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Fortinet FortiAnalyzer vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 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
7.2
Fortinet FortiAnalyzer offers a good ROI, enhancing network visibility and security, especially in complex environments, despite resource impacts.
Sentiment score
7.2
Splunk Enterprise Security cuts costs and boosts efficiency with automation, threat response, and real-time insights, enhancing user satisfaction.
The impact of the tool is low when the functionalities are inaccessible due to resource consumption.
For smaller organizations, other products may provide better value for money.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.1
Fortinet FortiAnalyzer customer support is generally positive but has mixed feedback on efficiency and communication.
Sentiment score
6.7
Splunk Enterprise Security's customer service is praised for knowledgeable support but needs improvement in response times and consistency.
Customer service and support for Fortinet FortiAnalyzer are quite helpful and responsive.
Sometimes, I need to consult FortinetDocs to understand integration.
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
7.7
Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is scalable with proper sizing, but hardware versions may require extra licenses for smooth scaling.
Sentiment score
7.7
Splunk Enterprise Security scales effectively, handling large data volumes and diverse environments, though costs may increase with scalability.
FortiAnalyzer is a scalable product.
Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is scalable, especially for the VM versions, as additional space can be provisioned from the servers as needed.
They struggle a bit with pure virtual environments, but in terms of how much they can handle, it is pretty good.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is highly stable and reliable, though some issues with OS versions and CPU usage may occur.
Sentiment score
7.9
Splunk Enterprise Security is stable and reliable, but proper setup and careful capacity planning are crucial for optimal performance.
We faced some CPU consumption issues, which caused the machine to slow down and required a restart of FortiAnalyzer.
It provides a stable environment but needs to integrate with ITSM platforms to achieve better visibility.
It is very stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Fortinet FortiAnalyzer requires improvements in user interface, integration, cloud capabilities, performance, and technical support for enhanced user experience.
Splunk Enterprise Security needs better setup, integration, documentation, interfaces, access controls, data management, and pricing flexibility for improved user experience.
When licensing, each device is licensed separately, such as the firewall, which can become expensive.
One area for improvement could be better support for third-party products.
A possible improvement for FortiAnalyzer could be in threat intelligence.
An API with Microsoft Sentinel or a similar SIEM tool would be a good idea.
Splunk Enterprise Security would benefit from a more robust rule engine to reduce false positives.
 

Setup Cost

Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is seen as costly for small businesses, though it offers competitive value against Palo Alto and Cisco.
Splunk Enterprise Security's cost is seen as high, prompting calls for flexible pricing to suit different budgets and needs.
In terms of pricing, FortiAnalyzer is not expensive.
I can't calculate costs per user.
I saw clients spend two million dollars a year just feeding data into the Splunk solution.
Splunk is priced higher than other solutions.
 

Valuable Features

Fortinet FortiAnalyzer offers centralized log analysis, customizable reporting, and integration with Fortinet devices for enhanced security and network management.
Splunk Enterprise Security offers robust data analysis, real-time alerts, and machine learning, enhancing threat detection and incident response.
The advanced analytics capabilities aid in threat detection by providing visibility into indicators of compromise.
The system provides valuable insights through information, graphics, and reports.
It's a very flexible and rich tool, providing custom reports along with default reports.
The Splunk Enterprise Security's threat-hunting capabilities have been particularly useful in later releases.
They have approximately 50,000 predefined correlation rules.
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiAnalyzer
Ranking in Log Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Log Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
303
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is 2.4%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 8.7%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Boaz Katabazi - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables flexible and comprehensive reporting across all syslog-enabled devices
I mainly use it for reporting. It also integrates other security solutions around. It can report onto anything that has a syslog on the network. It doesn't have to be a Fortinet product. It integrates within FortiGate and you can find the reports there. It's a very flexible and rich tool, providing custom reports along with default reports.
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
18%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiAnalyzer?
The reporting features, which offer customization, real-time insights, and compliance support, are particularly noteworthy aspects.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiAnalyzer?
I am a technical engineer, so I am not privy to pricing details.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiAnalyzer?
Sometimes, there is a problem with CPU consumption, where one process consumes 100%, and I need to restart FortiAnalyzer to fix this. I am not familiar with the processes of scalability.
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...
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

General Directorate of Information Technology
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 Fortinet FortiAnalyzer vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.