LogRhythm vs. Splunk: SIEM tool comparison

LogRhythm and Splunk are security information and event management tools. Here are the key features you need to know about LogRhythm and Splunk to help you choose whether either SIEM solution is the best option for your business.

SEE: Incident response policy (TechRepublic Premium)

What is LogRhythm?

LogRhythm helps thousands of users globally to mature their security operations program. LogRhythm, through its NextGen SIEM Platform, offers SIEM tools for in-depth security analytics, network detection and response (NDR), security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR), and user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) in one platform.

Flexible deployment options

LogRhythm provides you with flexible deployment options to best serve your organization’s goals and environmental needs. LogRhythm Cloud offers a thorough NextGen SIEM experience that is as adaptable and as simple as a SaaS solution. The LogRhythm NextGen SIEM solution can also be deployed on-premises, through a managed security service provider (MSSP), or using the IaaS of your choosing.

AnalytiX

LogRhythm AnalytiX provides log management features to centralize log data, normalize and enrich data with contextual information and apply a consistent schema across every data type. You can perform a quick and expansive search of your organization’s data for insights to help answer questions, troubleshoot operational matters and pinpoint IT and security events. It also offers simple, customizable visualizations and dashboards.

DetectX

You can focus your threat detection efforts with LogRhythm DetectX using prioritized and targeted threat detection. To faultlessly detect malicious activity and maintain regulatory compliance, LogRhythm DetectX provides intrinsic security analytics content and visualizations. As such, DetectX expedites investigations and response through its threat analytics modules. Prioritized threat detection is done through out-of-the-box threat scoring using risk-based prioritization. Furthermore, DetectX‘s Threat Intelligence Service allows you to integrate a vast array of threat feeds.

RespondX

To provide security orchestration, automation, and response that is seamlessly integrated to improve the collaboration and incident management capabilities of your team, LogRhythm offers RespondX. With RespondX, you can seamlessly execute security tasks across your security workflow by automating manual tasks through SmartResponse automation. You can also further your investigative abilities through search pivoting, drilldown and instant context enrichment.

Pricing

Although LogRhythm offers flexible pricing and licensing models, you’ll need to contact them for a custom quote.

Cautions

• Limited cloud-based options. LogRhythm lags behind similar SIEM products in terms of offering cloud-native SIEM capabilities, as many competitors introduced cloud-native SIEM solutions much earlier than LogRhythm.
• Confusing naming. The naming of product components and introducing functionality to prospective users by LogRhythm may prove to be confusing. An uncomplicated approach to naming products would offer prospective users more clarity.

SEE: How to become a cybersecurity pro: A cheat sheet  (TechRepublic)

What is Splunk?

Splunk, through Splunk Enterprise Security, provides an analytics-driven SIEM solution to oppose threats through advanced analytics and actionable intelligence at scale. Splunk seeks to improve your security operations by enabling you to discover, investigate and offer real-time responses to reduce risk.

Analytics-driven security

With Splunk, you can enhance security operations using analytics-driven security. Analytics-driven security allows your security operations center (SOC) to determine, prioritize and manage security events. This can be done through alert management, risk scoring, event sequencing and customizable visualizations and dashboards. Splunk’s analytics-driven security improves visibility all through your IT and security stacks, accelerates system query response time and augments the integration of security infrastructure.

Risk-based alerting

Risk-based alerting is Splunk’s answer to alert fatigue. This allows analysts to make risk attributions for users, systems, or other entities in the face of suspicious activity. These attributions are dispatched to the risk index instead of setting off alerts. As such, alerts are triggered only when risk exceeds certain thresholds. This risk-based approach also offers teams the opportunity to pivot resources to proactive functions from traditionally reactive functions in the security operations center.

Contextual threat detection and incident response

Splunk provides you with all the investigative tools you might require for a quick response. These tools represent a modern SIEM where you can compile all the context needed in one view to carry out quick investigations and receive quick responses. Users are empowered to handle newly discovered and existing threats quickly using contextual threat detection and incident response.

End-to-end visibility

Splunk’s SIEM tools promise visibility across users’ hybrid environments using multi-cloud security monitoring. Splunk offers out-of-the-box Cloud Security Monitoring content to simplify monitoring, analyzing, investigating and detecting threats across Microsoft Azure, AWS, GCP and other multi-cloud environments.

Pricing

There is a free trial available, but for a custom quote contact Splunk.

Cautions

• Pricing and contract flexibility. Splunk’s pricing and contract flexibility garnered lower scores compared to other SIEM solutions, including LogRhythm. You can compare its pricing review ratings on the Gartner Peer Insights
• No fully cloud-native security operations suite. Splunk Enterprise Security is part of Splunk Cloud. However, if you seek a fully cloud-native option that includes Splunk User Behavior Analytics (UBA) and Phantom, you must ask Splunk whether hosted options are available in your geography.
• Splunk Cloud geographic support. Customers outside of North America, Europe and Asia, such as in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, need to contact Splunk to find out whether they can receive adequate support.

LogRhythm vs. Splunk features comparisons

Comparing the essential SIEM features of both solutions, we note that they both offer similar features, with the key difference being in the approach to pricing.

Choosing the right SIEM tool

Your ideal SIEM tool will depend on your desired features, budget, and the vendor’s flexibility about the contract. It also depends on user experience factors for your use case, such as ease of setup, use and administration. Furthermore, examine how each platform approaches support concerning geographical location. These considerations will help you make an informed decision.

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