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NetWitness Platform vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

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

NetWitness Platform
Ranking in Log Management
22nd
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
22nd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Log Management
2nd
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
305
Ranking in other categories
IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 0.6%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 9.5%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

MdZaman - PeerSpot reviewer
Really scalable for enterprise customers
The solution should have more integration capabilities with different platforms. The API is nearly open and scalable, so the solution can integrate with many platforms. The solution has more than 200 log sources in the scalability to support, but this is its limit. Installation is pretty easy. However, there are a couple of modules involved, so it is not as easy as it could be. We are talking about a distributed module, not a single-module type. This is what makes things a bit complex, instead of easier. I rate it as a seven out of ten on its installation and configuration capabilities.
ROBERT-CHRISTIAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Has many predefined correlation rules and is brilliant for investigation and log analysis
It is very complicated to write your own correlation rules without the help of Splunk support. What Splunk could do better is to create an API to the standard SIEM tools, such as Microsoft Sentinel. The idea would be to make it less painful. In ELK Stack, Kibana is the query language with which you can search log files. I believe Splunk has also a query language in which they search their log files, but once you have identified the log file that you want to use for further security correlation, you want to very quickly transport that into your SIEM tool, such as Microsoft Sentinel. That is something that Splunk could make a little bit less painful because it is a lot of effort to find that log file and forward it. An API with Microsoft Sentinel or a similar SIEM tool would be a good idea.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's quite economical compared to other solutions in the market."
"The most valuable features are the integration and ease of use."
"Setting up NetWitness is straightforward. There are multiple connectors, including standard and specialized connectors. One purpose of the connectors is the enhanced capability integrate the custom applications. NetWitness comes with E6 appliances and application images that we use for the initial configurations and for the OS stack information. From there, you can consider the correlation rules, integrate the different log sources, and easily create correlation rules and backlog reports."
"Possibility to investigate incidents based on logs and raw packets, such as extracting files sent over the network"
"The packet capture aspect of it is a valuable feature because it is quite different from a traditional SIEM solution that only carries out investigations based on captured logs."
"The most valuable features are the packet inspection and the automated incident response."
"NetWitness Platform is valuable for creating rules that the solution must detect."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to write rules and triggers for network communication, and then being able to investigate based on that."
"We are using Microsoft 365 and we're using the Exchange Mail Service. It's good for monitoring that in particular."
"If properly built, I'm very impressed with the stability of Splunk ES."
"I am enjoying our implementation of risk-based alerting. That has helped very much with cutting out a lot of the noise that we have. It has reduced our alert volume significantly. There is about an 80% reduction."
"We solve issues that we previously could not since we now have the data."
"It is lovely to have everything we need in one tool. Everything is quite centralized."
"We can easily configure things as required in relation to our use cases."
"The varied prebuilt feature is the most valuable because it ensures that we have complete coverage over all of the key questions."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is a valuable tool that allows us to monitor data from the APS daily."
 

Cons

"Technical support could be improved."
"It should have a monitoring feature. It would help us analyze the current state of attacks faster from a single platform."
"I believe that integrating the solution with other products such as Oracle would be beneficial."
"The log system is a bit complex and has room for improvement."
"The user interface is a little bit difficult for new users and it needs to be improved."
"The solution should have more integration capabilities with different platforms."
"More customizability is required, which is something that they need to improve on."
"If we have the ability to run a dynamic analysis through malware in the same suite, it would be great to have a sandbox solution to analyze malware through dynamic analysis."
"A problem that we had recently had was we licensed it based on how much data you upload to them every day. Something changed in one our applications, and it started generating three to four times as many logs and. So now, we are trying to assemble something with parts of the Splunk API to warn ourselves, then turn it off and throttle it back more. However it would be better if they had something systematically built into the product that if you're getting close to your license, then to shut things down."
"The monitoring aspect of Splunk could be improved. We have to do some queries to get as much information as CrowdStrike or other solutions provide. If you run a big query, you will see a delay. That is the only concern we have because it will take some time if you query large data sets."
"The solution should also have more advanced capabilities in comparison with QRadar, which offers Watson."
"It needs a better way to export dynamic views without requiring a ton of code and user/pw."
"If possible, we would like to have not only a log monitoring system but a network monitoring feature in this solution as well."
"Splunk needs to be able to hold more days of data. At the moment it only holds three months of data."
"Spam has different plugins but by default, the logs are not organized, it shows that there are roll-ups that are out of the box. I saw many plugins that can help improve or extend Splunk's functionality but I haven't tried any of them."
"The complexity could be worked on so that it's even easier and faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product price was reasonable for my region and the market."
"It’s cheaper to run virtual machines in a VMware environment."
"We are on an annual license for the use of the solution."
"The new pricing and licensing mechanisms are fair. I would advise always to get the full solution (i.e., not only Logs)."
"Compared to the competition, the is price is not that high."
"The licenses are good but the cost is very expensive."
"It is cheap."
"The NetWitness Platform may be affordable only for enterprise-level customers, as it may not be within the budget of small and medium-sized businesses."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is cheaper than competitors, but I do not know whether it is just our contract."
"As a team, we prefer the old pricing model with a perpetual license. We are still evaluating the whole subscription-based model."
"I think that most of the log analytics solutions are expensive and I'm not sure if it's worth it."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is expensive."
"It is expensive. That is why many customers have moved to IBM QRadar. The price is definitely a challenge for customers."
"Splunk is definitely not a cheap solution. It is an expensive product."
"Splunk is a bit pricier, but the benefits and ROI are huge."
"We had a yearly subscription."
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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
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
6%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about NetWitness Platform?
The product's initial setup phase was not at all difficult.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetWitness Platform?
The product price was reasonable for my region and the market.
What needs improvement with NetWitness Platform?
From an improvement perspective, the NetWitness Platform needs to release new features and improve in areas like log correlation. The tool needs to have easier integrations with the cloud. Building...
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...
 

Also Known As

RSA Security Analytics
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
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 NetWitness Platform vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.