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Security Onion vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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

Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
22nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Log Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
378
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Security Onion is 3.4%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 6.9%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Splunk Enterprise Security6.9%
Security Onion3.4%
Other89.7%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Anish Bajracharya - PeerSpot reviewer
Postgraduate at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Provides good threat hunting by finding infected ports, but its initial setup is difficult
The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports. I have used the Squert tool within Security Onion the most for threat hunting The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult. I have been using Security Onion for one year.…
reviewer1469784 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Helps us detect cyber threats quickly and integrate multiple feeds effectively
Overall, the product is good, but when it comes to some infrastructure issues, we have to dig into more logs. There is no straightforward indication of an issue. Health check kind of dashboards are not available. More AI would help us, and more optimization, since security products run more queries. The AI module could suggest solutions, optimizing queries or workload balancing. If the product itself advises on running queries during peak times, it would be similar to what ChatGPT currently offers. We see quite a few issues on stability. Even last week, we faced something, and identifying bottlenecks is not easy. We need more SMEs, and there is no mechanism to tell us about indexer or search head issues. Self-monitoring dashboards could be beneficial. The technical support still requires more improvement. Often, primary support takes a lot of time and forwards most solutions to the engineering side. The primary support team has very limited knowledge to provide.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Security Onion is the most mature solution in the market."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
"The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports."
"The dashboards, indexing speed, correlations, and machine learning are advantages of Splunk Enterprise Security; even though other competitors offer the same features, the efficiency of Splunk Enterprise Security is the best."
"It is very stable. We have not had any problems."
"The solution is the market leader."
"The integration and plugin availability are nice; the AI module is also great."
"The feature that we use the most is the correlation search engine within ES."
"The client site login is pretty extensible and probably cost-effective."
"The SIEM is the most valuable feature of the product."
"The fact that Splunk is a platform and not just a SIEM solution is a key benefit."
 

Cons

"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
"The product is not easy to learn."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
"Sometimes, there is latency in the logs."
"I'd say I am happy with the technical support, not elated. They provide great support, but sometimes they don't have the answers that I need."
"Improving the infrastructure behind Splunk Enterprise Security is vital—enhanced cores, CPUs, and memory should be prioritized to support better processing power. When we execute heavy, resource-intensive queries over long periods, the performance dips."
"Sometimes the communication with support happens with multiple staff. They should reduce the time to resolution."
"The pricing of Splunk Enterprise Security is not very affordable, and I have seen many companies planning to leave because of cost concerns."
"The technical support still requires more improvement. Often, primary support takes a lot of time and forwards most solutions to the engineering side."
"We're planning to incorporate UBA and SOAR. It would be good to have everything in one place."
"Most importantly, Splunk can be outrageously expensive. That is the problem with both Splunk and Sentinel. Their pricing literally explodes based on the amount of data you feed in."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is a free solution."
"It is expensive. I work for multiple clients. I am working for more than five clients, but most of the clients are switching from Splunk to Sentinel because of the cost. Even though Sentinel is very limited, clients are moving to Sentinel."
"Splunk should be able to integrate with other product using the free version."
"Truly evaluate the data you want to ingest and go slow. Pulling in data that can provide no use to your mission only wastes data against your license."
"Its pricing model can be improved."
"Splunk is costly but it’s worth it due to the high-end features."
"Our ROI is high."
"It's definitely worth it."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is a bit expensive overall, but it provides good value."
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Comparison Review

VS
Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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
University
12%
Government
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business110
Midsize Enterprise50
Large Enterprise266
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Security Onion?
The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Security Onion?
Security Onion is an open-source solution. On a scale from one to ten, where ten is expensive and one is cheap, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten.
What needs improvement with Security Onion?
The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult.
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...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Security Onion vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,606 professionals have used our research since 2012.