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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

"The data connectors that Microsoft Sentinel provides are easy to integrate when we work with a Microsoft agent."
"The best feature is that onboarding to the SIM solution is quite easy. If you are using cloud-based solutions, it's just a few clicks to migrate it."
"The signal correlation and dashboards features of Microsoft Sentinel are fantastic because it correlates the signal logs with other products."
"Azure Application Gateway makes things a lot easier. You can create dashboards, alert rules, hunting and custom queries, and functions with it."
"The machine learning and artificial intelligence on offer are great."
"We can use Sentinel's playbook to block threats. It covers all of the environment, giving us great visibility."
"Microsoft Sentinel is cloud native, which is a significant advantage. The data connectors that provide the ability to connect third-party log sources are highly valuable."
"Sentinel has an intuitive, user-friendly way to visualize the data properly. It gives me a solid overview of all the logs. We get a more detailed view that I can't get from the other SIEM tools. It has some IP and URL-specific allow listing"
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use for the end user."
"It supports high availability, which is very helpful."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is the analysis and the knowledge about the incidence that we trace."
"User-friendly configuration is key, and the configurations are simple, not complex."
"We had to integrate with other teams, and the infrastructure deployment didn't take long. The integration involves learning with different teams, networking, and configuring various network devices and servers. Infrastructure deployment only took one or two days."
"This tool is simple to use."
"It's easy to build rules and actions based on the logs and event types we collect with the software."
"SolarWinds is easy to configure, and it provides timely alerts."
 

Cons

"If Sentinel had a graphical user interface, it would be easier to use. I would also like it to be more customizable."
"In terms of improvements, pricing, licensing, and overall cost could be better."
"Multi-tenancy, in my opinion, needs to be improved. I believe it can do better as a managed service provider."
"The pricing could be improved."
"The playbook development environment is not as rich as it should be. There are multiple occasions when we face problems while creating the playbook."
"Our SIEM is only as good as the information we are ingesting. We are all human and we forget to ingest things."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in terms of integrations."
"I would like to have a more customizable dashboard."
"There are no multiple dashboards which would allow you to see information side-by-side."
"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."
"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 won't tell you when your backups are failing, but it will give you hints when your database is running on full recovery."
"We used the support from SolarWinds Security Event Manager and they are knowledgeable but challenging to get in contact with them."
"There is no correlation made between log entries, so no threat information is presented."
"I imagine we will have to develop our own reports soon, this seems to be more cumbersome."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Sentinel's pricing is on the higher side, but you can get a discount if you can predict your usage. You have to pay ingestion and storage fees. There are also fees for Logic Apps and particular features. It seems heavily focused on microtransactions, but they may be slightly optional. By contrast, Splunk requires no additional fee for their equivalent of Logic. You have a little more flexibility, but Sentinel's costs add up."
"We must have saved some money with this product. It is a cloud-native product, and the ingestion is per GB. Every GB costs a certain amount of money. That is how the license of Microsoft Sentinel works."
"The pricing is reasonable, and we think Sentinel is worth what we pay for it."
"The pricing isn't very high. It depends on the number of logs you have. If you're expecting to ingest 50 to 60G in a day, but you're only ingesting 20 to 25G per day at first and you have a good team to analyze the logs, then you can segregate the ingestion at under 15G."
"Sentinel can be expensive. When you ingest data from sources that are outside of the cloud, you're paying a fair amount for that data ingestion. When you're ingesting data sources from within the cloud, depending on what your retention periods are, it's not that expensive."
"The pricing is based on how much you ingest, so it's pretty straightforward. There are no tiers, and you pay for what you use unlike with other types of SIEM solutions that are usually based on tiers."
"I am not involved on the financial side, but from an enterprise-wide use perspective, I think the price is good enough."
"The price of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is reasonable."
"The pricing model would benefit from having package deals with other SolarWinds products."
"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."
"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."
"Licensing is on devices, so if you have many, then this may be high."
"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
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
University
10%
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.
882,410 professionals have used our research since 2012.