Cyberlands.io - API Penetration Testing
SIEM TOOLS CompARISON №4

SIEM Comparison: Splunk vs Panther Labs

If you're looking for a security and management system (SIEM), you've surely come across Splunk and Panther Labs options – top-rated solutions that can ensure solid security in your organization for years. However, to make the best decision, it's not always enough to select the one with the highest ratings on the Internet. Discovering the aspects like pricing, pros and cons, SIEM usability, and basic features it provides is also important to choose the software that is ideal for your business needs and objectives.

In this article, we'll make a detailed overview of Splunk and Panther Labs SIEM solutions to find out which of these will be the best one for your business.
Which solution is better?
Deployment & setup
First of all, let's analyze the deployment details of each SIEM tool. Panther Labs will solely fit for the Cloud, SaaS, and Web-based projects. So, if your company is targeted at creating or supporting desktop or mobile solutions, it'll be probably better to consider Splunk. That platform can ideally work for a variety of projects based on Windows and iOS, as well as being implemented into the cloud, SaaS, and web-based options.

As for the initial setup process, both SIEM solutions can be easily implemented into nearly any business, regardless of their scope. What is more, Splunk and Panther Labs both provide decent training materials including videos and online guidance to in-person training, which makes them really accessible and easy to use.
Scalability and flexibility
If comparing the scalability of Splunk and Panther Labs, it would be probably better to select the second one because of its cost-efficiency: Panther Labs can provide a higher ROI in the long run. Nevertheless, if you need a powerful SIEM platform that targets a wider range of platforms, Splunk is the only option to use in this case.
Benefits and drawbacks
As you know, discovering the core advantages and disadvantages of each SIEM solution can uncover more details concerning its usability and functionality. For this reason, let's now find out what makes Splunk and Panther Labs great options to use, as well as what are the possible downsides that might make you consider the alternatives.

Pros and Cons of Splunk SIEM System

With over 10 years of experience, Splunk has been known as a leading SIEM tool that fits nearly any business across various industries. Some of its most important features include activity monitoring, access controls/permissions, audit trail, bandwidth monitoring, anti-virus, anti-spam, and many others. Splunk can be a perfect option in cases when you need to store, correlate and search large amounts of data, particularly for the System Log data. In case you need assistance, it's easy to contact the support team by email, phone, or even in a live chat and get your questions resolved immediately. Additionally, Splunk provides multiple training opportunities: through videos, in-person or online guidance.

Talking about the drawbacks, some users report that Splunk query language might be hard to learn for a new user. Additionally, it might have too limited functionality which is not enough to meet your business objectives (for instance, it's mainly checking the code for Fatal errors and app errors, that don't break in the development environment).

Pros and Cons of Panther Labs SIEM Solution

Panther Labs is so far one of the most functional SIEM solutions that are continuously developing and come at a reasonable price. It has professional support active 24/7 to help with any question or issue, which can greatly help during the initial use. The interface of Panther Labs is convenient and intuitive, so your team can quickly master this tool even without a deep knowledge of Python. Thanks to its serverless architecture, you don't have to manage infrastructure, load balancers, etc., and the open data lake architecture provides an effortless data streaming process. This SIEM solution also offers various customization options: you can add specific rules, detection algorithms, and other important security segments.

The most significant drawback of this software is that it's comparatively new, so some of the dashboards and connectors are still improving. Nevertheless, the clients still consider that's still worth all the other benefits Panther Labs provides.
NewRelic vs ArcSight: Key Differences
Pricing
Finally, it's time to evaluate which of the options, Splunk or Panther Labs, will be more cost-effective for a company to use. This will not only provide you with a general idea about how much money each solution requires but as well as estimate the most affordable and cost-effective SIEM system for your business.

Splunk can become extremely expensive if you have huge logs or they'll keep on increasing since the price tag directly depends on the amount of data used. At the time of this review, Splunk is available at a perpetual, monthly, or annual term license, and starts at $1,800/year for 1GB/day. However, it also offers a free trial and free version, which is perfect for the new clients: they can easily test the tool before purchasing!

Being a comparatively new SIEM tool, Panther Labs doesn't feature too many pricing details on the Internet. However, it provides great licensing plans for as long as 3 years with attractive discounts, which encourages thousands of entrepreneurs who are searching for the cost-effective SIEM to transit to Panther Labs solution. Compared to Splunk, that can be a really nice deal for nearly any business.
Summary
As you can see, both Splunk and Panther Labs are fairly good SIEM platforms to use, and the final decision will still depend on the objectives and needs of your business. And, with this detailed comparison in mind, we're more than sure you will make the best decision as a result!
Cyberlands.io Team