SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

The compared SolarWinds and Splunk solutions aren't in the same category. SolarWinds is ranked #10 in SM , with an average rating of 7.4, and holds a 2.8% mindshare in the category. Splunk is ranked #1 in SIEM , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 9.2% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 43 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

3,599 Views
792 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Splunk Enterprise Security

Read 369 Splunk Enterprise Security reviews

23,960 Views
12,459 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Splunk Enterprise Security

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and Splunk Enterprise Security based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Server Monitoring solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Enterprise Security Report (Updated: May 2023).

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Enterprise Security

May 2023

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Helped 869,952 peers since 2012

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

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Server Monitoring (10th), Active Directory Management (10th)

Splunk Enterprise Security

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

369

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (2nd), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Lifecycle Management solutions, they serve different purposes. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is designed for Server Monitoring and holds a mindshare of 2.8%, down 3.3% compared to last year.
Splunk Enterprise Security, on the other hand, focuses on Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), holds 9.2% mindshare, down 11.2% since last year.

Server Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	2.8%
Zabbix	25.1%
Checkmk	10.1%
Other	62.0%

Server Monitoring

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Splunk Enterprise Security	9.2%
Wazuh	10.2%
IBM Security QRadar	7.0%
Other	73.6%

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

Featured Reviews

VIVEK PATHAK

Solutions Architect at Airtel

Offering reasonably good dashboarding features but needs to improve the application performance monitoring

My company uses Riverbed for application performance monitoring. I was doing research so that I could understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provide APM capabilities similar to Riverbed, which allows our company to get a packet capture of an entire session, and on the basis of it, we look at the application performance monitoring part. With SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, my company does SNMP polling, so it can drag an entire session, but it focuses more on availability, CPU memory, and server connection status. In Riverbed, my company catches an entire system, so when we deal with two applications, we have end-to-end app visibility. All the application monitoring happens through Riverbed. Our company's main problem is that, as of now, we have two different products in our organization, and we don't want to continue with the multiple products currently. I wanted to understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor already have capabilities like Riverbed, and if they do, then I wanted to figure out why our company should not go with SolarWinds and why we are using products from multiple vendors. My company needs to continue with either Riverbed or SolarWinds. I wanted to see which products are good for the organization and how much I want to continue with Riverbed.

Read full review

Kyle Vernham

Threat Analyst at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Built-in searches and unified data access streamline alert investigation and boosts analyst efficiency

The two features I appreciate the most in Splunk Enterprise Security are the built-in searches, which have been very easy for us to get started with right out of the box, and the fact that it accesses all of our other systems. You can access it as a pane of glass rather than having to search individually. We also have the option to compare our analysts from our service to service. Splunk Enterprise Security helps our SOC team prioritize and investigate high-fidelity alerts more effectively by providing a more in-depth look and the ability to access a lot more of our data. Instead of jumping from several segmented systems, it allows us to have everything brought together in one place. For example, you have to move from our purview to our build system and to Splunk Enterprise Security, and it enables us to streamline that process. The built-in features of Splunk Enterprise Security, which we recently procured, have given us a good starting point and demonstrated the value of the product, providing an easy way to sell it to our company. The ease of getting everything into our purview helps us, and it serves as a good start for the investigation part in one location rather than what we usually have, which is jumping from system to system to system. Splunk Enterprise Security plays a role in our company's strategy to combat insider threats and advanced persistent threats by currently being in its technical test phase. We are still rolling it out, and it should help us find any insider threats based on information that our policy states should not be present in our system. Splunk Enterprise Security's risk-based alerting (RBA) has impacted our alert volume and analyst productivity because we've got many different systems feeding into it. However, it has helped to make it easier for our analysts to go through a set of events rather than 100 alerts. RBA allows us to streamline the process and customize it for our analysts. When it comes to leveraging Splunk Enterprise Security's dashboards and visualizations to communicate security posture to executives, it's pretty straightforward for any type of information. The visualization is easy to understand, but I haven't had any direct conversations with our executives.

Read full review

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 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."

"The product integrates with Remedy."

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."

"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements. The threshold gets configured automatically, so it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."

"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"

"SolarWinds SAM has significantly improved our workflow by allowing us to develop a comprehensive knowledge base of known errors and automate responses to specific alerts."

"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."

"The initial setup was relatively easy, and we didn't have to install anything. All we had to do was put on the devices we wanted to monitor."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"The most valuable feature of Splunk Enterprise Security is the comprehensive logging capabilities it provides."

"Splunk's strongest suit is its user interface. We can integrate multiple solutions and adjust settings in the Splunk interface."

"With good domain knowledge, one can build almost anything. If you throw in Alert Manager or an integration with ServiceNow. Then, you have your own SIEM"

"Splunk setup is easy and straightforward. "

"Without Splunk Enterprise Security, it would be difficult for us to manage and prioritize alerts. There's a potential to lose track of important notifications, and it's essential to our security that we do not miss anything. Splunk has improved our investigations because the reporting and dashboarding make things so much easier. We can provide weekly or monthly reports. I also like Splunk's ability to integrate."

"You can check up on security from the dashboards."

"An example of how these features benefited my organization is that the mean time to detect compromised accounts from the time that we're able to detect that account and then launch some automation to actually disable the account and work with the end user to fix the issue has gone from taking a couple of days to literally taking two to three minutes."

"The most valuable features include agility and Splunk Enterprise Security's ability to quickly search for alerted items, as well as the capacity to create custom alerts using the SQL language employed by Splunk."

More Splunk Enterprise Security pros

Cons

"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."

"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."

"The product needs to reduce its price."

"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."

"In terms of the dashboards on offer, they should work to improve them. The types of dashboards that you get in terms of the graphs on offer aren't ideal right now."

"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."

"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."

"They are complex to operate; users need to know what they want during setup."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"Data retention can be better. If we want to look at the data for five months or six months, that is not available to us. We only have a history of 20 or 30 days. After that, the information gets lost. That is a drawback."

"The cluster environment should be improved. We have a cluster. In the Splunk cluster environment, in the case of heavy searches and heavy load, the Splunk cluster goes down, and we have to put it in the maintenance mode to get it back. We are not able to find the actual culprit for this issue. I know that cluster has RF and SF, but it has been down so many times. There should be something in Splunk to help users to find the reason and the solution for such issues."

"Splunk Enterprise Security could be improved in the dashboards that provide KPIs about environmental behavior."

"The complexity could be worked on so that it's even easier and faster."

"The presence of multiple layers creates a significant challenge for monitoring across cloud environments."

"Splunk Enterprise Security is great but can have some frustration points. It can sometimes be slower to use."

"My biggest struggle with Splunk in general is memorizing all the commands. If I want to know which users have logged in between certain hours, I cannot write that query out. It would be helpful to have AI so that I can explain in simple terms what I want and then the search gives that back to me. I am waiting for that."

"The GUI can be improved to include some of the capabilities that other BI solutions have."

More Splunk Enterprise Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When planning for the number of licenses to purchase, make sure you understand all of the elements within an application required to really understand performance well. In our case, we quickly came to the conclusion that an unlimited license for SAM was the way to go."

"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It is just the standard price, but it can vary depending on the current rate of the dollar."

"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."

"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."

"Nagios XI, WhatsUpGold, Uptime Software, PRTG, Manage Engine, and SpiceWorks are the other tools that have lower pricing and licensing costs. However, they can't compete with SolarWinds when it comes to the features and functionality that SolarWinds can provide."

"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."

"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."

"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"It can be expensive, especially the licensing costs. However, there is added value in what it can do, not just log aggregation."

"The pricing can be better. We are already considering Elastic because Splunk is too expensive. You have to pay based on per-day ingestion. There should be a more flexible model for the use cases where one day you have a huge amount, and on other days, it is quite less."

"Splunk is priced higher than other solutions."

"It is a bit costly."

"The cost is on the high end, which makes it difficult for some organizations to use."

"Splunk ES is quite expensive compared to some products on the market."

"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 Enterprise Security is priced lower than competitors."

More Splunk Enterprise Security pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

Vinod Shankar

Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at Deloitte & Touche

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	110
Midsize Enterprise	50
Large Enterprise	257

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

The initial cost is quite high, but the renewal cost is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor at this time. I have not encountered any missing features or fu...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 16% of the time

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 14% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 8% of the time

Prometheus-AI Platform vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

IBM Security QRadar vs Splunk Enterprise Security

Compared 8% of the time

Wazuh vs Splunk Enterprise Security

Compared 6% of the time

Dynatrace vs Splunk Enterprise Security

Compared 6% of the time

Datadog vs Splunk Enterprise Security

Compared 5% of the time

Security Onion vs Splunk Enterprise Security

Compared 4% of the time

More Splunk Enterprise Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

September 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk Enterprise Security

September 2025

Download Splunk Enterprise Security product report

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM

No data available

Overview

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers powerful application and server monitoring capabilities for IT pros, enabling them to diagnose and troubleshoot performance issues faster. Do not let slow applications and downtime impact your end-users and business services. Pinpoint the root cause of application issues across various layers of the IT stack. SolarWinds SAM is affordable and easy to deploy, use, and customize. You can automatically discover your system's environment and start monitoring in about an hour. No professional services or consultation needed.

SolarWinds

Splunk Enterprise Security delivers powerful log management, rapid searches, and intuitive dashboards, enhancing real-time analytics and security measures. Its advanced machine learning and wide system compatibility streamline threat detection and incident response across diverse IT environments.

Splunk Enterprise Security stands out in security operations with robust features like comprehensive threat intelligence and seamless data integration. Its real-time analytics and customizable queries enable proactive threat analysis and efficient incident response. Integration with multiple third-party feeds allows detailed threat correlation and streamlined data visualization. Users find the intuitive UI and broad compatibility support efficient threat detection while reducing false positives. Despite its strengths, areas such as visualization capabilities and integration processes with cloud environments need enhancement. Users face a high learning curve, and improvements in automation, AI, documentation, and training are desired to maximize its potential.

What Are the Key Features of Splunk Enterprise Security?

Log Management: Efficiently manages and organizes a vast amount of logs for better data handling.
Rapid Data Search: Quickly retrieves relevant data for fast decision-making.
Flexible Dashboards: Customizable dashboards provide clear data visualization.
Comprehensive Threat Intelligence: Offers detailed insights to preemptively defend against threats.
Real-Time Analytics: Analyzes data in real-time to enhance response times.
Integration with Third-Party Feeds: Streamlines information flow from multiple sources.

What Benefits Should Users Investigate in Reviews?

Efficient Incident Response: Enhances the ability to respond promptly to threats.
False Positive Reduction: Minimizes incorrect threat alarms, making monitoring more efficient.
Threat Detection Speed: Accelerates the identification and evaluation of security threats.
Cost-Effectiveness: Potential savings through better licensing options and operational efficiency.
User Adaptability: Enhancements in documentation and training resources aid in overcoming the learning curve.

In specific industries like finance and healthcare, Splunk Enterprise Security is instrumental for log aggregation, SIEM functionalities, and compliance monitoring. Companies leverage its capabilities for proactive threat analysis and response, ensuring comprehensive security monitoring and integration with various tools for heightened operational intelligence.

Splunk

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Splunk has more than 7,000 customers spread across over 90 countries. These customers include Telenor, UniCredit, ideeli, McKenney's, Tesco, and SurveyMonkey.

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Enterprise Security

May 2023

Free Report: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Enterprise Security

Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: May 2023.

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