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Cortex XSIAM vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.4
Cortex XSIAM offers significant ROI and reduced staffing needs, though some businesses await full financial assessments.
Sentiment score
7.2
Splunk Enterprise Security enhances visibility, streamlines operations, and supports real-time decisions, improving efficiency and security in large-scale environments.
Splunk's cost is justified for large environments with extensive assets.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Cortex XSIAM customer support varies, with mixed reviews ranging from inadequate responses to helpful, efficient resolutions across different tiers.
Sentiment score
6.7
Splunk Enterprise Security support is mixed: knowledgeable at higher levels but variable with first-tier responses, praised online.
It is ineffective in terms of responding to basic queries and addressing future requirements.
The Palo Alto support team is fully responsive and helpful.
If you want to write your own correlation rules, it is very difficult to do, and you need Splunk's support to write new correlation rules for the SIEM tool.
The technical support for Splunk met my expectations.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cortex XSIAM scales easily for enterprises, rated highly for scalability, despite integration reliance concerns, supporting numerous assets and users.
Sentiment score
7.7
Splunk Enterprise Security is scalable and effective for large deployments, though costs and planning are essential considerations.
Without proper integration, scaling up with more servers is meaningless.
Cortex XSIAM is highly scalable.
They struggle a bit with pure virtual environments, but in terms of how much they can handle, it is pretty good.
It is easy to scale.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Cortex XSIAM is highly stable, cloud-based, and dependable, with minimal downtime, excellent reliability ratings, and rare intervention needs.
Sentiment score
7.9
Splunk Enterprise Security is reliable and adaptable, handling large data volumes with minimal downtime and robust performance.
The product was easy to install and set up and worked right.
Overall, Cortex XSIAM is stable.
It provides a stable environment but needs to integrate with ITSM platforms to achieve better visibility.
It is very stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Cortex XSIAM needs improvements in integration, performance, usability, and support services, with enhanced automation and developer-friendliness.
Splunk Enterprise Security needs improved setup, GUI, user control, pricing, machine learning, and intuitive dashboards for better accessibility.
Obtaining validation for integrations from Palo Alto takes around eight months, which is quite long.
Cortex XSIAM needs improvements in terms of data onboarding, parsers, and third-party integration supports.
Cortex could improve the detection and online resolution of security vulnerabilities.
What Splunk could do better is to create an API to the standard SIEM tools, such as Microsoft Sentinel.
Splunk Enterprise Security would benefit from a more robust rule engine to reduce false positives.
Splunk could enhance its offerings by incorporating modules for network detection and response and fraud management.
 

Setup Cost

Cortex XSIAM is competitively priced compared to Splunk and Microsoft Sentinel but involves complex licensing and additional costs.
Splunk Enterprise Security is costly but valued for features and scalability, offering significant ROI with careful data management.
The first impression is that XSIAM would be more expensive than others we tried.
The product is very expensive.
Cortex XSIAM is pretty expensive, and the licensing process is not very comfortable.
I saw clients spend two million dollars a year just feeding data into the Splunk solution.
The platform requires significant financial investment and resources, making it expensive despite its comprehensive features.
Splunk is priced higher than other solutions.
 

Valuable Features

Cortex XSIAM provides advanced threat detection with machine learning, seamless third-party integration, and comprehensive network and endpoint protection.
Splunk Enterprise Security enhances threat detection with fast data retrieval, customizable visualizations, and seamless third-party integration for efficient operations.
One of the valued aspects of the product is its use of artificial intelligence to detect security vulnerabilities.
The flexibility for creating manual workflows stands out.
Its signature-less subscriptions and robust detection power stand out in improving threat detection.
This capability is useful for performance monitoring and issue identification.
They have approximately 50,000 predefined correlation rules.
The Splunk Enterprise Security's threat-hunting capabilities have been particularly useful in later releases.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cortex XSIAM
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
17th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (6th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (7th)
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
305
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (2nd), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Cortex XSIAM is 2.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 9.5%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Forrest Stevens - PeerSpot reviewer
A robust security operation that ensures achieving automation, stability, and scalability
There is room for improvement in some areas, and I would highlight three key aspects. Firstly, the Attack Surface Management (ASM) module could benefit from more contextual depth. Currently, it tends to provide a broad overview without enriched context, and there's room for enhancement in this regard. Secondly, further integration capabilities with various other software products that can seamlessly tie into Cortex XSIAM would be advantageous. This would enhance its versatility and interoperability within a broader ecosystem. Regarding performance, there's potential for optimization. When multiple tabs are open in Cortex XSIAM, it can experience slowdowns, leading to longer load times for web pages. It's worth noting that this isn't a severe issue, and it doesn't entail waiting for extended periods, but there is room for improvement in terms of performance optimization.
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.
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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
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
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 Cortex XSIAM?
It is an effective solution in terms of performance and functionalities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cortex XSIAM?
Cortex XSIAM is pretty expensive, and the licensing process is not very comfortable. CrowdStrike licensing is easier and follows an annual recurring revenue model, unlike Cortex XSIAM.
What needs improvement with Cortex XSIAM?
Cortex XSIAM is pretty expensive, and the licensing process is not very comfortable compared to CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike offers an annual recurring revenue option that Cortex XSIAM does not provide.
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

Information Not Available
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 Cortex XSIAM vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.