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Security Onion vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 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

Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
20th
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
374
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Security Onion is 3.7%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 7.1%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Splunk Enterprise Security7.1%
Security Onion3.7%
Other89.2%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Jörg Kippe - PeerSpot reviewer
Scientist at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees
A mature and affordable solution that is easy to install and easy to update
The product takes time to learn, it's not that easy. In the beginning we had a lot of questions. If you want to use such a tool in an real (industrial) environment, you have to ask how to get the network data. Can we do a full packet capture? Can we provide agents to our end systems? There are no simple solutions to these questions. It's a general problem when running such systems in an industrial environment.
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

"The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
"Security Onion is the most mature solution in the market."
"There are quite a lot of things that we find useful. Splunk agents are useful and good. Its UI is quite impressive."
"The technical support is among the best in the market."
"It gives us good visibility into multiple environments, including cloud, on-premises, and hybrid; irrespective of platform."
"The SIEM is the most valuable feature of the product."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the incident review, which gives a good overview of our security incidents."
"Splunk Enterprise Security allows us to create custom dashboards by changing fonts and modifying widgets."
"Splunk Enterprise Security enhances business resilience and assists with threat detection by centralizing security data."
"I have noticed a return on investment with Splunk Enterprise Security, as it delivers substantial value for money."
 

Cons

"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
"The product is not easy to learn."
"The setup time is quite long."
"Splunk Enterprise Security can be improved with more ease of configuration."
"We see quite a few issues on stability. Even last week, we faced something, and identifying bottlenecks is not easy."
"It can be tough to get a hold of somebody in technical support depending on the complexity of the issue."
"To improve Splunk Enterprise Security, I would suggest allowing third-party SOAR solutions to work with it."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is a wonderful solution, however, the background configuration process could be better as the administration process is very complicated."
"I want Splunk Enterprise Security to release more AI and machine learning features in the future."
"We'd like to see a more seamless cloud-based integration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is a free solution."
"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
"It can be expensive, especially the licensing costs. However, there is added value in what it can do, not just log aggregation."
"We have seen ROI and improvements as we have continued to use the product, but they are more reactive."
"Splunk is not free."
"Splunk is definitely not a cheap solution. It is an expensive product."
"It is pretty straightforward and based on the sizing. If I compare it with other competitors, it makes sense."
"Expensive compared to other options."
"Splunk Enterprise Security's pricing is based on data volume, which generally suits large enterprises."
"It is expensive, but it is a good tool. It is worth the cost."
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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
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business109
Midsize Enterprise50
Large Enterprise263
 

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: December 2025.
879,425 professionals have used our research since 2012.