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Sentinel vs SolarWinds Security Event Manager comparison

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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

Sentinel
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Security Event M...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
37th
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 September 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Sentinel is 2.7%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sentinel2.7%
SolarWinds Security Event Manager1.0%
Other96.3%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

PT
Senior Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Improved incident monitoring has reduced false positives and supports audit-ready reporting
The best features Sentinel offers, in my experience, include the filtering features and the ability to run KQL queries so that I can understand what table has what and when the last log has been monitored and reported. Sentinel has positively impacted my organization by improving monitoring significantly. As a pay-as-you-go service, we are ingesting logs as needed. When the pay-as-you-go service is enabled, we can either ingest whenever there is a spike in the logs, and when there are fewer logs, we can reduce the ingestion. This approach is helpful for both the organization and me. In terms of metrics showing how Sentinel has helped, as part of log filtering, we have reduced around thirty to thirty-five percent of false-positive incident creation. We have also cleared some audits by enabling log retention in Sentinel, allowing us to pull out data for audits when necessary using both hot retention and cold retention. This has helped the organization as a whole.
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

"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it provides a central locking system for many event sources."
"Sentinel is a tool that, if it's well configured, removes from view all unnecessary information and shows you only needful entries, so you can do your job faster, more conveniently, and with high performance."
"The correlation engine allows our clients to generate rules more efficiently."
"Sentinel gave us logs to tell us what's going right and wrong in your environment so we could secure the network."
"It makes everything easier by automating some tasks and growing with our needs."
"If Sentinel is integrated with Identity Manager and User Application Portal, the solution runs simply perfect!"
"We can do advanced hunting queries and modify SQL queries to get desired results based on the rules triggering over the console."
"Transactional user information improves security, prevents fraud, and promotes best practices."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the visibility into both attempted and failed logins."
"It performs network behavior monitoring, log monitoring, and disaster recovery monitoring."
"SolarWinds Security Event Manager has been generally working well."
"The most valuable feature is the reporting."
"Technical support for this solution is good."
"It's extremely easy to deploy."
"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."
"SolarWinds is one of the products that I use, amongst many others, to fit the needs of our customers which includes their budget, size, and industry."
 

Cons

"This product's connection to certain types of cloud systems could be improved."
"I would prefer to extend dashboards part and their functions in Web GUI version, so the charts could be for configurable."
"Creating a drag-and-drop dashboard or workbook in Sentinel is a little more complex compared to other tools like LogRhythm and IBM QRadar."
"There is no integration in the web-side of the tool."
"I rate Sentinel a six out of ten for scalability."
"On version 5, builder was somewhat unstable during deployment -> workaround strong procedure with too many middle steps of saves."
"Some functions look great but, in practice, some key limitations turn the process into something opaque."
"I would like to see a better reporting work structure on the dashboard."
"The main area that would mean a big improvement for me would be for the product to include multiple dashboards."
"Not very scalable in my opinion. That's why I'm investigating new SIEM replacement."
"I don't think SolarWinds is scalable enough. It is somewhat limited when I need to deploy it across multiple environments in a distributed architecture."
"The log analyzing capability of SolarWinds Security Event Manager should go into more depth than the current environment."
"The reporting could be more robust. It can be a lot more granular and that will make it a lot more useful in comparison to how it is incorporated at the moment."
"I think the customization area in the tool can be considered as an area of concern where improvements are required."
"SolarWinds should improve its correlation capabilities. The correlation does not automatically detect and reduce the events fast enough. You have to manually do a correlation report, which means the tool is not scalable in many ways."
"The solution was a little slow when running some larger queries."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Sentinel is a subscription-based solution."
"Sentinel's slightly on the expensive side."
"We receive a pricing discount because of our ongoing partnership with Micro Focus."
"We inquired about getting support from the vendor, Micro Focus, but the cost was very high."
"The solution’s pricing is aligned with its competitors."
"Sentinel is moderately priced."
"Licensing is on devices, so if you have many, then this may be high."
"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."
"Licenses can only be purchased in blocks of fifty at a time."
"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 price of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetIQ Sentinel?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows that while it is a little on the higher side, since it is part of a package for all Microsoft products, I feel it is a better choice comp...
What needs improvement with NetIQ Sentinel?
Sentinel needs minimal improvement, though improvements are ongoing. Everything seems to be functioning perfectly, and I don't have any specific inputs for improvements I would like to see in Senti...
What is your primary use case for NetIQ Sentinel?
My main use case for Sentinel is that I'm a subject matter expert for Sentinel, specifically for security incident event and event management. I head the SME for SIEM in LTIMindtree for this curren...
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...
What advice do you have for others considering SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
I am still dealing with SolarWinds products and use most of their solutions. User-friendly configuration is key, and the configurations are simple, not complex. The only important part is what we d...
 

Also Known As

NetIQ Sentinel, Novell SIEM
SolarWinds LEM, Solarwinds SIEM, TriGeo, Log and Event Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Faysal Bank, GaVI, Handelsbanken, ISC Mªnster, Lambeth Council, Swisscard, The Municipality of Siena, Tukes, University of Dayton, University of the Sunshine Coast
NetSuite, EasyStreet, Legacy Texas Bank, and Energy Federal Credit Union, to name a few.
Find out what your peers are saying about Sentinel vs. SolarWinds Security Event Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,889 professionals have used our research since 2012.