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Nagios XI vs SolarWinds NPM vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Mindshare comparison

IT Infrastructure Monitoring
Network Monitoring Software
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Amir  Said - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective alerting enhances network monitoring experience with an easy setup
We love Nagios XI due to the fact that JPS Web is very useful. JPS monitors the modem and performs switching, monitoring the computer, and performing switching. We implement some applications and traffic monitoring. The alerting system is very effective. For instance, if we have an alarm on some RAM storage if the traffic is cut or dropped.
MohitKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface
The solution needs to integrate with additional SDN technologies that are part of the hyper market. The solution supports many vendors by default and just included Meraki SDN with the new release, but continued expansion is important. We created a custom method to pair with unsupported vendors but that can produce a lag in performance so future releases should expand SDN support. The solution does a good job of automating features but could expand that even more.
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

"Nagios is stable and it's easy to use the monitoring software, which is why we chose this product."
"The solution has a lot of plugins and scripts integrated with it."
"The Script Module in Nagios is really easy to use and is really cost efficient."
"Though I downplayed the administrative NCC GUI, this is by far the strongest aspect of the Nagios XI product."
"This is a very good solution and it is simple to use, for any company."
"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of processes."
"We love Nagios XI due to the fact that JPS Web is very useful."
"The most useful aspect of this solution is the ability to customize it for the client agent."
"The most valuable feature is the way it monitors the environment, and how user-friendly the console is for the end-user. The interface is also very easy and it captures all the information very well."
"I like that SolarWinds NPM is a strong tool for monitoring network devices, switches, and routers. It's also a user-friendly tool. My team also likes how scalable it is."
"The most valuable feature is the vital states of the devices as it provides overall CPU and device health information."
"One of the best features is the reports feature."
"The abnormal traffic notifications are good. Most of them are remote, and it is very good for notifications and monitoring for the traffic."
"I found a lot of valuable features in SolarWinds NPM, such as the customized application monitoring that allows you to customize any monitoring and script customization, and you also have the option to deploy and upgrade SolarWinds NPM online, which is very useful for my organization."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds NPM is the performance monitoring to see the memory, and CPU utilization."
"The people in technical support are very good."
"With good domain knowledge, one can build almost anything. If you throw in Alert Manager or an integration with ServiceNow. Then, you have your own SIEM"
"The consolidated overview of all the events that come in through our environment and an easy-to-access interface for all our end users are valuable."
"There are quite a lot of things that we find useful. Splunk agents are useful and good. Its UI is quite impressive."
"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."
"The breadth of the data sources that Splunk can ingest data from is broad and deep and it does an exemplary job at handling structured data."
"Visualizations helped the organisation with a better understanding of its KPIs."
"Splunk allows us to customize processing and dashboards, which helps us take care of our customers' needs."
"We were able to create a catalog of dashboards and have a holistic view at all levels. We could understand our business much better. Real-time errors, which were buried in emails before now, surfaced up on dashboards."
 

Cons

"The pricing has recently risen. I know they've changed what is covered under the license, however, it doesn't change the way we use it and adds nothing to our experience, and yet we now have to pay more."
"I would like to see support for notification via SMS."
"They need more documentation for the plugins."
"The tool's AI model needs to be fixed."
"The GUI could be improved."
"From an alerting point of view, some graphics and metrics don't work properly with Nagios XI as they do with Checkmk."
"It is really difficult to integrate Nagios XI with another system to generate logs and alert our management of failures in security infrastructure."
"We often need to develop custom plugins to get Nagios to work the way we want it to work because the features we need are not always available in Nagios."
"I would like to see some enhancement on the reporting side, such as making it a little bit easier to create reports or having a larger assortment of canned reports."
"The integration with the APIs and the web servers deployed can definitely be improved."
"Sometimes there are issues when upgrading to a new version of the product."
"Being able to detect devices that are trying to connect wirelessly would make using this solution much easier."
"The reporting module that got integrated into the system itself, used to be a standalone solution and I preferred that."
"It has covered everything, so no improvement is required at their end. The only thing is the price."
"The solution's network discovery and node addition processes need more work."
"We decided that we were no longer going to trust that their products have not been capitalized."
"Splunk is query-based, which is not the case with most cybersecurity tools. It is based on search queries and can be difficult to use. It would be good if they can make it easier to understand how to create search queries. They can improve the knowledge base for better understanding. To create your dashboard, you need to have a search query. We have multiple firewalls in our company, and we need a dashboard for them. It would be helpful if a default firewall dashboard is included in Splunk to make monitoring easier. If a dashboard is available for a security device, the operation part will be more efficient. We won't have to follow a manual process for this."
"Better directions on search head clusters."
"It needs more thoroughly tested releases. Every new big version (6, 7, etc.) has had so many bugs that it makes me wary of customers upgrading right away."
"The product was designed for security and IT with business intelligence needs, such as PDF exporting, but this has not been the highest priority. While the functionality is there, it could be developed more."
"Their technical support sucks."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is complicated in terms of developing specific cybersecurity use cases."
"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."
"It is a good product, but the Achilles heel for a lot of organizations is the cost model for it because it gets expensive. That's because the model is based on how much data it processes a day, which can be prohibitive, especially if you have a lot of data. A lot of customers may not be ready for the sticker shock on how to fully leverage the product. I realized that the reason for that is that when it was originally designed, it was kind of like a big data modeling application. If they want to have a bigger customer base, they can come out with subsets of their product that are focused on specific things and have different pricing models. It may help with the cost."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is very expensive, at approximately $5,000 USD when I purchased it, which is why I haven't upgraded my version in several years."
"Nagios XI is an expensive solution."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"It is good to contact experts for advice about what is the best solution for your specific infrastructure and enterprise."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"Nagios XI is open source."
"You can grow into the higher-priced scale as they learn how to utilize the features for Nagios XI."
"For the cost of the commercial product and support, and taking into account the open source characteristics of it, I believe it is difficult to a better value."
"It is not an expensive product."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"SolarWinds NPM has different pricing models available. The cost of the solution is less than some competitors."
"The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"Price could be improved on"
"While licensing can be a concern, there are ways to reduce the licensing costs including filtering some events."
"Its pricing model can be improved."
"We had a yearly subscription."
"Splunk's cost is very high. They need to review the pricing. They have to go back and totally readdress the market."
"I believe there is room for improvement in reducing costs, particularly in the financial aspect, as Splunk tends to be pricier compared to other options."
"It is expensive. I used to buy it early on, but then they combined it into a higher-up organization. They buy it for multiple systems now. Last time, I paid around 60K for it. There is just the licensing fee. That's all."
"We have seen ROI and improvements as we have continued to use the product, but they are more reactive."
"I assume that the pricing is reasonable, because if it was too costly, there are other alternatives."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
60%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Educational Organization
57%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
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 Nagios XI?
It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability.
What needs improvement with Nagios XI?
The GUI could be improved. It's a bit too basic, and maybe having a GraphQL interface would resolve this. Also, there...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools ar...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalabil...
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 a...
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 ingest...
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 monitor...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
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 Zabbix, Datadog, Auvik and others in IT Infrastructure Monitoring. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.