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Splunk vs ArcSight: a Head-to-Head Comparison

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Written by: Naser Abu Seraj | Last Updated:

 
February 26, 2024
 
 
 

Originally Published:

 
May 12, 2023

There are multiple solutions in the realm of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), and each solution has its pros and cons. Splunk and ArcSight are two of the most well-known SIEM software solutions. This article will provide a comparison between Splunk and ArcSight.

Evaluation of Splunk vs ArcSight

While both Splunk & ArcSight offer similar features, there are important differences between the two tools that might make one more suitable for your organization than the other. In this article, we will explore the similarities, differences, and benefits of each tool to help you make the best decision for your organization. 

What is Splunk?

Splunk, a software company based in San Francisco California, is an Operational Intelligence Platform used for monitoring business applications, Infrastructure, networks, and security operations. The application collects and stores data from any hardware or software platform seamlessly. Splunk’s core product, Splunk Enterprise (on-premise) and Splunk Cloud, handles application performance management, while Splunk Enterprise Security manages endpoint security, network security, Identification Management, malware, and vulnerabilities.

What is ArcSight?

ArcSight is a vulnerability scanning application that uses machine learning to detect threats, coordinate investigations, and build prioritized event lists from a single platform. Administrators can utilize ArcSight to spot issues like privileged account abuse, terminated employee behavior, data staging, and email exfiltration. Users can look through entity alerts in chronological order using the timeline view helping them assess risk.

Splunk VS ArcSight

Platform & Integration

Splunk is an independent platform that can be deployed in any hardware and software environment and can seamlessly integrate with any platform, while ArcSight is HP Enterprise to assist businesses in protecting their data through security analytics. ArcSight is designed to work seamlessly with other HPE security products, making it a good choice for organizations that use HPE products.

Flexibility

Splunk is highly flexible and can be used for a wide range of use cases, from security monitoring to business analytics, whereas ArcSight is only specialized for security intelligence.

Scalability

Splunk and ArcSight are both able to scale to handle large amounts of data required for organizations of all sizes, including very large organizations.

Customization

Splunk is highly customizable, while ArcSight is more rigid in terms of its configuration options. ArcSight can be difficult to set up and configure, especially for organizations that don’t have a lot of experience with SIEM tools.

Ease of Use

Splunk is generally considered to be more user-friendly than ArcSight, although, both tools require some level of technical expertise to set up and configure.

Price

Splunk is priced based on the amount of data ingested on a daily basis, or the number of Splunk Virtual Compute (SVCs) units consumed (Workload Pricing), which can be more expensive than ArcSight for very large organizations. However, integrating Splunk with a platform such as Kinney Group’s powerful Atlas Platform, allows users to easily manage and reduce the amount of data ingested by a great deal, saving you space on your license which results in a considerable reduction in the cost of Splunk.

Conclusion

While both Splunk & ArcSight are good security platforms to use, an extensive study is required before making an investment decision with either of the two platforms. Some things to consider include ease of use and customization abilities. In these categories, Splunk is more user-friendly, more flexible, and easier to customize than ArcSight. On the other hand, if you are interested in a solution to help with Threat Detection alone, ArcSight might be a better choice, although it is more difficult to configure and customize than Splunk.

If you found this helpful…

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