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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)
13th
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)
38th
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 November 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Sentinel is 2.6%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sentinel2.6%
SolarWinds Security Event Manager1.1%
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

"Novell SIEM was my second technology of this kind."
"If Sentinel is integrated with Identity Manager and User Application Portal, the solution runs simply perfect!"
"Transactional user information improves security, prevents fraud, and promotes best practices."
"The tool is simple to use."
"In my opinion, Sentinel's best features include that it's a very easy product to use, it's very simple, and the after-sale service is very good."
"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."
"Sentinel gave us logs to tell us what's going right and wrong in your environment so we could secure the network."
"The solution lets us get all the logs properly and regularly monitor customer infrastructure."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is intuitivity of navigation; it's easy to build rules and actions which are based on the logs and event types we collect with the software."
"It will identify things in your network that you just didn't know were going on."
"The scalability of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is good."
"This tool is simple to use."
"We had to integrate with other teams, and the infrastructure deployment didn't take long. The integration involves learning with different teams, networking, and configuring various network devices and servers. Infrastructure deployment only took one or two days."
"The pricing was low, around 30K so ROI is less than one year."
"SolarWinds is effective for server, network, and log monitoring. It's also good for IP address management. We also have a patch manager, but we're still working on getting that operational."
"The solution helps you monitor database instances, application instances, other customer application things, Linux servers, IBM servers, and Oracle servers."
 

Cons

"I rate Sentinel a six out of ten for scalability."
"It is an ancient product."
"This product's connection to certain types of cloud systems could be improved. We can do Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, but there are a lot of other things happening in the cloud that we do not connect well enough to. This product could be improved with better connection to cloud-based solutions."
"Creating a drag-and-drop dashboard or workbook in Sentinel is a little more complex compared to other tools like LogRhythm and IBM QRadar."
"Price is always a consideration, so the price would be nice if it were lower."
"This product's connection to certain types of cloud systems could be improved."
"On version 5, builder was somewhat unstable during deployment -> workaround strong procedure with too many middle steps of saves."
"Frankly speaking, we did not find this product to be valuable, at all."
"It can be difficult for users who are inexperienced with the solution."
"The product should improve the ease with which you can create event alerts. They are not as hard now but you need to have an easier way."
"The log analyzing capability of SolarWinds Security Event Manager should go into more depth than the current environment."
"The solution was a little slow when running some larger queries."
"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 don't think SolarWinds is scalable enough. It is somewhat limited when I need to deploy it across multiple environments in a distributed architecture."
"It takes a long time to perform a root cause analysis."
"I would like to be able to dig deeper into the visibility of events or incidents to determine whether they are malicious, such as by doing behavior analysis."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We receive a pricing discount because of our ongoing partnership with Micro Focus."
"Sentinel's slightly on the expensive side."
"Sentinel is a subscription-based solution."
"The solution’s pricing is aligned with its competitors."
"Sentinel is moderately priced."
"We inquired about getting support from the vendor, Micro Focus, but the cost was very high."
"It is in the appropriate mid-range. It is not as expensive as some of the other solutions. It is also not cheap."
"The pricing model would benefit from having package deals with other SolarWinds products."
"Licenses can only be purchased in blocks of fifty at a time."
"Licensing is on devices, so if you have many, then this may be high."
"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 price of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is reasonable."
"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."
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Top Industries

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

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: November 2026.
921,338 professionals have used our research since 2012.