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Fortinet FortiSIEM 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:
 

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
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
305
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (2nd), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiSIEM is 3.1%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 9.5%, down from 12.8% 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…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Fortinet FortiSIEM is easy to use."
"We find the solution to be stable."
"The Threat Hunting feature provides complete traffic analysis."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiSIEM is the correlation of many events."
"Analytics. It can provide log information from the device. With log information, I can see if there is a threat"
"FortiSIEM helped us discover all the threats at the time that were attacking the IT services of the company. We now have multiple-level authentication."
"The seamless integration with FortiGate is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The primary valuable feature is that it has replaced a whole lot of other products with one platform."
"Splunk has facilitated the correlation of information security logs to look for incidents which could cause damage to the company's infrastructure, as well as financial losses from leaks."
"Splunk Enterprise Security comes with 300 pre-deployed use cases that can be easily customized to meet the specific needs of our organization, without the need to purchase additional tools."
"The ability to view all of these different logs, then drilling down into specific times or into specific data sources, has proved to be the greatest aspect in decreasing our troubleshooting overhead time."
"Great platform with user-friendly interface and GUI."
"Correlating data across different systems via one interface will allow you to know your environment or identify incident data in ways you never imagined."
"Splunk's visualizations make it easy for users to understand the data."
"The data analysis part is good in Splunk, which is something that I like the most. It is also quite easy to use. Its dashboards, visualizations, and analytics are good."
"It has quite extensive support in terms of integration. If you want to do anything, there are tools for that."
 

Cons

"Their technical support is horrible. By horrible, I mean a train wreck of a disaster that has fallen off a bridge and caught fire."
"I would like to see easier implementation in the future."
"They should enhance the solution's AI capabilities, including XDR and EDR."
"It would be good if the solution offered even more configuration options, especially in relation to the VPN so that it continues to be a very flexible option."
"The built-in APIs in Fortinet FortiSIEM are somewhat lacking and could be improved for better integration with external ITSM products."
"The solution's interface could be modernized and improved."
"Areas for improvement would be the ease of use and the integration with Fortinet's own products."
"The dashboard needs to improve."
"The product must improve insider threat detection."
"Its setup is a little bit complex for a distributed environment. Their support can also be better. If we miss the response for more than a week, they usually close the case. Sometimes, it can take us more than a week to reply."
"In terms of the interface, it could include some improvements for the look and feel."
"It is a hugely complicated product."
"If you monitor too much, you can lose performance on your systems."
"Licensing costs can be a barrier for those with limited budgets."
"I would like additional features in different programming models with the support for writing queries in SQL or other languages, such as C#, Java, or some other type of query definitions."
"It would be great if I could have a certain dialogue box in Splunk that uses innovative AI tools like ChatGPT, which are available now in the tech department."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Fortinet FortiSIEM is very cost-efficient compared to other SIEM solutions."
"We pay for a license for FortiSIEM. We pay for the license and renewal."
"The price of Fortinet FortiSIEM is a lot less when compared to other solutions."
"The price is competitive."
"Fortinet FortiSIEM is cheaper compared to other products."
"The solution is available for both, perpetual and subscription licenses."
"The price of the solution is expensive. The license is scalable. If there are 10 devices it is simple to license."
"I remember Splunk being relatively affordable. Kibana was more reasonable, but you get more with Splunk. If I was suggesting something, I would probably suggest Splunk because it is better to pay a little bit more and get a lot more."
"Splunk should be able to integrate with other product using the free version."
"The pricing is a little bit on the higher side, but looking at what Splunk provides us, it is reasonable."
"Splunk is expensive based on our current requirements, but it's obviously worth what we pay."
"Pricing is probably its weakest spot. As compared to some competitors, Splunk is really expensive."
"Splunk's costing is a little more difficult. The pricing method is complicated, and the way that costing is calculated in Splunk is a little more difficult."
"It is quite expensive."
"The price of this solution is expensive. However, it has great features. If you want a great solution you need to pay a price matching the features."
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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
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

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 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...
 

Also Known As

FortiSIEM, AccelOps
No data available
 

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.
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 FortiSIEM vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.