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Elastic Security vs SolarWinds Security Event Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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

Elastic Security
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (13th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (19th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (11th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (12th)
SolarWinds Security Event M...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
33rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 3.5%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Elastic Security3.5%
SolarWinds Security Event Manager1.0%
Other95.5%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Laurentiu Popescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Product Officer at ClusterPower
Has improved threat detection with deep log analysis and streamlined investigation workflows
The most useful features I find in Elastic Security are the forensic ones that allow us to carry deeper analysis into the logs for in-depth investigations, and the dashboards, with the reporting dashboard being quite user-friendly. Elastic Security is quite good at identifying threats, as it is part of the deep investigation tool that I mentioned before. Unless we need to look further into a certain log, we can carry out a deeper analysis and forensics on those particular logs. I can assess the impact of Elastic Security's real-time data analysis on our threat response efficiency as working pretty good. We are looking for real-time analysis because we have a continuous inflow of logs from different sources: from our cloud, from Active Directory, from our network. So it works pretty well.
Yashokanth Partkunan - PeerSpot reviewer
Managed Services Engineer at Loop1 Systems
Has supported client needs efficiently but requires deeper analysis features and faster support
The log analyzing capability of SolarWinds Security Event Manager should go into more depth than the current environment. More modification and enhancements are required on the dashboard side in order to make it closer to optimal performance. From observation and feedback from users, they need more functionality related to monitoring, and in-depth analyzing needs to be improved.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The performance is good and it is faster than IBM QRadar."
"In comparison with other similar solutions in the market, customers go with Elastic Security because of its scalability and its good performance."
"We chose Elastic Security because we felt it was the most flexible, cost-effective solution to provide the results needed."
"It's very stable and reliable."
"This solution helps us because we can find all of the logs in one place."
"The most valuable feature is the speed, as it responds in a very short time."
"The cost is reasonable. It's not overly pricey."
"Based on my experience, it's quite easy and manageable with small scale implementations, and the time to market is quite fast."
"It has in-depth monitoring capabilities and an easy way for setting up dashboards."
"The graphical user interface is very user-friendly. SolarWinds is a hybrid solution so you can use it across many platforms."
"SolarWinds is one of the products that I use, amongst many others, to fit the needs of our customers which includes their budget, size, and industry."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is the analysis and the knowledge about the incidence that we trace."
"SolarWinds is easy to configure, and it provides timely alerts."
"It performs network behavior monitoring, log monitoring, and disaster recovery monitoring."
"The reporting and alerting capabilities are really nice."
"It supports high availability, which is very helpful."
 

Cons

"The problem with ELK is it's difficult to administer. When you have a problem, it can be very, very difficult to rebuild indexes."
"The solution does not have a UI and this is one of the reasons we are looking for another solution."
"We'd like better premium support."
"The setup process is complex. You need a solid working knowledge of networking, operating systems, and a little programming."
"The signature security needs improvement."
"Because of the notification issue we moved to Logentries, as it provides a simple way to get notification whenever a server encounters an error or something unexpected happens (which we have defined using Regex)."
"The solution could also use better dashboards. They need to be more graphical, more matrix-like."
"The tool needs to integrate with legacy servers. Big companies can have legacy servers that may not always be updated."
"The query capability in this solution needs improvement."
"We used the support from SolarWinds Security Event Manager and they are knowledgeable but challenging to get in contact with them."
"We have automated threat detection in the Alliance Security, Antoinette. However, if these features could be further enhanced, it would simplify my work, potentially allowing me to allocate more time to address complex issues."
"I think the product can use some improvement on the reporting side. The reporting could be easier and more robust."
"SolarWinds should improve its correlation capabilities. The correlation does not automatically detect and reduce the events fast enough. You have to manually do a correlation report, which means the tool is not scalable in many ways."
"The company had to use a third party for the implementation of the solution."
"Under the new system, it is not upgradable the way they say. When you try to do an upgrade, it doesn't really work unless you dump everything and start from scratch. You lose a lot of your nodes. Whenever you set your nodes up and everything else, they don't want to bring those nodes back in, so you have to really go back and restructure all your nodes. I went from version 6.5 to version 6.6 and then to version 6.7. I then went to version 2019, and now it is version 2020. It would be good if we can upgrade without having to delete everything and start from scratch. They can maybe build more KPIs and other things for the dashboard. Some of the other systems already have built-in KPIs. SolarWinds is starting to catch up, but it is not there yet. They can include some of the business or industry standards for tracking the time, that is, the meantime to detect (MTTD) and the meantime to resolve (MTTR). They can also find a way to build a KPI that measures the number of instances of port scans experienced in a week or a month."
"The reporting could be more robust. It can be a lot more granular and that will make it a lot more useful in comparison to how it is incorporated at the moment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product offers an amazing pricing structure. Price-wise, the product is very competitive."
"Compared to other products such as Dynatrace, this is one of the cheaper options."
"When compared to other products, the price is average or on the low side."
"Its price is fine. Its licensing works on a yearly basis. We have to renew the license every year. I also have a good experience with Darktrace. When we buy Darktrace, we get training free of cost, which is not there in Elastic. We have to pay extra for training. There is certainly room for improvement."
"Elastic Security is free to use."
"I find it better than Splunk in terms of cost-effectiveness. For cost-effectiveness, I would rate it a nine out of 10."
"The solution is not expensive and costs around ten dollars a month."
"The price is reasonable. It probably costs the same as ArcSight and LogRhythm SIEM. FortiSIEM might cost less than Elastic Security. There are no hidden or additional costs."
"It is in the appropriate mid-range. It is not as expensive as some of the other solutions. It is also not cheap."
"We do a yearly license renewal. For a year, the solution costs roughly $500,000 USD. There are no costs beyond this yearly fee."
"The tool is available at a good price for customers compared to other solutions in the market. I rate the product's price as an eight out of ten."
"The price of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is reasonable."
"Licensing is on devices, so if you have many, then this may be high."
"Licenses can only be purchased in blocks of fifty at a time."
"The pricing model would benefit from having package deals with other SolarWinds products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
I am satisfied with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing cost. It is a pure 10.
What needs improvement with Elastic Security?
I do not have any specific recommendations for improvements in Elastic Security, but I feel that the AI module should get more mature. These machine learning algorithms become better with time; as ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
The tool is available at a good price for customers compared to other solutions in the market. I rate the product's price as an eight out of ten.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
The log analyzing capability of SolarWinds Security Event Manager should go into more depth than the current environment. More modification and enhancements are required on the dashboard side in or...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
I work with all SolarWinds products mostly, including Network Configuration Manager and NPM. I am a reseller. I usually recommend SolarWinds products for Loop1. It's for the bigger ones; we are the...
 

Also Known As

Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
SolarWinds LEM, Solarwinds SIEM, TriGeo, Log and Event Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
NetSuite, EasyStreet, Legacy Texas Bank, and Energy Federal Credit Union, to name a few.
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Security vs. SolarWinds Security Event Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,125 professionals have used our research since 2012.