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AWS X-Ray vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

AWS X-Ray
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (19th)
Splunk Enterprise Security
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
305
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (2nd), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Lifecycle Management solutions, they serve different purposes. AWS X-Ray is designed for Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability and holds a mindshare of 3.3%, down 3.4% compared to last year.
Splunk Enterprise Security, on the other hand, focuses on Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), holds 9.5% mindshare, down 12.8% since last year.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Willy Moura - PeerSpot reviewer
Identifying and resolving deployment issues while configuring can be challenging
I have two use cases with my customers. One involves using AWS Fargate, and the other involves an application running on WordPress. The WordPress application was very slow, and we used AWS X-Ray to understand the main problem. X-Ray helped us identify issues with our EFS, allowing us to adjust…
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

"AWS X-Ray shows us exactly when there are delays, helping us understand the depth of issues and what is happening point-to-point."
"AWS X-RAY identifies bottlenecks in terms of stability and performance and how long certain data lives in terms of response time and duration."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process."
"The solution has made it easier for us to trace the problems that we have with our requests and to monitor the timing of each step in each request we do in our endpoints."
"The most beneficial feature is that it shows a dashboard for performance intervals, which reveals latencies."
"The most promising feature of AWS X-Ray is that you can debug the issues through the proper logs. You can also get an analysis out of the logs for some use cases, though I have yet to try all the features of AWS X-Ray."
"AWS X-Ray shows us exactly when there are delays, helping us understand the depth of issues and what is happening point-to-point."
"Splunk works based on parsing log files."
"It is very easy to use and integrate. There are connectors for every technology."
"The correlation capabilities are the first value that our clients say they like with Splunk."
"The flexibility of the search capability is most valuable. You can use it for more than just a basic log aggregator. It is powerful in that regard."
"The most valuable features in Splunk are the search function and the ability to run selected session reports. The session reports are important because I can use them to see what is going on in our environment weekly. Additionally, we can use the graph to see how often that particular event is happening."
"Its alerting is most valuable. We have alerts set up in our environment for certain attacks, such as an SQL injection attempt. We have a front-facing server for the website. It is out there, and anybody can access it. When those SQL injection attempts come in, we are able to detect that with the alert."
"The solution has made us more secure."
"Splunk Enterprise Security offers valuable features like seamless integration and a SQL-standard Structured Query Language for easy searching."
 

Cons

"It should have X-Ray SDKs for different languages like Node.js, Python, or Java."
"Compared to other open-source tools, AWS X-Ray needs improvement in providing discounts."
"Sometimes, the collector agents are confusing to configure initially."
"A significant downside is that it is very expensive."
"The user interface is sometimes kind of confusing to understand. It's not very user-friendly."
"I do not have any notes in terms of improvements."
"What needs to be better in AWS X-Ray is the log filtering. Predefined filters could be helpful because the power of analytics comes from how you can filter the data. I also want to see more KPIs from AWS X-Ray."
"If you have a small team, it's probably overkill."
"The product could be cheaper."
"The tool should include more real-world use case examples built out either through videos or in the community."
"While scheduled reports can be embedded, Splunk dashboard can not be embedded directly without enabling cross origin."
"It is very complicated to write your own correlation rules without the help of Splunk support."
"I would like more assistance with use cases and help with teaching us how to use it once it's installed."
"It's difficult to set up initially, and their billing model is also a bit complicated."
"The high cost of Splunk Enterprise Security prevented us from using its full capabilities."
"The price has room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is a bit expensive."
"As you develop a relationship with Amazon, your pricing gets lower. You get credits for the amount of the system you use, and then if you're the government, you can get government pricing. For commercial users, there's a hump when you go from small to medium to big enterprise. Small businesses can live pretty easily off the free tier in a lot of cases, but when you go from a medium to a big enterprise, it becomes more expensive on a per-user basis. I'd like to see that curve going in a different way where pricing can be driven down while people are trying to adopt the technology."
"The pricing for AWS X-Ray is a six out of ten."
"The licensing costs are high for Splunk Enterprise Security."
"We have had a reduction in the time it takes to resolve issues and correlate what has failed."
"It can be tough to determine if you are getting all of the value out of your investment at times."
"Splunk should be able to integrate with other product using the free version."
"The licensing model can be expensive, but the value it provides is significant."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is an expensive solution."
"While some clients find the cost of Splunk Enterprise Security to be on the higher end, its pricing is comparable to other SIEM solutions."
"The price of Splunk Enterprise Security is high."
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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
20%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS X-Ray?
AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS X-Ray?
Compared to other open-source tools, AWS X-Ray needs improvement in providing discounts. Customers often seek cheaper solutions. When using many AWS resources, pricing can be a mid-range cost, give...
What needs improvement with AWS X-Ray?
Sometimes, the collector agents are confusing to configure initially. It requires research to understand the correct configurations, especially when deploying on-premises or on an EC2 instance. Usi...
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

COMCAST, ConnectWise, skyscanner, AirAsia, cookpad, cimpress, VTEX, zowdow
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 AWS X-Ray vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: May 2023.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.