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Risk Manager at Samapartners
Real User
Nov 10, 2023
Helps reduce alert volume, speeds up investigations, and can monitor multiple environments
Pros and Cons
  • "Three features stand out for me: the SDK for writing Python, the customizable and adaptable diagnostic dashboard, and the optimizer for collecting data."
  • "The threat detection system has room for improvement."

What is our primary use case?

As a software analyst, I utilize Splunk Enterprise Security for security purposes, including threat hunting on developed and customized applications for vulnerability management. I also use it to display dashboards, analyze data, and address alerts.

We implemented Splunk Enterprise Security to consolidate all our security data into a single platform. This has enhanced our visibility into our security posture and the potential threats we face.

How has it helped my organization?

Splunk Enterprise Security enables us to monitor multiple cloud environments, which is crucial for receiving real-time email alerts in the event of critical incidents. However, directing me to the source can be time-consuming compared to the verified swim methodology used by SIEMs. For my application, I have approximately ten million records. Directing me to the service code takes two minutes to instruct them to view the file using VLOOKUP. However, sending it to the capital takes about half an hour.

The ability to monitor multiple environments is excellent. We have customers who use Splunk Enterprise Security both on-premises and in the cloud. Both options have their merits, depending on the specific needs of the customer. If a customer has the required resources, the cloud is often the most suitable solution.

The robust threat detection capabilities of Splunk are essential for our project. However, it's crucial to manage user access carefully. While we need to grant access to certain users, we must not provide them with unrestricted capabilities. Splunk's granular access control feature empowers administrators to customize user permissions, ensuring that only authorized users have access to the necessary features.

Splunk's threat topology helps us identify the scope of an incident. This is crucial due to the high likelihood of unauthorized data being compromised, necessitating prompt incident detection.

Splunk Enterprise Security has facilitated the timely detection of threats, enabling us to swiftly customize it to identify a wider range of threats and potential risks. We can incorporate external scripts for enhanced threat intelligence and threat-hunting capabilities.

Before implementing Splunk Enterprise Security, we relied on a patchwork of other tools, each requiring manual implementation for data collection, rule definition, and threat identification. This approach was not optimized and occasionally resulted in delayed threat detection. Limiting our focus to device security alone proved insufficient, as it lacked the real-time threat actor intelligence and activity insights provided by Splunk Enterprise Security. Our reliance on licensed development restricted us to pre-built alerts or manually uploaded scripts for mitigation and response.

Splunk Enterprise Security has helped reduce our alert volume.

Splunk Enterprise Security has helped speed up our security investigation time.

What is most valuable?

Three features stand out for me: the SDK for writing Python, the customizable and adaptable diagnostic dashboard, and the optimizer for collecting data.

What needs improvement?

The threat detection system has room for improvement. The critical aspect for an organization is the timely detection of incidents. If the rules are not defined correctly, threats may not be detected in real-time, resulting in incidents being detected months or even years after they occur.

Buyer's Guide
Splunk Enterprise Security
July 2026
Learn what your peers think about Splunk Enterprise Security. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: July 2026.
909,647 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Splunk Enterprise Security for almost seven years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would rate the scalability of the solution eight out of ten.

I would rate the resilience an eight out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

I contacted Splunk support once for a separate product.

How was the initial setup?

The initial deployment was straightforward for me, likely due to my extensive experience using Splunk. When implementing the solution, we begin by defining customer needs and requirements to optimize Splunk. This involves identifying the systems necessary for daily use and ensuring the protection of the integrated licenses and external apps in the Splunk environment. This protection encompasses program security, cloud-based security, and data analysis for specific apps. Additionally, we configure personal authentication for private applications.

The deployment time is dependent on the specific requirements and can range from two to ten days.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was completed in-house.

What was our ROI?

Splunk Enterprise Security has delivered a return on investment through its effective threat detection and vulnerability response capabilities. We have successfully demonstrated this positive impact on our customers through comprehensive reports.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Splunk Enterprise Security nine out of ten.

While there may be cheaper solutions available, they lack the optimizer, dynamic dashboard, and security APIs that Splunk offers. These capabilities are not found in other solutions.

Maintenance is minimal for updates only.

When using Splunk Enterprise Security, ensure that optimization is performed correctly to minimize response times and resource consumption.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2239902 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Aug 20, 2023
Integrates well, provides good visibility, and helps to identify things that can lead to a larger problem
Pros and Cons
  • "Integration with the cloud is pretty important and good for us. We found the integration with a lot of tools, not all tools yet, valuable. It does make the transfer of data, log files, and other things easier for us."
  • "Its pricing is extremely high. There are other tools out in the market that are competitive. They do not necessarily have all the functionality, but they are competitive. The professional services we have used have been high as well in comparison to the market."

What is our primary use case?

At a high level, its use cases are related to security monitoring, log aggregation, and a little bit of analysis related to incidents or fraud.

How has it helped my organization?

Splunk Enterprise Security has created better visibility for us on the cybersecurity type of events and issues. We are still maturing, but where we have seen some growth is getting better data, knowing what data to look at, and how to understand that data.

It has end-to-end visibility into our cloud-native environment. This is extremely important for us because of the type of business we do. We have a lot of PII data and a lot of compliance data on which we have to maintain very tight controls, so it is extremely important that we are able to put that in the cloud and monitor and watch our environment very closely.

It has reduced our mean time to resolve, but we are still maturing. We have got a lot of maturing to do. We have got a lot of growing to do. We have also been limited on the staff to be able to get the full realization of what we can get out of it yet, so that is a place where we are continuing to grow.

It has improved our business resilience. We have been able to identify things that could have presented a larger problem for us financially or legally through various events. We have been able to leverage the data there. We have been able to maintain that data and support that data. It does the job. It meets the needs.

Splunk has not helped to predict problems in real time because we have not yet matured to that place, but we need to. Generally, it has been helpful, but we know that we have got a lot of growing up there. We still have not got everything identified and captured in the space we want to be able to do better analysis.

Its ability to provide business resilience by empowering our staff is really high. Empowerment is great, but we have a resource problem, so we have not quite realized where we could be. 

We monitor multi-cloud environments. We have three of them. It is difficult to monitor them currently with Splunk. We are living in a highly regulated stack and a very little regulated stack and the ability to get a single pane of glass for all of that is very difficult.

What is most valuable?

Integration with the cloud is pretty important and good for us. We found the integration with a lot of tools, not all tools yet, valuable. It does make the transfer of data, log files, and other things easier for us.

What needs improvement?

Its pricing is extremely high. There are other tools out in the market that are competitive. They do not necessarily have all the functionality, but they are competitive. The professional services we have used have been high as well in comparison to the market.

In terms of scalability, it is hard to forecast where you are going. There is room to improve there.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for about five or six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate it eight out of ten in terms of stability. Where there has been ambiguity for me is that I recently had system stability issues that were beyond my control. They were part of my solution, and I was not aware that Splunk was accountable for it. It got quickly resolved, but there was a gap there that created pain for my business.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have not had any issues. We also have not had any detriment, but it is hard to forecast based on where you are going from a business perspective, at least with the models and the account teams that I have been working with. There is room to improve there. 

How are customer service and support?

It has been a rocky road. I have been through a road where I have had limited to little engagement or support. I am on the cusp of a large turnaround, meeting with my client team and dialoguing through it. Based on the history, I would probably rate their sales support a four out of ten. Going forward, I would rate their sales support an eight out of ten. They are in the right direction. I would rate their technical support a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have been using the same solution for five or six years. It was selected before I joined, so I do not know.

How was the initial setup?

I joined after it was implemented. What I am working on now is the technical depth. I am spending a lot of time with the teams there for direction strategy. Splunk has done a great job there, specifically in pulling the right resources to bear. I had executive briefings directly with executives today where we had an opportunity to talk about different components of our solutions and our stacks, and it has been very good.

What was our ROI?

We are in a growth state right now. We have seen an ROI, but anticipating any point in the future is a little difficult, so it is a mixed response. Our scale is not quite clearly defined to be able to put it to a metric or to tie it back to consumption use. There is a little bit of autonomy in there to over-adjust and still find that we can true-up in a better space. That has been good for us, but if you let that run away from you, then you start to get in trouble. 

We have not seen any cost-efficiency. We have seen our usage and needs grow, so we have seen Splunk go up in cost for us. We have not quite realized any efficiencies yet. It is also indicative of our maturity model.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing is good, but the pricing absolutely needs some work. It is very high. One thing that they put in a contract, but they do not emphasize it enough is true-ups on usage based on the quarterly consumption. They do not follow that methodology. They let a customer use, use, and use, and then at some point, a true-up occurs, and it is a large cost. There is an opportunity to do a quarterly track type of true-ups as per the agreements out there. That would put them in a position where customers are able to plan on, forecast around, and work through volume adjustments that may occur in their environment. 

The other place where Splunk could spend time is the scale-up and scale-down model. Scale-up is easy where you get more business, and it is easy to add more capacity, whether it is storage or SVUs, but when you need to scale down because of a change in a business, it does put customers in a position where they are locked in, and there is no way to maneuver around that. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We do an evaluation annually. It is important for us to do a market comparison and make sure we are looking at options in our work. What makes Splunk Enterprise Security competitive is the variabilities that they bring to the table for the overall solution. It has things like APIs that you can tie into. There is also the bonus functionality of being able to do analytics there. User behavior analytics is important for us.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Splunk Enterprise Security an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Splunk Enterprise Security
July 2026
Learn what your peers think about Splunk Enterprise Security. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: July 2026.
909,647 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer2239872 - PeerSpot reviewer
Staff application Security Analyst at a media company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Aug 13, 2023
Enables us to analyze security anomalies and research specific threats that we get on our network
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has made us more secure."
  • "It takes time to train people."

What is our primary use case?

We use the product to analyze security anomalies and research specific threats that we get on our network.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution has made us more secure. It has given us the ability to address threats faster, with greater accuracy.

What is most valuable?

The availability of the data and the fact that we're able to collect a large amount of data into the system and analyze it is valuable to us. The product’s speed and availability make it really useful for us. I'm excited about the additional enhancements to the machine learning toolkit. To be able to use it more is exciting to me.

What needs improvement?

My organization needs more people to learn how to use the solution effectively. It takes time to train people.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have never seen any issues with the tool’s stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Considering how much we have in place, I would assume that the solution’s scalability is pretty strong.

How are customer service and support?

I haven't had to go to Splunk directly for many things. Communicating with our success managers has been very positive.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

What other advice do I have?

We need to improve our implementation. We're a pretty large customer of Splunk, so I think we do have a lot of resources available. Splunk has really good courses and availability. We need to get more people to be more familiar with the tool. The solution has helped us reduce our mean time to resolve. It really works well for us, and it helps us to look at our data more effectively.

Splunk has helped improve our organization’s business resilience. It's not just used for security. We have big use for it. It has definitely helped us prevent problems from occurring and identify them when they do. Splunk’s ability to predict, identify, and solve problems in real time is very strong. It works as well as we use it. There's a lot of value within the tool. It can be very powerful if used properly and if people are knowledgeable about it.

Splunk has a strong ability to provide business resiliency by empowering staff. I've been using it for as long as I've been with this organization. Compared to other solutions, Splunk is really strong.

I have seen time to value using this solution. I love using it. It’s a great tool. I cannot compare Splunk to other tools because I've been using it for as long as I've been with my current organization. In my previous organization, we didn't have big data, so we really didn't need the product. I am a consumer of the solution from a security perspective.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight or a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2238918 - PeerSpot reviewer
SOC Analyst at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Jul 30, 2023
Helps us to plan, know where to look, and what to look for when we have an incident
Pros and Cons
  • "I haven't had the chance to properly sink my teeth into Enterprise Security but so far I like that they added the MITRE ATT&CK features."
  • "The training was mostly sales-focused, like how to monitor your sales. It was hard to then come back from doing the training and try to switch it to a cybersecurity focus because all the training we did was sales oriented. The basic training didn't really touch on any kind of cybersecurity use cases or anything like that. That would have been great to see in the training."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is for cyber security, tracking logs, and incident response.

What is most valuable?

I haven't had the chance to properly sink my teeth into Enterprise Security but so far I like that they added the MITRE ATT&CK features. 

This feature helps us know how to plan when we have an incident, know where to look, what to look for, and aspects like that. 

The MITRE ATT&CK planning is valuable. When we see those incidents and those logs, having the information right there speeds up the process a bit.

We did not have a SIEM at the time, so we added Enterprise Security as our SIEM. We're hoping to learn more about it and grow as we progress.

What needs improvement?

They wanted us to do basic training, which was offered to our organization for free. That was great. However, ours is a cybersecurity focus. The training was mostly sales-focused, like how to monitor your sales. It was hard to then come back from doing the training and try to switch it to a cybersecurity focus because all the training we did was sales oriented. The basic training didn't really touch on any kind of cybersecurity use cases or anything like that. That would have been great to see in the training.

For how long have I used the solution?

We upgraded to Enterprise Security a year ago but have been using general Splunk for longer. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, despite these issues, it's been solid. I haven't had any issues with access to it or anything like that. The only issue we did have was with the engineer. After informing him of those issues, he went back and tweaked them, and then everything worked fine. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It seems pretty scalable. Our network isn't extremely large, so I don't think scalability will be an issue in our case, but I definitely see the opportunity to scale if needed.

We have around 8,000 devices, so it's a fairly small network. It's across several different networks.

How are customer service and support?

I have not used support yet mainly because I haven't delved into it as much because of the issues with our initial integration with our engineer not being so trained. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have different contractors and they have other solutions. Some of those solutions included Elastic. We want to use Splunk and our contractors want to use Elastic. We're hoping .conf23 will broaden our imagination, so we'll have more to bring back and push towards just using Splunk only.

I have not used Elastic myself. It does sound like it does a lot. There's a lot that Splunk offers that we haven't actually used. I want to play with Mission Control. We only use Enterprise Security but I do want Mission Control where everything is in one centralized application where you don't have to jump to different applications. 

I would love to get Mission Control.

How was the initial setup?

My engineer had a little bit of an issue with it but it was because of his own lack of training. We were pushed to hurry up and get a SIEM. He did the best he could. I let him know what wasn't working, and then he would try to fix what he could on the backend so it could work. He was in talks with Splunk to fix those issues. The results are coming back a bit better, but I think that there is still room for improvement.

I was not involved with the setup. I came in afterward. One of our guys here was the one that was in the initial integration of Splunk. We ended up with Splunk as our main SIEM. I've never had any issues with it and I enjoyed it. 

What was our ROI?

We will see cost efficiencies mainly just from saving time and the shortened time and response to those incidents that we see. The fact that everything's organized in one application, we should see a bit of an increase in efficiency.

What other advice do I have?

I do see the possibility and the opportunity to increase the meantime to resolution by a lot. We use several different applications to monitor logs. We have the vision. 

I've seen some of the updates and changes like Splunk AI and Splunk Vision Control that look nice. I didn't manage to get on some of the hands-on, which would have been lovely. I would like to get more ideas on how we can integrate Splunk into our networks. 

I would rate Splunk Enterprise Security a nine out of ten. I see the opportunity and I'm hoping with our engineer that we can get to where we can make the best use of Splunk. It really seems great. A lot of our staff here were all ready to use it. We're just hoping our engineer can get to the place where we can actually make use of it. 

The biggest value I get from attending a Splunk conference is being able to see the updates, changes, the features they're adding, the Splunk AI, and Splunk Vision Control. That's been nice. I am looking forward to some of the sessions. I want to get more ideas on how we can integrate Splunk into our networks and things like that, especially focusing on cybersecurity. I would also like to see some of the stock sessions because it's a brand new stock. We're trying to stand it up. Seeing how they're using it for stocks would be great.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
SoheylNorozi - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 20
Jul 28, 2023
We can script advanced queries with limited knowledge, uncover unknown threats, and identify anonymous user behavior
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the DSS, also known as SPL, because it allows users to script advanced queries with limited knowledge."
  • "The CIM model is the method Splunk uses to normalize data and categorize its important parts, but it is quite complex."

What is our primary use case?

Our customers utilize Splunk Enterprise Security for either their cybersecurity program or their data warehouse program.

How has it helped my organization?

Splunk Enterprise Security's threat detection capabilities are effective in assisting organizations to uncover unknown threats and identify anonymous user behavior. However, this effectiveness is dependent on using the UBA modules and having the proper infrastructure in place.

MITRE ATT&CK is the framework that we use to detect and track well-known threats. When there are well-known threats, we can utilize the MITRE ATT&CK to identify any anomalies.

Splunk Enterprise Security has its own routine and process defined for analyzing malicious activities and detecting breaches. Mainly, we baseline the client's business process and day-to-day activity and then use it to detect malicious activity through various scenarios.

Splunk Enterprise Security assists us in detecting threats more quickly. We have an abundance of unrelated and meaningless data from the raw logs, and the solution aids us in organizing and correlating this data so that we can extract meaningful events and take appropriate action. This is the primary objective for the majority of our clients. 

In most cases, we provide monitoring and intelligence to our customers based on how they use the solution. This allows other technical teams, such as PC, system support, and other tech units, to take appropriate actions. Our main role is to provide them with alerts and use case scenarios, while the detection and actions are primarily related to other aspects.

When we initially implement Splunk Enterprise Security, there are many alerts and false positives. However, with time, we are able to align our configuration with the client's requirements and do more baselining, reducing such issues.

Splunk Enterprise Security helps to expedite security investigations. Without a security solution, our security team is unable to identify threats because the log and auditing data are unrelated and uncategorized. Consequently, we cannot access them promptly. Therefore, having a solution like Splunk Enterprise Security is crucial for our cybersecurity program. For certain clients' needs, we prefer using open-source applications like ELK and ESK. However, if they opt for an enterprise and commercial product, Splunk is among the top three choices.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the DSS, also known as SPL, because it allows users to script advanced queries with limited knowledge.

What needs improvement?

The CIM model is the method Splunk uses to normalize data and categorize its important parts, but it is quite complex. Simplifying this process would assist security officers in assessing threats and using the system more efficiently.

I would appreciate it if Splunk could add the feature of importing and exporting from web servers and third-party devices during project and process development. This addition would greatly enhance the value of the solution making the maintenance for the security officer easier. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Splunk Enterprise Security for six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the stability of Splunk Enterprise Security an eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Splunk Enterprise Security can be easily scaled once it has been installed and deployed.

Cyber threat levels are increasing every day, especially during the pandemic when most employees needed remote access to their business services. As a result, many organizations experienced a surge in attacks and required a resilient SIEM and cybersecurity solution.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used ELK, ESK, QRadar, Graylog, and LogRhythm in the past. One of Splunk's strengths over its competitors is its dedicated DSS called SPL.

The drawback of Splunk Enterprise Security is that upon initial installation, we need to do a lot of customization in order to have an effective cybersecurity program and deliver quality service to the client.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward, but we need to make some configurations afterward that can be a bit complex. The deployment time depends on the size, but it usually takes several months to ensure stability and requires two SIEM engineers.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Splunk Enterprise Security is hardly affordable for most of our clients, causing many of them to resort to using open source solutions instead.

In addition to the licensing fee, there is also a support and maintenance charge.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Splunk Enterprise Security an eight out of ten due to its high total cost of ownership, difficulties in maintenance, and the complexity of configuration immediately after deployment. 

Splunk Enterprise Security may not be cost-effective for small and even some medium-sized companies. While each organization has different requirements, we do recommend Splunk for medium and large organizations.

Organizations should take into account the complexity of their environment. For instance, if they have a purely vendor-based environment for their network security appliance, it may be easier for them to handle security, fabric, and architecture requirements. However, if they operate in a multi-vendor and mixed environment, they need to conduct more research on how to integrate various components. Often, they rush into negotiating their cybersecurity program without sufficient research, leading to potential problems for clients.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Chetankumar Savalagimath - PeerSpot reviewer
Delivery Manager at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Reseller
Top 5
Jul 18, 2023
Provides more versatile dashboard than other solutions and very fast search functionality
Pros and Cons
  • "Splunk's advantage is its search capability. Its search is notably faster. With Splunk, I can search easily on keywords. That is great."
  • "Previously, they developed custom connectors or add-ons for a lot of applications. But that number can be upgraded still. There are a lot of applications in the world that are not supported."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use case is security and data analytics. In general, we manage and maintain it for our customers.

What is most valuable?

Application-wise, it's good. Searching and reporting of data analytics is also fine. The dashboard presentations are also a good feature. Overall, its functionality is great and that's why we use it.

What needs improvement?

I would like additional support for custom add-ons, as well as cloud integration. Right now we have concerns because we have to customize applications for direct integration. But on-prem, it is all functional. We have to build it on our own. Previously, they developed custom connectors or add-ons for a lot of applications. But that number can be upgraded still. There are a lot of applications in the world that are not supported.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Splunk Enterprise Security for over two years. I received Splunk certification six years ago.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the functionality is good, but there are still bugs that keep hindering things. I am waiting but they are there and that is quite common. I think they have not yet been resolved from the older versions. The stability is a seven-plus out of 10.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable for all environments. Splunk Cloud can be scaled to a small or medium company, depending on their inputs or log resources. Businesses at the high end of medium-sized, and large companies, can go with the on-prem solution.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is good. 

However, there is a lot of delay nowadays. The last time we raised a case, it took quite a long for them to come back with their first response. That's not for a P1 or P2, but if it is a P3, they don't respond at the earliest. When they respond, it is quite late and we have to ask again. The first response is never an answer. It's always a query.

Still, the people I have worked with there are all an eight-plus out of 10.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

It can be deployed on-prem or in the cloud. With the latter, it is Splunk's own cloud. 

The deployment of the solution is straightforward, but there is a lot of engineering activity involved in designing the architecture. Architecture-wise, it is fine, and bringing things together is not that tough, but maintaining and managing it is a tough job because we don't work in a normal environment. We work on something that is very defined to the network. That means we have to build everything from scratch and deploy it.

The implementation strategy depends on how the customer wants things done. But in general, I go through research and then develop and design. I ask the client what sort of environment is flexible or cost-effective for them. It's done in stages. It's a matter of understanding the infrastructure and then implementing,  or designing and handing it over to them.

If there are 1,000 log sources, it takes six months to a year to deploy, depending on how the customer is supporting the process.

Every on-prem solution involves maintenance, including keeping things upgraded, whereas Splunk Cloud is managed by the vendor. The number of people involved in on-prem maintenance depends on the size of the environment and how long our update window is. For example, if we have a green zone at midnight for three hours, and we want to upgrade at least 20 to 30 servers, it will take eight to 10 people working in parallel. But for a very small environment of 10 servers, it will take four people to manage it, or if we have a large window, even three people can do it.

What about the implementation team?

We do it ourselves.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing depends on the bandwidth of an organization and is good compared to some SIEM tools. IBM, for example, is quite costly. But Microsoft Sentinel is notably cheaper. I have seen a lot of organizations running on Sentinel.

IBM is for quite large organizations that don't want to have their data on the cloud. Splunk has both on-prem and cloud modules and, cost-wise, Splunk is better. Internally, we cannot push everything to the cloud. That would become too expensive for us. So we have it sitting in our data center and that is good.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have worked with a number of other solutions including RSA enVision, IBM QRadar, as well as Microsoft, McAfee, and LogRhythm

If we want to build an add-on feature in Splunk, we have to build an application and then integrate it. But in other applications, there is a direct integration that only requires partial development and it will start functioning.

Also, there is something called correlation in a lot of other tools. Splunk also has it but it consumes a lot of memory. If we tag all the data, it is better, but tagging consumes storage and it makes it a little tough for us to run a search. 

If we want to work towards SOAR, if there were a little bit more integration so that our customers could taste SOAR, they could then move to Splunk Phantom or other tools. Right now, people are not using automation. Everything is done manually. Hopefully, that's the next goal. Security operations will surely use SOAR and, once they start tasting it, they'll get to know how it works. They can design playbooks and start using it. That's an additional feature I would like Splunk to bring in. 

Splunk's advantage is its search capability. Its search is notably faster. With Splunk, I can search easily on keywords. That is great. It also has something called "stats" and it runs much faster. Within minutes, it gives the data from a very large set. Spunk's dashboards are also a very good thing. No other application or tool is as versatile in presenting the dashboard. It all comes down to presentation. It may take a little bit of engineering work to develop and customize, to parse the fields and fetch the data, but the presentation is good.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1260045 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Analyst at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Jun 20, 2023
Enables us to use rules to segregate data and restrict our clients from seeing each other's data
Pros and Cons
  • "Splunk's strongest suit is its user interface. We can integrate multiple solutions and adjust settings in the Splunk interface."
  • "Splunk could improve its default machine-learning models. Also, Splunk Enterprise's native threat intelligence isn't that good. I prefer a custom threat intelligence model."

What is our primary use case?

We implement Splunk Enterprise Security for our clients. It's a security tool that centralizes data in one location, so we can gain some insights from it. We can also use it to create alerts. For example, let's say we want to find an incident in real-time, but we can't sit in a single place and stare at the screen. We can create alerts that send us an email notification or automate a response. 

How has it helped my organization?

Splunk helped us reduce our alert volume because we could optimize our risk-based user analytics. I estimate that we decreased alerts by around 20 percent. Splunk Enterprise Security speeds up security investigations.  

What is most valuable?

Splunk's strongest suit is its user interface. We can integrate multiple solutions and adjust settings in the Splunk interface. It's easy to manage multi-cloud environments because we can use rules to segregate the data and restrict our clients from seeing each other's data. Splunk has a lot of plugins and add-ons that provide a lot of information about our cloud and on-prem environments.

Splunk's MITRE ATT&CK framework is excellent, but I haven't used it for investigation. I'm primarily involved in implementation and development. Splunk Enterprise Security is solid detection-wise and faster than many other SIEM solutions. 

We already have an antivirus solution in our environment, so Splunk detects viruses based on that. Once the antivirus detects something, it generates an incident in Splunk that we can investigate. The detection time depends on a few factors, but we can detect a threat in two to five minutes under ideal conditions. 

What needs improvement?

Splunk could improve its default machine-learning models. Also, Splunk Enterprise's native threat intelligence isn't that good. I prefer a custom threat intelligence model. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have used Splunk Enterprise Security for more than three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Splunk Enterprise Security has gone through multiple versions, so the product is mature and stable. It's currently on version 9. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We can scale Splunk Enterprise Security horizontally or vertically. It isn't a problem. 

How are customer service and support?

I rate Splunk support 10 out of 10. Splunk has better support than other vendors I've worked with. It's better than IBM support. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously partnered with IBM and used QRadar as our SIEM. Splunk is faster, and I like the look and feel better. If you are looking for the cheapest solution, some free open-source SIEM solutions exist. They can do many of the same things that Splunk can do but maybe not at the same scale. 

How was the initial setup?

One person can deploy Splunk Enterprise Security in 15 to 20 days, depending on the architecture. It takes less time to deploy on the cloud. The solution requires some maintenance. We need someone there to monitor it in case there are issues. Three people are responsible for maintaining Splunk. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Splunk costs a little more than other SIEM solutions. It would be nice if they could bring the price down a little. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Splunk Enterprise Security nine out of 10.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Integrator
PeerSpot user
Hari Haran. - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Associate at Positka
Reseller
Top 20
Jun 13, 2023
Multiple components are very useful, providing us with a lot of security information for our clients
Pros and Cons
  • "It gives us good visibility into multiple environments, including cloud, on-premises, and hybrid; irrespective of platform."
  • "One issue is that we are getting a lot of false positives. We are trying to reduce them by customizing the default rules, changing thresholds, and using white-listing and black-listing. It's getting better and better as a result. But they need to build components that would reduce the false positives."

What is our primary use case?

We use it to provide both operational and security dashboards based on our clients' equipment. We use it for infra monitoring and threat analysis.

We have multiple rules for analyzing malicious activities and detecting breaches. We get the notable events from the logs and from there we drill down into the cause. We correlate that with the framework and get a score. Based on that, we proceed to the investigation.

How has it helped my organization?

It gives us a complete correlation between data processes and security threats. It has threat analysis and the MITRE ATT&CK framework. From a SOC perspective, it uses multiple components or frameworks and, in that way, is very useful, providing us with a lot of information for our clients. They don't want multiple teams dealing with security and malware, et cetera. Splunk Enterprise Security gives us everything in one place.

We get all the real-time logs and, based on the configuration, it's pretty easy to use to find threats. It has helped to speed up our security investigations. Before we went with Splunk Enterprise Security we had limited information but now we have threat intelligence to enhance things.

We are now handling multiple customers globally. We are able to build custom rules based on customer requirements and the applications and data they are using. It is enhancing the security of each customer's infrastructure. We are able to provide weekly and monthly reports and, based on that, our customers are honing their firewalls and other security infrastructure. Splunk Enterprise Security is very helpful in improving the security of our clients.

What is most valuable?

It gives us good visibility into multiple environments, including cloud, on-premises, and hybrid; irrespective of platform.

The UI is also very friendly. You don't have to work very hard to find things.

What needs improvement?

One issue is that we are getting a lot of false positives. We are trying to reduce them by customizing the default rules, changing thresholds, and using white-listing and black-listing. It's getting better and better as a result. But they need to build components that would reduce the false positives. 

Also, we have a lot of security feed providers. If there was some kind of management tool for that, it would be a great tool to have.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Splunk for about four and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I started working with Splunk Enterprise Security at version 6 and now we are up to 9 and it needs more resources. But it's okay because we have a lot of functionality now. It's better than it was earlier. I would rate the stability at nine out of 10.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Splunk on the cloud is scalable, a 10 out of 10.

How was the initial setup?

If someone is doing the deployment for the first time, it will be a little complex. The installation is straightforward, but for the configuration, you need to follow the documentation and understand it. That is a little difficult the first time if you are doing it on your own. If you have anyone with experience who can explain the configuration, the second time it will be straightforward.

The solution requires maintenance but not much, mostly when there are upgrades 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Most of the companies we work with are keen on budgeting. They can't spend much on security. Their problem is with the cost. They would like to have it but the problem is the budget. If they got a taste of Splunk Enterprise Security and its benefits, they might be able to cope better. A 15-day trial doesn't give them much hands-on or benefit from the tool. From a security perspective, they would need to have it for six months or a year to get a sense of it.

We try to explain, to someone who is concerned about the cost, the functionality and how powerful the application is. Security people know it's better to have a better solution, but management has to look at the budget.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We tried some other solutions, but they didn't work like Splunk. We found that Splunk is the best one.

What other advice do I have?

We work on multiple cloud environments including AWS, Azure, GCP, and most of the popular clouds. We have built our own combined app to monitor most of the cloud service providers. We have our own solution for cloud security monitoring.

My advice is that for big firms, because it has better detection and security, Splunk Enterprise Security is a very good tool. For big companies, good security is important, especially if they have a global market.

I don't see any other software having as much functionality and different ways to investigate security.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2182467 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Security Engineering and Operations at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
May 22, 2023
Helps us reduce the volume of alerts we receive and speed up our security investigations
Pros and Cons
  • "The varied prebuilt feature is the most valuable because it ensures that we have complete coverage over all of the key questions."
  • "It is important to make sure that everything is built off of the threat models and all the underlying items within Splunk."

What is our primary use case?

We use Splunk Enterprise Security as our primary security event manager. We collect data from various log sources into our Splunk SIEM to build context around what is happening in our environment. We then use the capabilities of Splunk Enterprise Security and other tools to enrich this data and help us manage the data, events, and detections.

How has it helped my organization?

Splunk Enterprise Security helps us focus on security. It provides us with data and a number of pre-built learnings that allow us to view the content in very useful ways. We can apply filters to the data to get more value out of it. This is the primary use case for Splunk Enterprise Security: to help us analyze and leverage the content we have.

Monitoring multiple cloud environments can be relatively easy, but it depends on the vendors. There can be challenges, such as ensuring that all of the data is ingested and aligned correctly. This is because vendors, especially in the cloud, can change their log formats at any time. Additionally, some vendors may not provide the same log feeds in the cloud as they do with on-premises solutions. As a result, it is important to be aware of these potential challenges and to take steps to mitigate them.

Splunk Enterprise Security provides reasonable visibility into multiple environments by harnessing the power of Splunk and the data it ingests to unify and provide a consistent view.

Splunk Enterprise Security's threat detection can help our organization find unknown threats and anomalous user behavior. We are early adopters of the user behavior piece, so we are still working to normalize our data. Splunk is working with developers to ensure that they can intake our data. We use Windows Log Forwarding for a lot of our host-based logs. We are leveraging this with an on-premises GPO. The gathering mechanism is a little bit different than what Splunk has seen, but it is still within the realm of acceptable. We are working through this issue.

We have a few different STIX and TAXII feeds that are being processed by the Threat Intelligence Management feature. We are members of a few different organizations that provide these feeds, and we use them as needed. The feeds also feed into some of our security products.

Actionable intelligence provided by Threat Intelligence Management is valuable, but it is important to be aware of its limitations. Threat intelligence can help organizations to correlate and build context around security events, but it is important to remember that the information provided is often brittle and can change quickly. For example, an IP address that is associated with a threat actor today may be used by a legitimate user tomorrow. Additionally, some threat intelligence feeds may be contaminated with false positives, which can lead to false alarms. It is important to carefully evaluate the quality and reliability of the threat intelligence before taking any action. Organizations should also have a process in place to verify and validate any threat intelligence before using it to make security decisions.

Splunk Enterprise Security is a valuable tool for analyzing malicious activities and detecting breaches. I am glad we added it to our security stack. Previously, we ran for a year or so without it, and while we had some capabilities, we were truly missing out on some things by not having Enterprise Security. It definitely added value for us, and I would not go back to not having it. I think it has been a solid addition to our security posture.

Splunk Enterprise Security helps us detect threats faster, but the lion's share of the work is still in the process of customizing it to our needs. Taking enterprise security and modifying it to apply to our needs is where we see the biggest bang for the buck. From that perspective, it is probably better for us.

A lot of the prebuilt capabilities in Splunk Enterprise Security are extremely beneficial because they cover all the use cases. I think another important aspect is the consistency of their approach and how methodical they are. This is very helpful because it sets a structure for how we view our data and what we can leverage from it. This page clearly drives us to what is happening and what we need to do, and it has a workflow associated with it. This also helps to reinforce the process. When we deal with security issues, this can always be a challenge. We are dealing with a fire drill, and we need to be able to react. We don't want to make mistakes, and it is easy to do so if we are trying to wing it. However, the structure of this approach helps to reinforce that. I think this is another area that is beneficial in terms of the workflow and how it approaches what it does.

Splunk Enterprise Security helps us reduce the volume of alerts we receive. However, we still have to take action on a number of items. Splunk Enterprise Security helped us to do this by ensuring that our input data is accurate and reliable. We are still evolving and maturing in our use of Splunk Enterprise Security, and we believe that it will continue to help us to reduce the volume of alerts we receive and improve our security posture.

Splunk Enterprise Security helps speed up our security investigations to a degree. The workflow is improved, and when we encounter an incident, we can take ownership of it, manage it, dive into individual facets of it, run queries, and expand on them. It makes some items easier to access or understand.

What is most valuable?

The varied prebuilt feature is the most valuable because it ensures that we have complete coverage over all of the key questions. By seeing how others analyzed the data, we can develop new dashboards and approaches. It is always helpful to see how someone else used a tool to spark ideas about how we can enrich our items based on our specific needs. This feature covers a lot of our core general questions and is helpful, but it also allows us to see what someone who is really focused on this area has done and how we can tune and tweak it to our needs.

What needs improvement?

It is important to make sure that everything is built off of the threat models and all the underlying items within Splunk. This includes making sure that the log feeds are aligned correctly so that when we look at data and alarms, everything makes sense. Sometimes, I see alarms that are caused by data sources that have snuck in. For example, if my firewall says something about AV, it might get mapped into antivirus. This can happen because firewalls are multipurpose devices, and they can end up in models that aren't really applicable. Part of the problem is the infrastructure within Enterprise Security with how they group data types. For example, authentication data, firewall data, network data, and user-based data are all gathered in different ways. This can lead to confusion, especially when multifunction devices are involved. For example, if a firewall says that antivirus is not enabled, it might still detect something as if it was antivirus-related. This can blur the incidents and the information we have. It is important to identify items that creep in or issues that need to be cleaned. This will help us identify problem areas and their root causes more effectively and quickly. We can then clean up the data model, make sure the lines are correct, and get higher-quality alarms.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Splunk Enterprise Security for over a year. We have used Splunk as a security SIEM for at least three to four years.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used free Splunk apps.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I believe that Splunk Enterprise Security is worth the price, but it is expensive. I am always trying to balance the need for security with the need to be cost-conscious.

What other advice do I have?

I give Splunk Enterprise Security an eight out of ten.

Using a SIEM is not cheap, no matter how you slice it. So, the first question I would ask is, what are we trying to do with our SIEM? In my opinion, Splunk, including ES shines when we are willing to invest in learning and modifying our SIEM, our solution, and our environment to align it with what we do and how we do it. If we are willing to make that investment to contextualize the security and visibility, then Splunk is a tool that can help us do that. If we are looking for a turnkey solution, where we can just throw logs at something and then pull the arm of the slot machine and get things out, then Splunk is not necessarily the right tool for us. We can get there, but it will be a pricey slot machine. I think we will get the most value out of Splunk if we want to get things that are more contextual to us. We may need to enhance or build off of the Splunk dashboards that ES includes, and that will help us to create dashboards that are extremely relevant to our environment. If we are comfortable with creating Splunk queries, then we will have a lot of power at our fingertips.

To those looking into the solution, I would ask: What are they looking for? What are they willing to invest in? Do they want to understand queries? Do they want to build the knowledge around how to structure them? Are they willing to put in the effort to get the real power out of it, or are they expecting something to tell them what is going on? They need to realize that it is never going to be built for them at that point. So they are going to be getting something generic. They have to consider their specific situation, such as how many people they have on their team, etc. They should also probably take a good stock of what they are trying to log and how long they have to retain it. I have been very happy with our Splunk Cloud instances. They have been very reliable. I think it has been incredibly powerful for us. I think that is also another aspect of whether they are going to have their SIEM in their environment or outside of their environment. They need to think about some of these items. Obviously, Splunk can go either way. They have to make their decisions there. We have been very happy with our Splunk Cloud instance. So that's what's been really good for us. And, also, it takes some of the administrative aspects and puts them on somebody else. That's valuable for us too.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
SaravanaKumar1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Consulting - Cloud & Infrastructure Services at Fourth Dimension Technologies
Real User
May 17, 2023
The solution enables us to create custom dashboards and queries to effectively meet our customers' needs
Pros and Cons
  • "Splunk allows us to customize processing and dashboards, which helps us take care of our customers' needs."
  • "The threat management part is still lagging. There are some gaps in threat management. Other vendors have built-in threat management systems, but Splunk lacks the threat management component in its portal. The UEBA and everything else is perfect, but it lacks a unified threat intelligence and management part."

What is our primary use case?

Our technical teams are demoing various enterprise tools to develop experience and knowledge so we can better serve our clients. In addition to Splunk, we are evaluating IBM QRadar and one other solution. One of our customers is asking about the Splunk MSP model.

How has it helped my organization?

Splunk allows us to customize processing and dashboards, which helps us take care of our customers' needs. Splunk is costly, but it's better than other products. It speeds up security investigations. It helps us detect threats faster. Everything is faster. The only part that's lagging is the management. Otherwise, Splunk is good. It took about a month to realize the solution's benefits. 

We get few alerts except for the other solutions we have integrated with Splunk. We'll monitor those alerts and support their customers, but we don't have any other mechanisms for databases or something outside of the infrastructure. 

What is most valuable?

Splunk enables us to customize dashboards and queries, and we can add multiple admin users. We only use the essential parts, including the MITRE ATT&CK framework capabilities. Organizations share threat information under the MITRE ATT&CK framework. We do threat hunting and marketing based on that.

We do manual threat hunting. We get all the IP addresses and check the threat databases to determine if it's malicious. 

What needs improvement?

The algorithms and alerts could be improved. I would also like to pre-build use cases. We need to create the algorithm based on our use cases. 

The threat management part is still lagging. There are some gaps in threat management. Other vendors have built-in threat management systems, but Splunk lacks the threat management component in its portal. The UEBA and everything else is perfect, but it lacks a unified threat intelligence and management feature. 

We've also had problems integrating the solution. We get multiple errors, like search log errors, UI errors, etc., and performance issues. It's fine with basic content, but if we're dealing with multiple data sources and 30 GB of data, it cannot handle the load. Our customer is indexing around 10 GB of data daily, and I can't search the log without getting errors. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Splunk Enterprise is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Splunk Enterprise is highly scalable. 

How are customer service and support?

We haven't had to contact Splunk support because we can find all the answers we need online. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We also use IBM QRadar.

How was the initial setup?

Deploying Splunk is straightforward. We had no issues. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Splunk is more expensive than most solutions, but it offers lots of value. If a customer wants the cheapest solution, we'll use that.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Splunk Enterprise Security an eight out of ten. I would give it a ten if it had built-in threat management. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Splunk Enterprise Security Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: July 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Splunk Enterprise Security Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.