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Amazon CloudWatch vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 29, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon CloudWatch
Ranking in Log Management
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (12th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Log Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
301
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

Rasanpreet Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable AWS monitoring and logging
The choice of logging solution should always be determined by the specific business requirements. It is crucial to align the logging strategy with what type of logs are needed and how they should be used. There are instances where we require custom solutions to retrieve logs, especially application logs that may not be easily accessible through CloudWatch or similar services. When we heavily rely on AWS native services, CloudWatch is indeed a robust choice. However, in certain scenarios, we might need integration capabilities with other tools, and if they can incorporate such features, it would enhance overall logging capabilities. I would rate it eight out of ten.
Avinash Gopu. - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good visibility into multiple environments, significantly reduces our alert volume, and speeds up our security investigations
There are limitations with Splunk not detecting all user activity, especially on mainframes and network devices. This is because Splunk relies on agents, which cannot access certain workstations. In these cases, we have to rely on application data. For example, with mainframes, manual reports are generated and sent to Splunk, limiting visibility to what's manually reported. This lack of automation for specific platforms needs improvement from Splunk. Additionally, API access is limited for other applications that rely on API calls and requests. This requires heavy customization on Splunk's end. These are the main challenges we've encountered. Monitoring multiple cloud platforms, like Azure, GCP, and AWS, with Splunk Enterprise Security presents some challenges. While Splunk provides different connectors for each provider, consolidating data from two domains across distinct cloud environments can be complex. However, leveraging pre-built templates and Splunk's data collation capabilities can help overcome these hurdles. Despite initial difficulties, I believe Splunk can effectively address this task, earning it an eight out of ten rating for its multi-cloud monitoring capabilities. While Splunk Enterprise Security offers insider threat detection capabilities, its effectiveness could be enhanced by integrating with additional tools, such as endpoint security solutions. This integrated approach is particularly crucial for financial institutions, which often require dedicated endpoint security teams. While using multiple tools is valuable, further improvements within Splunk itself are also necessary. Considering both external integration and internal development, I would rate its current insider threat detection capabilities as three out of ten. Threat detection is where Splunk falls behind. While it offers tools, other use cases require additional work. PAM is an enterprise tool that centralizes information about users, servers, and everything else. It needs real-time monitoring, which I haven't seen in any of the companies I've worked for. They only rely on Splunk for alerting, but real-time monitoring should be handled by the endpoint security team's tools. This means there's no detection or analysis at the machine or endpoint level. Additionally, threat analysis reporting is also absent.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a stable solution...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is collecting the logs from Lambda."
"The initial setup is easy."
"It's a very simple logging system."
"It's useful to analyze past data and compare it with recent activities."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is intrusion prevention."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is reliability."
"Monitoring time and ensuring ease in it is the most valuable feature."
"The Splunk user community and forum are most valuable."
"Splunk has significantly reduced the time in performing the task of aggregating logs, reviewing as well as time spent during investigations."
"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."
"It helps streamline troubleshooting and log analysis."
"The varied prebuilt feature is the most valuable because it ensures that we have complete coverage over all of the key questions."
"The solution's most valuable feature is risk-based alerting, focusing on building out user risks for individuals throughout the enterprise."
"Splunk Enterprise Security gives us a single pane of glass so that we can use just one tool instead of having to use different tools."
"The additional vendors we've brought on board, particularly the elastic, have been quite beneficial."
 

Cons

"It's not an advanced way of monitoring."
"There is some delay in logging that they need to improve on."
"It's not very intuitive. It doesn't have drag-and-drop functionality to trigger actions from notifications."
"There could be further enhancements through CloudWatch's partnerships."
"The solution's integration could be easier for laypersons."
"The solution's pricing is a bit higher."
"The drill-down aspect on the dashboard of the solution needs improvement. We get a very good high-level overview, but when we drill down, it becomes a little less clear. We have given this feedback to AWS as well and hope they will improve this in the future."
"Some of our customers want to use Kubernetes to monitor their CICD flow but Amazon CloudWatch does not support it. We need to use another solution, such as Datadog or Dynatrace has the needed capability."
"Make it easy to use and the cost cheaper. This will help all organisations to implement Splunk."
"The user access control could be much more granular, so that the admins can control r/w/x access for specific features of the product like dashboards, etc."
"It can be tough to get a hold of somebody in technical support depending on the complexity of the issue."
"Over time I will have more requirements and I can foresee the solution could improve the search algorithm to run and output the data faster."
"Splunk can improve its third-party device application plugins."
"It is a good product, but the Achilles heel for a lot of organizations is the cost model for it because it gets expensive. That's because the model is based on how much data it processes a day, which can be prohibitive, especially if you have a lot of data. A lot of customers may not be ready for the sticker shock on how to fully leverage the product. I realized that the reason for that is that when it was originally designed, it was kind of like a big data modeling application. If they want to have a bigger customer base, they can come out with subsets of their product that are focused on specific things and have different pricing models. It may help with the cost."
"While Splunk offers SOAR as a separate product, integrating it into the next version of Splunk Enterprise Security as a unified solution would be beneficial."
"The incident response dashboard could be more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"The pricing can be considered reasonable, especially when already operating on a cloud platform."
"What's were using is the free service of Amazon CloudWatch, so they're not charging us. As for hidden fees, we're not aware of them because we're using what our clients provided us."
"Its pricing is reasonable. It is sometimes tricky, but it is reasonable as compared to others."
"Amazon CloudWatch is a cheap solution."
"It is a free-of-charge service."
"The tool is not expensive."
"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable for detailed basic monitoring."
"I assume that the pricing is reasonable, because if it was too costly, there are other alternatives."
"I work on the technical side, so I don't know precise figures. However, I know that Splunk is a premium product, so it's somewhat costly. Still, you get a lot of unique features for the money."
"Splunk differs from other SIEM solutions by using a gigabyte-based pricing model, rather than the agent-based licenses common with its competitors."
"The licensing is good, but the pricing absolutely needs some work. It is very high."
"The Splunk Enterprise Security license is expensive."
"Splunk licensing model might seem expensive but with all the gain in functionalities you will have compared to traditional SIEM solutions I think it’s worth the price."
"Splunk is not free."
"The subscription is monthly."
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Comparison Review

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Feb 26, 2015
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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
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
5%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudWatch?
In general, Amazon CloudWatch is cheaper compared to Dynatrace. However, there are potential costs to be mindful of, like running a log query that returns trillions of bytes of data.
What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?
CloudWatch itself is fine. That said, maybe Amazon Web Services can improve by providing a library for CloudWatch with some useful features.
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...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus
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 Amazon CloudWatch vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.