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Fortinet FortiSIEM vs NetWitness Platform 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

Fortinet FortiSIEM
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
73
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetWitness Platform
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
24th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (23rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiSIEM is 3.3%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 0.7%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Oliver Jackson - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems monitoring enhanced by firewall and intrusion detection features
My primary use case for Fortinet FortiSIEM is systems monitoring and alerting. I use it for standard functions like log monitoring, incident detection, and notification.  My customers are mostly medium-sized enterprises ranging from engineering companies, mining companies, independent schools, and…
MdZaman - PeerSpot reviewer
Really scalable for enterprise customers
The solution should have more integration capabilities with different platforms. The API is nearly open and scalable, so the solution can integrate with many platforms. The solution has more than 200 log sources in the scalability to support, but this is its limit. Installation is pretty easy. However, there are a couple of modules involved, so it is not as easy as it could be. We are talking about a distributed module, not a single-module type. This is what makes things a bit complex, instead of easier. I rate it as a seven out of ten on its installation and configuration capabilities.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The CMDB and the device discovery features are most valuable."
"We find the solution to be stable."
"The solution is easy to use and user-friendly."
"To add workers and even collectors is pretty easy."
"The tool's most valuable feature stems from the fact that I can see a complete analysis, like all the incidents that have happened, and it detects everything in real-time."
"Our customer did not have security monitoring in the first place. With this solution, it provided security posture management and visibility about the security landscape and threats that they had."
"AccelOps can handle a lot of data and it's just so important to true monitoring. Also, I can create a lot of rules to detect anything I like."
"It's easy to manage. There's a web interface and a command line, depending on what the user is comfortable with. There's a large knowledge base available, and the support is timely."
"It's quite economical compared to other solutions in the market."
"The product's initial setup phase was not at all difficult."
"It gives the capability for the incident response team to correlate logs to identify any kind of problem like malware and incidents in a general sense, both for logs and packets."
"Alerting Module: It provides real-time event processing language on all the logs/packets stream for advanced alerting, i.e., using SQL LIKE statements."
"The most valuable features are the threat prediction and network forensics."
"NetWitness can be highly beneficial for incident detection and response."
"The solution is really scalable for the high-end power, enterprise customer."
"The most valuable feature is the security that it provides."
 

Cons

"The nodes on our network did not comply with the SIEM solution. They use a different format parking log."
"Our team tried configuring MS SQL database logs with Fortinet FortiSIEM, but it did not work for some time."
"I would like to see more integration with other platforms."
"The dashboard needs to improve."
"We need to see incident reports about the event log, without events from the administrator or through human interaction."
"Fortinet FortiSIEM is a little out of sight and needs more marketing efforts to be popular in the market."
"Fortinet FortiSIEM could improve to extend to several locations or sites."
"There could be improvements like introducing some solutions directly into FortiSIEM to avoid the need for separately purchasing additional tools like FortiStore."
"Security needs improvement."
"We have encountered issues with unresolved crashes."
"Sometimes, it gives me static when integrating Windows-based systems. It should produce a precise log of sorts as to where the problem is. For example, a few days ago because of the McAfee application firewall, I couldn't get access to the particular Windows machine. So, my team and I had to figure out by ourselves that there was a virus responsible for the obstacle. This solution should trigger a meaningful log or message indicating the reason the user or implementer can't get into the machine."
"Its technical support could be better."
"The system looks like it is a mix of a bunch of different systems, and nothing looked like it was quite together."
"It should have a monitoring feature. It would help us analyze the current state of attacks faster from a single platform."
"The documentation is not as structured as I would like, personally, and I think that it can be improved and made much more user-friendly."
"Health monitoring of the event sources and devices."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay for a license for FortiSIEM. We pay for the license and renewal."
"Fortinet's products are not expensive, it is less than the competition."
"We bought the perpetual license, so we own the product, but there is a three-year support renewal fee for that."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive. I rate the tool's price as an eight out of ten. Compared with Splunk or Oracle, Fortinet is cheap."
"There are additional features that cost more than the standard licensing fees."
"The price is competitive."
"This is probably more on the lower cost end of the spectrum compared to competing products. Fortinet's license model is based on events per second, which makes sense, but that's not typical. It makes it very hard to calculate what your costs are going to be as you scale the platform because some log sources, such as firewall logs, are very noisy, and there are lots and lots of events per second, but some of them are not. So, it becomes a bit of a science experiment trying to guess what your costs are going to be as you scale the solution. This is where other competing products perhaps have a more straightforward license model."
"Pricing is acceptable for more than 90% of our customers, as they normally get discounts."
"The product price was reasonable for my region and the market."
"Many clients are not able to purchase the packet capability because there is a huge amount of data, and the cost depends on the number of EPS (Events per second), as well as the number of gigabytes of data per day."
"We have yearly licensing costs. The license fee can be based on the volume of EPS. Some organizations may have, as a gentlemanly gesture, 10,000 EPS and get a 3,000 EPS license but actually use 5,000 EPS."
"We have a perpetual license, so the total cost of ownership is not very expensive. It's a good investment."
"The tool is very expensive, so I rate the pricing a ten out of ten. The solution has an annual subscription."
"In comparison to other SIEM solutions such as Splunk, NetWitness is less costly."
"This is a pricey solution; it's not cheap."
"It’s cheaper to run virtual machines in a VMware environment."
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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
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Insurance Company
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiSIEM?
Fortinet FortiSIEM needs to provide better API integrations to users.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiSIEM?
As a service, the cost is reasonable and affordable with scalable pricing based on the number of monitored devices. However, setting it up for oneself as an enterprise-licensed product can be quite...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiSIEM?
The built-in APIs in Fortinet FortiSIEM are somewhat lacking and could be improved for better integration with external ITSM products. Improving software stability and reducing bugs will make it a ...
What do you like most about NetWitness Platform?
The product's initial setup phase was not at all difficult.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetWitness Platform?
The product price was reasonable for my region and the market.
What needs improvement with NetWitness Platform?
From an improvement perspective, the NetWitness Platform needs to release new features and improve in areas like log correlation. The tool needs to have easier integrations with the cloud. Building...
 

Also Known As

FortiSIEM, AccelOps
RSA Security Analytics
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

FortiSIEM has hundreds of customers worldwide in markets including managed services, technology, financial services, healthcare, and government. Customers include Aruba Networks, Compushare, Port of San Diego, Cleveland Indians, Infoblox, Healthways, and Referentia.
Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
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