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Cribl vs Splunk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 29, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Cribl
Ranking in Log Management
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (14th), Data Integration (17th), Cloud Data Integration (13th), Data Preparation Tools (4th)
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Log Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
303
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Cribl is 1.0%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 9.0%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Hariram G - PeerSpot reviewer
Collects logs from various cloud sources with reduced costs and improved efficiency
Cribl has simplified many aspects of the onboarding process, but there's still room for improvement. Currently, no other tools in the market truly compete with Cribl in its niche. Splunk is trying to retain customers by developing ingest actions to reduce licensing costs, hoping to prevent them from switching to Cribl. There is no alerting mechanism for the leader/worker nodes status. Since Cribl plays a major role in the mid-layer between the source and destination, there's a slight risk of losing data at some points while receiving real time data. It would be helpful if Cribl could temporarily store or index the data for a specific time range. This would prevent data loss during downtime. Additionally, there's room for improvement in how Cribl handles historical data. Currently, I can't view trends beyond a week, and even then, it’s often limited to just 24 hours. Since Cribl doesn’t index the data but only forwards it, extending the period for viewing statistics and monitoring trends would be a valuable enhancement.
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

"Cribl offers easy plugin configurations and source collection settings, allowing us to collect logs from any source."
"When it comes to the product's installation phase, it is not tough for people who have good knowledge...The tool is worth the investment."
"The platform's most valuable feature is the ability to transform data in real-time within the pipeline without sending it to a destination."
"The support team was very helpful and managed to get everything production-ready."
"The capability to reduce logs in a user-friendly manner is a standout feature. Cribl allows us to view logs live as they are being processed, giving us quick feedback on the changes made."
"Features such as Cribl Stream, Cribl LogStream, and Cribl Edge have been the most beneficial. The Cribl LogStream, in particular, is valuable for routing data, creating firewalls on pipelines, and putting security measures in place to ensure data reaches its destination without issues."
"Cribl offers other valuable features. For instance, you can replay data from an edge device, store your daily data in a stream, and replay specific event data into Splunk if a security incident occurs"
"I'd rate the solution ten out of ten."
"Splunk provides immediate visibility into key business metrics and new business insights that deliver immediate value."
"Splunk's interface is user-friendly, and it has apps and add-ons for most applications. We can easily normalize the data to make it readable and understand the logs. We easily get all the field extractions and enrichment done by using the apps and add-ons. This helps us understand the application logs because the raw data is useless unless we extract some useful information from it. These add-ons make it so much easier."
"Splunk can extract all kinds of data. There's no limitation on what kind of structured and unstructured data one needs to extract — it can access any kind of data, including machine-generated data."
"We can automatically suspend or terminate suspicious sessions."
"Splunk is a user-friendly solution."
"On the cloud, we are pushing through less than half a petabyte of data. So far, it has been fairly stable because it runs on all the underlying AWS infrastructures."
"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."
"It definitely does help with both auditing and as well as regular monitoring. SOC does more monitoring, but ES also gives you other features that are auditing-related. The dashboards are also beneficial."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the documentation and knowledge base, particularly regarding configurations like sources where logs are being ingested"
"Cribl could have developed some version that can give backward compatibility."
"The sys logging could be enhanced to make it easier to identify errors, especially when dealing with multiple functions."
"Cribl should consider adding more features that are applicable to smaller firms, allowing broader access to their data migration through Cribl."
"Cribl could improve by offering easier integrations with enterprise products, similar to what Splunk provides."
"There is no alerting mechanism for the leader/worker nodes status."
"Perhaps more flexibility in terms of metrics would be helpful."
"Cribl doesn't have as many packs available"
"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."
"The UI can be difficult to understand for non-technical people."
"Could be more user friendly."
"Splunk Enterprise Security has not helped reduce our alert volume."
"Splunk has a steeper learning curve, making it feel less user-friendly."
"I feel the solution to be too slow."
"The configuration had a bit of a learning curve."
"The CIM model is the method Splunk uses to normalize data and categorize its important parts, but it is quite complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would not say it is a cheaply priced tool as it has been doing wonders in the market. The tool has been budget-friendly for organizations."
"The product pricing is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"Its pricing model can be improved."
"We had a yearly subscription."
"Further reductions would be fantastic, and I believe that more and more people would flock to it."
"It is expensive. I work for multiple clients. I am working for more than five clients, but most of the clients are switching from Splunk to Sentinel because of the cost. Even though Sentinel is very limited, clients are moving to Sentinel."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is expensive."
"Pricing can be a limiting factor. You have to continuously tune what you are bringing in and make sure what you bring in is of value."
"The licensing model can be expensive, but the value it provides is significant."
"In terms of pricing, I believe Splunk is unreasonably costly for the majority of mid and small-sized companies."
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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
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
Government
7%
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 Cribl?
I am not aware of the pricing details, however, I know they use a credit format for billing.
What needs improvement with Cribl?
At the moment, I don't have specific feedback on what can be improved as I do not work with Cribl daily. Perhaps more flexibility in terms of metrics would be helpful.
What is your primary use case for Cribl?
I am using Cribl to have everything centralized in one tool in terms of data collection. We were working with different Splunk customers, and Cribl helps collect data and then send it to an S3 buck...
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...
 

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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 Cribl vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.