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Fortinet FortiSIEM 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

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
SolarWinds Security Event M...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
24th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiSIEM is 3.0%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 0.6%, down from 0.7% 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…
Alex Kinyanjui - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable and scalable solution that provide 24/7 monitoring
We have to protect customer data, including any PII, accessed via the internet terminal. Additionally, we need to monitor events from network devices and servers that may raise suspicion, allowing us to analyze them and determine what is occurring. SolarWinds affected your overall security costs. Considering the nature of our traffic, it has been very effective. We have proactively identified and addressed issues before they escalate into incidents. I've noticed a reduced investment in handling event-related cases with SolarWinds Security Event Manager. This reduction includes reducing human resources and the time required for teams to provide 24/7 monitoring. Consequently, there has been a significant decrease in costs. Additionally, the platform enables us to address issues before they escalate into incidents, thus preventing revenue leakage. As a result, the organization experiences reduced costs and avoids revenue leakage. Since the SolarWinds Security Event Manager implementation, the total budget allocated to security has been reduced by close to five percent. Initially, there was a heavy investment in that aspect, but we have observed this reduction in the allocated budget for the security team. Since implementing SolarWinds Security Event Manager, the team members' pressure has been reduced. They can now concentrate on more critical tasks and development, promoting growth within their department rather than solely focusing on incident monitoring. I recommend the solution. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It works well with medium to large-scale enterprises."
"It's a very nice solution to work with."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to view all the network events on a single pane and find the point of contact or point of the incident."
"FortiSIEM's best features are the dashboards and customization."
"It gives us the opportunity to generate notifications based upon rules that get triggered, and the rules could be specific to PCI, HIPAA, GIBA, NIST, and so forth."
"We're able to get real-timec as well as our customer networks that we're monitoring at all times."
"There are things like dashboards and reports (pre-configured and custom) that let me know that things are operating the way they should be, and when they are not."
"The stability is very reliable. It offers very good performance."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is the analysis and the knowledge about the incidence that we trace."
"We did previously use a different solution, but SolarWinds is much better. It's easy to interact with SolarWinds. It's easy to operate, easy to configure and is generally easier compared to what we were working with before."
"The out of the box reports and dashboard. It was easy to trim down these windows to something we could quickly use."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use for the end user."
"The graphical user interface is very user-friendly. SolarWinds is a hybrid solution so you can use it across many platforms."
"The solution helps me to go back in time and search for different events. For example, if you wanted to know who activated an account; you could go back in time and find out."
"The solution helps you monitor database instances, application instances, other customer application things, Linux servers, IBM servers, and Oracle servers."
 

Cons

"The tool's technical team's response time is too high, and they are not available even when they know that there are many pending issues."
"The challenge I face with Fortinet FortiSIEM is the lack of support."
"Its training can be improved. Its price also needs to be improved."
"Does not have load-sharing or high-availability, and these are important things to implement. I can do the same things in another way, but not naturally having these features makes it complicated."
"The UI could improve in Fortinet FortiSIEM. Humans view the UI frequently for data and if it was more visually pleasing it would be beneficial."
"If there is a configuration on the wrong side of the network or there are changes that result in harm to our IT infrastructure, the solution should immediately fix it."
"It lacks a "wizard" that shows a particular user's activity or particular circumstance. I think the interface is intimidating because there's so much information there."
"Improvements include making it easier for users to create their normalizers. Fortinet FortiSIEM uses XML for normalizing and parsing, which can be tedious and time-consuming. A simpler way of using regex could be helpful."
"We'd like more customization capabilities."
"I don't think SolarWinds is scalable enough. It is somewhat limited when I need to deploy it across multiple environments in a distributed architecture."
"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."
"I would like to be able to dig deeper into the visibility of events or incidents to determine whether they are malicious, such as by doing behavior analysis."
"It is a very technical program. They can simplify it so that it isn't so hard to deal with."
"One of the drawbacks of being so flexible is that it is also a fairly complicated software application to install, configure, and maintain."
"It won't tell you when your backups are failing, but it will give you hints when your database is running on full recovery."
"The company had to use a third party for the implementation of the solution."
 

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."
"Pricing is determined based on the customer's budget."
"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."
"The price of Fortinet FortiSIEM is a lot less when compared to other solutions."
"We bought the perpetual license, so we own the product, but there is a three-year support renewal fee for that."
"There are additional features that cost more than the standard licensing fees."
"The price of Fortinet FortiSIEM was reasonable compared to other solutions."
"Licensing is on devices, so if you have many, then this may be high."
"The price of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is reasonable."
"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 pricing model would benefit from having package deals with other SolarWinds products."
"Licenses can only be purchased in blocks of fifty at a time."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
79%
Computer Software Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
3%
University
2%
 

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 SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
The solution helps you monitor database instances, application instances, other customer application things, Linux servers, IBM servers, and Oracle servers.
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 ?
I think the customization area in the tool can be considered as an area of concern where improvements are required In the future, I want to see the tool have better customization abilities with som...
 

Also Known As

FortiSIEM, AccelOps
SolarWinds LEM, Solarwinds SIEM, TriGeo, Log and Event Manager
 

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.
NetSuite, EasyStreet, Legacy Texas Bank, and Energy Federal Credit Union, to name a few.
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiSIEM vs. SolarWinds Security Event Manager and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.