunk Security Essentials vs VMware Carbon Black Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 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 Security Essentials
Ranking in Security Incident Response
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (18th), IT Alerting and Incident Management (14th)
VMware Carbon Black Cloud
Ranking in Security Incident Response
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (47th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Security Incident Response category, the mindshare of Splunk Security Essentials is 1.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Carbon Black Cloud is 7.5%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Incident Response
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Tom Kar - PeerSpot reviewer
Shows promise for endpoint detection and response, with room for improvement in complexity and pricing
VMware Carbon Black Cloud is a user-friendly solution that can isolate machines from the rest of the network. When a machine is quarantined, it cannot communicate with any other machines on the network except for the Carbon Black Cloud server. This allows you to investigate the machine without the risk of malware escaping to the network. Carbon Black Cloud's server can communicate with the quarantined machine through DNS and VSCP. This allows you to collect data from the machine, such as system logs, process activity, and registry changes. This data can be used to investigate the infection and determine the next steps. CrowdStrike and Cybereason are also popular EDR solutions. They offer similar features to VMware Carbon Black Cloud but may have different strengths and weaknesses. It is important to evaluate all of your options before choosing an EDR solution. Additionally, it is complex to use, and the pricing should be improved.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"I would have to rate Splunk Security Essentials a 10 out of 10 because it's free and there's tons of usable content."
"We also took full advantage of its incident response reporting capabilities to act as a “black box” for our infrastructure around strings of suspicious activity. The reporting and incident response capabilities were incredibly helpful during active security concerns."
"It is nice when you're in a situation where you think someone's device is compromised and that there's some malware getting into your fleet."
"Setting up and managing the setup for this solution is okay. It is stable, scalable, and it runs just fine. No issues with technical support."
"The enhanced logging and data analysis of the incident response and investigation components allowed us to quickly identify and resolve security issues before they could spread."
"Probably the most valuable feature of CB Response is its ability to isolate a host and take it off the network, so it's not spreading anything. We have two security operations centers around the globe. When an SOC analyst sees something on an endpoint, they can use Carbon Black Response to isolate that host from the customer's environment and prevent any kind of lateral spread."
"Threat hunting is the most valuable feature of VMware Carbon Black Cloud."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to seek out abnormal activity and to create alerts."
"For setup, the server can be given to you as a VM image and with minimal configuration needed."
 

Cons

"The reporting feature needs to be more user-friendly."
"The price could be improved."
"They could add more AI content or AI and machine learning."
"The support team of Carbon Black CB Response needs improvement. At present, they need a lot of information. Then they give you an answer that they already gave you. You tell them it didn't work, and then they take a long time."
"It's not simple."
"The cloud console has a lot of bugs and issues in the analysis part."
"The solution needs to simplify the process of adding custom watchlists, as well as embrace YARA for rule creation."
"The product detects too many false positives initially and it could integrate better with other security solutions."
"The solution can only handle about 500 bans or blocks."
"Training and education for both partner and customer, including product marketing need to be improved."
"The solution's support could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution is very inexpensive so there is great cost savings to using it."
"We had no issues purchasing through our preferred reseller and were able to get a fair price even when not purchasing direct. Carbon Black Enterprise Response didn’t break the bank, though adding on the matching antivirus and anti-malware components of the Protect product was more than we could afford, even with some discounting. Cb Response is really designed to complement Carbon Black’s Defense product. While Response can be used on its own, coupling with Defense seems like the best strategy if you can afford the price tag."
"VMware Carbon Black Cloud is an expensive solution."
"You need to pay for the licensing of the product. The pricing is costly."
"Pricing for this solution could be made lower."
"Purchase Professional Services up front as part of the implementation package, then renew hours annually to ensure you have adequate support for upgrades and enhancements. Overbuy by at least 10% to account for infrastructure growth."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Healthcare Company
10%
Real Estate/Law Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 have not used Splunk Security Essentials' customizable dashboards. I have not taken advantage of the pre-built security use cases in Splunk.
What is your primary use case for Splunk Security Essentials?
We use Splunk Security Essentials. We have projects, though not many projects per year. The solution is used to resist cyber attacks. They have a good catalog of plans to use to resist the attacks.
What to choose: an endpoint antivirus, an EDR solution or both?
I can recommend Carbon Black, an award-winning next-gen anti-virus (NGAV) and endpoint detection and response (EDR) security solution. The CB Predictive Security Cloud platform combines multiple hi...
What's the difference between Carbon Black CB Response and Carbon Black CB Defense?
Carbon Black offers two different levels of Endpoint Detection and Response. One is the VM Carbon Black Cloud Endpoint Standard (CB Defense), and the other is the Carbon Black Endpoint Detection an...
What do you like most about Carbon Black CB Response?
Threat hunting is the most valuable feature of VMware Carbon Black Cloud.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Carbon Black CB Response
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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Find out what your peers are saying about Splunk Security Essentials vs. VMware Carbon Black Cloud and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,484 professionals have used our research since 2012.