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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 (11th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (15th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (10th), 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 August 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 3.5%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 1.0%, up from 0.7% 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 most valuable feature is the scalability. We are in Indonesia, more engineers understand Elastic Security here. So it is easier to scale and also develop. In features, the discovery to query all the logs is very important to us. It is very easy, especially with the query function and the feature to generate alerts and create tools. Sometimes we use the alert security dashboard to monitor our clients."
"I like the indexing of the logs."
"The stability of the solution is good."
"My advice is that this is a good product to use if you are financially contained, and you want to start with something small."
"It's simple and easy to use."
"In my previous organization, I used this for central log management, increasing developer productivity."
"The solution has a good community surrounding it for lots of helpful documentation for troubleshooting purposes."
"You just deploy and start using, and it's quite stable and hasn't broken down on us at all."
"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."
"Some of the rules are most valuable because you can be notified about various things, such as spyware or things that are going on in the internal network."
"SolarWinds is easy to configure, and it provides timely alerts."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the visibility into both attempted and failed logins."
"User-friendly configuration is key, and the configurations are simple, not complex."
"SolarWinds Security Event Manager has been generally working well."
"It supports high availability, which is very helpful."
"The product's most effective part in improving security stems from the fact that the solution is deployed for event management, log viewing, and information management."
 

Cons

"Technical support could respond faster."
"I do not have any specific recommendations for improvements in Elastic Security, but I feel that the AI module should get more mature."
"In terms of improvement, there could be more automation in responding to and evaluating detections."
"Elastic Security can be a bit difficult to use if a person only has experience in SMBs with tools like Zoho. The product can also be difficult for those who have never dealt with query language."
"Elastic sometimes does not correctly identify threats or anomalies. It might not classify an issue as malicious or critical accurately."
"Authentication is not a default in Kibana. We need to have another tool to have authentication and authorization. These two should be part of Kibana."
"The solution could offer better reporting features."
"Elastic Security's maintenance is hard and its scalability is a challenge. There are complications in scaling and upgrading. The solution needs to also provide periodic upgrade checks."
"We used the support from SolarWinds Security Event Manager and they are knowledgeable but challenging to get in contact with them."
"The query capability in this solution needs improvement."
"We'd like more customization capabilities."
"The solution's technical support is okay, but we don't have an SLA, and sometimes the response times are very slow."
"It can be difficult for users who are inexperienced with the solution."
"The product should improve the ease with which you can create event alerts. They are not as hard now but you need to have an easier way."
"The log analyzing capability of SolarWinds Security Event Manager should go into more depth than the current environment."
"One of the drawbacks of being so flexible is that it is also a fairly complicated software application to install, configure, and maintain."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost of Elastic Security is based on the daily ingestion rate. I can't recall the exact figure, but for 10GB of log action daily, it would cost around $20,000."
"The tool's pricing is flexible and comes at unit cost. You don't have to pay for everything."
"The base product is open-source but if you need advanced security features then you need to pay for the subscription. Elastic Security's price is reasonable in some cases and in other cases it's not."
"We are using the free, open-source version of this solution."
"I find it better than Splunk in terms of cost-effectiveness. For cost-effectiveness, I would rate it a nine out of 10."
"I can say that the product is cheaply priced."
"It is easy to deploy, easy to use, and you get everything you need to become operational with it, and have nothing further to pay unless you want the OLED plugin."
"Compared to other tools, Elastic Security is a cheaper solution."
"It is in the appropriate mid-range. It is not as expensive as some of the other solutions. It is also not cheap."
"The price of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is reasonable."
"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 pricing model would benefit from having package deals with other SolarWinds products."
"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."
"We do a yearly license renewal. For a year, the solution costs roughly $500,000 USD. There are no costs beyond this yearly fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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.
907,731 professionals have used our research since 2012.