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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
6.9
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (6th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (6th)
SolarWinds Security Event M...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
33rd
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 June 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Sentinel is 4.0%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Sentinel4.0%
SolarWinds Security Event Manager1.0%
Other95.0%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at HR Software Solution
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

"Once you get that familiarity, Sentinel is a valuable tool for your cloud security posture."
"Sentinel is a Microsoft product, so they provide very robust use cases and analytic groups, which are very beneficial for the security team. I also like the ability to integrate data sources into the software for on-premise and cloud-based solutions."
"Overall, I find Sentinel to be a really strong solution."
"While Microsoft Sentinel provides a log of security events, its true power lies in its integration with Microsoft Defender."
"We have no complaints about the features or functionality."
"Sentinel is the best solution that we use."
"Sentinel uses Azure Logic Apps for automation, which is really powerful. This allows us to easily automate responses to incidents."
"For any customers who are either looking at Azure or already have Azure or Microsoft 365, this is a great service to look at because it does provide an additional layer of protection and security for all of their data points, whether they are on-prem or in the cloud."
"SolarWinds is easy to configure, and it provides timely alerts."
"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 most valuable feature of this solution is the visibility into both attempted and failed logins."
"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."
"If you have no monitoring tool in place, SolarWinds SIEM is a good place to start and very inexpensive."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is the analysis and the knowledge about the incidence that we trace."
"It's extremely easy to deploy."
"The most valuable feature is the reporting."
 

Cons

"They're giving us the queries so we can plug them right into Sentinel. They need to have a streamlined process for updating them in the tool and knowing when things are updated and knowing when there are new detections available from Microsoft."
"Microsoft Sentinel could be improved by making the UI more intuitive, simplifying KQL queries for easier use, improving cost visibility and optimization controls, and enhancing performance and query speed when handling large volumes of data."
"Depending on when Microsoft releases the updates, it can be challenging, but they usually notify us ahead of time."
"Sentinel's pricing is on the higher side, but you can get a discount if you can predict your usage."
"The reporting could be more structured."
"I would like to see more AI used in processes."
"My primary improvement request would be for auxiliary logs, as they represent our biggest need."
"Microsoft Sentinel should provide an alternative query language to KQL for users who lack KQL expertise."
"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."
"The solution was a little slow when running some larger queries."
"It can be difficult for users who are inexperienced with the solution."
"I imagine we will have to develop our own reports soon, this seems to be more cumbersome."
"We used the support from SolarWinds Security Event Manager and they are knowledgeable but challenging to get in contact with them."
"The main area that would mean a big improvement for me would be for the product to include multiple dashboards."
"SolarWinds should improve its correlation capabilities. The correlation does not automatically detect and reduce the events fast enough."
"Under the new system, it is not upgradable the way they say. When you try to do an upgrade, it doesn't really work unless you dump everything and start from scratch. You lose a lot of your nodes. Whenever you set your nodes up and everything else, they don't want to bring those nodes back in, so you have to really go back and restructure all your nodes. I went from version 6.5 to version 6.6 and then to version 6.7. I then went to version 2019, and now it is version 2020. It would be good if we can upgrade without having to delete everything and start from scratch. They can maybe build more KPIs and other things for the dashboard. Some of the other systems already have built-in KPIs. SolarWinds is starting to catch up, but it is not there yet. They can include some of the business or industry standards for tracking the time, that is, the meantime to detect (MTTD) and the meantime to resolve (MTTR). They can also find a way to build a KPI that measures the number of instances of port scans experienced in a week or a month."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Sentinel requires an E5 license."
"The product is costly compared to Splunk."
"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 costly."
"Sentinel's price is comparable to pretty much everything out there. None of it is cheap, but we didn't think we could save money by going a different route. Sentinel was part of our Azure expenditures, so it was easier to add the expense instead of having a completely separate vendor."
"From a cost point of view, it is not a cheap product. It's, like, an enterprise-level application. So if you compare it with a low-level application, it's expensive, but if you compare it with the same-level application, it's pretty much cost-effective, I think."
"The price is reasonable because Sentinel includes features like user behavior analytics and SOAR that are typically sold separately. Overall, a standalone on-prem solution would require some high-end servers, and there's a different cost. It is a cloud-based solution, so there are backend cloud computing costs, but they are negligible."
"It is certainly the most expensive solution. The cost is very high. We need to do an assessment using the one-month trial so that we can study the cost side. Before implementing it, we must do a careful calculation."
"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."
"The price of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is reasonable."
"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 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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise46
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: April 2026.
896,692 professionals have used our research since 2012.