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Microsoft Sentinel 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

Microsoft Sentinel
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (6th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (5th)
SolarWinds Security Event M...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
34th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Sentinel is 4.8%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Sentinel4.8%
SolarWinds Security Event Manager0.9%
Other94.3%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
Centralized monitoring has improved threat response but cost control still needs refinement
Based on real operations used in our corporate IT environment, the key features include log correlation and incident view. Microsoft Sentinel's biggest strength is how it correlates multiple related alerts into a single incident. This significantly reduces alert noise and helps the SOC focus on real threats instead of isolated events. Another valuable feature is KQL-based threat hunting with Kusto Query Language. The flexibility of this language allows us to build custom hunting queries based on our environment's behavior. This is extremely useful for detecting low and slow threats or hidden threats that default rules may miss. Cloud-native scalability and stability is another important feature. Being cloud-native, Microsoft Sentinel scales well for medium to large corporate environments without infrastructure management. Stability has been solid in day-to-day production. SOAR automation using playbooks is a feature we highly recommend. Microsoft Sentinel's SOAR functionality helps automate repetitive SOC tasks like alert enrichment and notification. This saves analyst time and improves response consistency.
Yashokanth Partkunan - PeerSpot reviewer
Managed Services Engineer at Loop1 Systems
Has supported client needs efficiently but requires deeper analysis features and faster support
The log analyzing capability of SolarWinds Security Event Manager should go into more depth than the current environment. More modification and enhancements are required on the dashboard side in order to make it closer to optimal performance. From observation and feedback from users, they need more functionality related to monitoring, and in-depth analyzing needs to be improved.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Sentinel stands out mainly for its signal-to-noise reduction; LogRhythm required numerous AI rules to reach a similar level of noise reduction."
"One of the most valuable features is that it creates a kind of a single pane of glass for organizations that already use Microsoft software. So, when they have things like Microsoft 365, it is very easy for them to kind of plug in or enroll those endpoints into the Azure Sentinel service."
"We can use Sentinel's playbook to block threats. It covers all of the environment, giving us great visibility."
"You can fine-tune the SOAR and you'll be charged only when your playbooks are triggered. That is the beauty of the solution because the SOAR is the costliest component in the market today... but with Sentinel it is upside-down: the SOAR is the lowest-hanging fruit. It's the least costly and it delivers more value to the customer."
"The initial setup is very simple and straightforward."
"The most valuable features for us include threat collection, threat detection, response, and the knowledge base for investigation."
"Microsoft Sentinel flags when admin credentials log in from an unusual location, automatically alerting the security team so they can investigate."
"The Identity Behavior tab furnishes us with the entire history linked to each IP or domain that has either accessed or attempted to access our system."
"It performs network behavior monitoring, log monitoring, and disaster recovery monitoring."
"SolarWinds' stability is fine. I don't think we've had any software issues."
"SolarWinds Security Event Manager has been generally working well."
"It supports high availability, which is very helpful."
"The graphical user interface is very user-friendly. SolarWinds is a hybrid solution so you can use it across many platforms."
"The solution helps you monitor database instances, application instances, other customer application things, Linux servers, IBM servers, and Oracle servers."
"Some of the rules are most valuable because you can be notified about various things, such as spyware or things that are going on in the internal network."
"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."
 

Cons

"The solution should allow for a streamlined CI/CD procedure."
"The only thing is sometimes you can have a false positive."
"In terms of features I would like to see in future releases, I'm interested in a few more use cases around automation. I do believe a lot of automation is available, and more is in progress, but that would be my area of interest."
"Microsoft Sentinel can be improved in terms of automation or connecting with security products so that it is easier to use for general IT admins."
"If I can use Sentinel offline at home and use it on a local network, it would be great. I'm not sure if I can use Sentinel offline versus the tools I have."
"From a client perspective, they'd like to see more cost savings."
"For certain vendors, some of the data that Microsoft Sentinel captures is redacted due to privacy reasons."
"It would be nice to be able to leverage more AI to handle more data and recovery aspects in the future."
"Training for this solution needs to be improved, as new employees are sometimes unfamiliar with the product."
"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."
"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."
"It can be difficult for users who are inexperienced with the solution."
"The solution's technical support is okay, but we don't have an SLA, and sometimes the response times are very slow."
"The log analyzing capability of SolarWinds Security Event Manager should go into more depth than the current environment."
"We have automated threat detection in the Alliance Security, Antoinette. However, if these features could be further enhanced, it would simplify my work, potentially allowing me to allocate more time to address complex issues."
"We'd like more customization capabilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Azure Sentinel is very costly, or at least it appears to be very costly. The costs vary based on your ingestion and your retention charges."
"Sentinel is expensive relative to other products of the class, so it often isn't affordable for small-scale businesses. However, considering the solution has more extensive capabilities than others, the price is not so high. Pricing is based on GBs of ingested daily data, either by a pay-as-you-go or subscription model."
"Sentinel is costly compared to other solutions, but it's fair. SIEM solutions like CrowdStrike charge based on daily log volume. They generally process a set number of logs for free before they start charging. Microsoft's pricing is clearer. It's free under five gigabytes. Some of these logs we ingest have a cost, so they don't hide it. I believe the tenant pays the price, and Microsoft helps create awareness of the cost."
"The solution is expensive and there is a daily usage fee."
"Microsoft Sentinel can be costly, particularly for data management."
"There are no additional costs other than the initial costs of Sentinel."
"I'm not happy with the pricing on the integration with Defender for Endpoint. Defender for Endpoint is log-rich. There is a lot of information coming through, and it is needed information. The price point at which you ingest those logs has made a lot of my customers make the decision to leave that within the Defender stack."
"Microsoft Sentinel is pretty expensive, and they recently announced that they will increase the price of all Microsoft services running in Azure by 11 percent. Luckily, I'm not responsible for the financial side. For one of my clients, the estimated cost is 880,000 euros for one year. There are additional costs for the service agreement."
"The pricing model would benefit from having package deals with other SolarWinds products."
"We do a yearly license renewal. For a year, the solution costs roughly $500,000 USD. There are no costs beyond this yearly fee."
"It is in the appropriate mid-range. It is not as expensive as some of the other solutions. It is also not cheap."
"Licenses can only be purchased in blocks of fifty at a time."
"Licensing is on devices, so if you have many, then this may be high."
"The price of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is reasonable."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
University
9%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise45
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

Is there a common threat intelligence tool that aggregates multiple threat intelligence sources?
Yes, Azure Sentinel is a SIEM on the Cloud. Multiple data sources can be uploaded and analyzed with Azure Sentinel and its Threat Hunting functionality with AI available as templates or customized ...
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 ...
Which is better - Azure Sentinel or AWS Security Hub?
We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel is auto-scaling - you will not have to worry about performance impact, you will...
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 ?
The log analyzing capability of SolarWinds Security Event Manager should go into more depth than the current environment. More modification and enhancements are required on the dashboard side in or...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
I work with all SolarWinds products mostly, including Network Configuration Manager and NPM. I am a reseller. I usually recommend SolarWinds products for Loop1. It's for the bigger ones; we are the...
 

Also Known As

Azure Sentinel
SolarWinds LEM, Solarwinds SIEM, TriGeo, Log and Event Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
NetSuite, EasyStreet, Legacy Texas Bank, and Energy Federal Credit Union, to name a few.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Sentinel vs. SolarWinds Security Event Manager and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,606 professionals have used our research since 2012.