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Grafana Loki vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 29, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Log Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
301
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Grafana Loki is 6.8%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 9.0%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

CarlosPimentel - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient log filtering enhances quick network troubleshooting
We use Grafana Loki for various verticals including manufacturing, finance, health, and aerospatial sectors. It primarily helps in monitoring security and access to devices. Grafana dashboards are used to track access success and failure and audit commands issued on devices Loki significantly…
Avinash Gopu. - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good visibility into multiple environments, significantly reduces our alert volume, and speeds up our security investigations
There are limitations with Splunk not detecting all user activity, especially on mainframes and network devices. This is because Splunk relies on agents, which cannot access certain workstations. In these cases, we have to rely on application data. For example, with mainframes, manual reports are generated and sent to Splunk, limiting visibility to what's manually reported. This lack of automation for specific platforms needs improvement from Splunk. Additionally, API access is limited for other applications that rely on API calls and requests. This requires heavy customization on Splunk's end. These are the main challenges we've encountered. Monitoring multiple cloud platforms, like Azure, GCP, and AWS, with Splunk Enterprise Security presents some challenges. While Splunk provides different connectors for each provider, consolidating data from two domains across distinct cloud environments can be complex. However, leveraging pre-built templates and Splunk's data collation capabilities can help overcome these hurdles. Despite initial difficulties, I believe Splunk can effectively address this task, earning it an eight out of ten rating for its multi-cloud monitoring capabilities. While Splunk Enterprise Security offers insider threat detection capabilities, its effectiveness could be enhanced by integrating with additional tools, such as endpoint security solutions. This integrated approach is particularly crucial for financial institutions, which often require dedicated endpoint security teams. While using multiple tools is valuable, further improvements within Splunk itself are also necessary. Considering both external integration and internal development, I would rate its current insider threat detection capabilities as three out of ten. Threat detection is where Splunk falls behind. While it offers tools, other use cases require additional work. PAM is an enterprise tool that centralizes information about users, servers, and everything else. It needs real-time monitoring, which I haven't seen in any of the companies I've worked for. They only rely on Splunk for alerting, but real-time monitoring should be handled by the endpoint security team's tools. This means there's no detection or analysis at the machine or endpoint level. Additionally, threat analysis reporting is also absent.

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 features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source tool that is stable and flexible."
"The most valuable feature is the capability to set up alerts, which becomes necessary when we need to receive notifications for specific events."
"The most valuable part of Loki is the ability to filter logs by keywords and devices."
"Loki also utilizes the same service discovery mechanism as used by Prometheus. So, whatever labeled metadata you see in Prometheus, you have the exact same metadata in the Loki system. Given this level of intricacy and the attempt to address these challenges, I firmly believe that Loki deserves praise for the work."
"We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics."
"The effectiveness of filters is pivotal for optimizing the search process and extracting the specific information we need from the extensive log data."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the tool's GUI. The solution's GUI is very user-friendly."
"The tool can be used in multi-cluster environments."
"The stock analysts and security people use one single dashboard (one single location) to check our logs."
"Out-of-the-box, it seems very powerful."
"The metrics and trends that Splunk Enterprise Security generates using all the data points we send allow customers to understand better what their users are doing."
"Splunk would be my choice for the presentation layer because it comes with inbuilt reports and a dashboard that you can customize."
"We can automatically suspend or terminate suspicious sessions."
"We used it to create a custom anomaly detection data model to monitor the activity of our back-end services on an hourly basis relative to the past three months of activity."
"It gives us good visibility into multiple environments, including cloud, on-premises, and hybrid; irrespective of platform."
"Ease of correlation, creating correlation searches are easy and you can combine multiple sources with little effort"
 

Cons

"The product must improve its UI."
"Enhancing speed could be a game-changer, and while it might vary depending on the application, it's a factor worth exploring."
"The platform's stability needs improvement."
"It's not intended for proprietary services, so you have to struggle with configuration a lot."
"Visualization-wise, Grafana Loki's dashboard looks a little outdated compared to other open-source visualization tools like Chronograf."
"I do not see any areas for improvement at the moment."
"There is a need for some change in the alerting types of the product. In short, a few changes in the alert area are needed due to minor shortcomings."
"We encountered certain limitations when it came to alerting, particularly when dealing with specific data sources."
"Splunk is very expensive. The license is based on the volume of the logs ingested. I was responsible for managing the contract with our service integrator. I don't know the precise details of the competing solution, but I have heard that Splunk is more expensive than others. I don't know what the going rate is on the market, but I think there are at least two competitors that are less expensive. We have experienced a few issues with our service providers in terms of log filtering and ingestion, so we continue to pay a bit more per day for our logs."
"Some of the search functions can be better. There has been a lot of talk at the conference about the update of SPL before each iteration. That will be a lot of help."
"The case management area of the ES could be improved. The ability to move cases through various stages and states. The ability to close a case would be key improvement."
"The product's price may be an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Splunk's implementation process for managing multiple indexes can be complex, especially when dealing with a large number of components."
"The user experience could be improved."
"Splunk should have more regional data centers in the Middle East."
"I feel as though a major focus of upcoming releases should be set on Machine Learning, Predictive Analytics, and I would enjoy to see more security focused add-ons and apps developed by the vendor."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I find the licensing structure quite reasonable, as the free license effectively meets my requirements."
"I use the solution's open-source version. Grafana Loki is a completely free solution for me."
"The solution is open source."
"My company doesn't need to pay for the licensing cost of the solution."
"Grafana Loki is a free, open-source solution."
"Since we are using the open-source version of Grafana Loki, we are not paying anything for the solution."
"Grafana Loki is an open-source solution."
"We use a free version."
"Splunk Enterprise Security's pricing is competitive."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is a worthwhile investment given the comprehensive range of features it offers."
"Price-wise, if you compare QRadar to Splunk for SIEM functionality then they are in the same range but when you integrate SOAR with these solutions, Splunk takes the lead and is more competitive."
"It can be tough to determine if you are getting all of the value out of your investment at times."
"Splunk ES is quite expensive compared to some products on the market."
"The pricing model is expensive and a nightmare based on the amount of data."
"It would be nice if the pricing were cheaper. However, we did purchase it."
"It can be expensive, especially the licensing costs. However, there is added value in what it can do, not just log aggregation."
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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
18%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Grafana Loki?
We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana Loki?
We use the open-source version of Loki. The cloud version is competitively priced compared to other market solutions.
What needs improvement with Grafana Loki?
It would be beneficial if Loki could directly access Windows Server logs or events directly from the servers.
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...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Grafana Loki vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.