This guide is for security teams replacing Splunk Enterprise Security as their SIEM. If you also use Splunk for application and IT logs, that can move too: SenseOn searches and visualises any log, not only security data. For security, the seven Splunk alternatives worth a shortlist in 2026 are Microsoft Sentinel, Google Security Operations, Elastic Security, CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen SIEM, Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM, Rapid7 Incident Command and SenseOn. The right one depends on the estate you already run and how you want to pay.
Every product fact below comes from the vendor's own documentation or pricing page, read on 23 September 2026. We have not invented prices: where a vendor publishes a figure, we quote it with its region and date; where it does not, we say so.
Splunk alternatives at a glance
Fit and pricing
| Option | Best for | Pricing model |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Sentinel | Microsoft 365 and Azure estates | Per GB ingested, or daily commitment tiers |
| Google Security Operations | Long retention and large volumes | Based on ingestion volume; 12 months hot retention included |
| Elastic Security | Self-hosting, or low per-GB serverless rates | Serverless per GB ingested and retained; hosted by resources; self-managed licence |
| CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen SIEM | Existing Falcon customers | Falcon module data without extra ingestion charges; other terms by quote |
| Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM | Teams wanting ingest-free pricing | Flex pricing: $0 ingest, pay for data scanned |
| Rapid7 Incident Command | Mid-sized teams wanting predictable cost | Asset-based |
| SenseOn | Replacing SIEM data costs and triage work | Flex Intelligence Credits: pay for outcomes; data volume is one meter |
Deployment and Splunk migration
| Option | Deployment | Splunk migration help (vendor docs) |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Sentinel | SaaS on Azure | SIEM migration experience maps Splunk detections |
| Google Security Operations | SaaS on Google Cloud | Not covered in the pages we read |
| Elastic Security | Serverless, hosted or self-managed | Automatic Migration for Splunk rules and dashboards |
| CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen SIEM | Cloud; LogScale also self-hosted | Not covered in the pages we read |
| Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM | SaaS | Not covered in the pages we read |
| Rapid7 Incident Command | Cloud | Not covered in the pages we read |
| SenseOn | SaaS, runs alongside existing tools | Parallel run alongside Splunk |
"Not covered in the pages we read" means exactly that. Ask the vendor for its Splunk migration tooling before you rule it out.
Why security teams look for a Splunk alternative
Splunk publishes four pricing models: ingest ("based on gigabytes of data ingested"), workload (compute and storage for search), entity (hosts and devices monitored) and activity (ingest plus search). None is published as a list price; all need a quote. Splunk Enterprise Security now comes in Essentials and Premier editions, with SOAR and UEBA in Premier. Splunk is part of Cisco.
The common reasons to move are cost that rises with data volume, the specialist effort needed to write and tune SPL detections, and renewal timing. None of these makes Splunk a bad product. They make it a product that suits teams with the budget and people to run it well.
Retention is the other thing to check before renewal. In Splunk Cloud Platform, how long data stays searchable is your searchable-retention setting, set per index. After that, data can go to a Splunk-managed archive, which cannot be searched where it sits. Splunk's archive documentation says you restore it first: "The restoration process can take up to 24 hours to complete." Splunk "will block you from restoring large amounts of data" that could hurt performance, and "by default, restored data is searchable for a period of one month". A hunt that reaches past your searchable retention starts with a restore request.
If volume is the reason, check whether an option changes the pricing model or only the rate. Most of the list still prices on ingestion. Sumo Logic moves the charge to data scanned, CrowdStrike waives it for Falcon module data, and SenseOn prices on outcomes, with detection included on the sources you route to Detection & Response and data volume as one meter, not the whole bill. If SPL effort is the reason, the question is how many detections you will have to rebuild; that is covered under each option below.
The seven alternatives
1. Microsoft Sentinel
What it is. Microsoft's cloud SIEM, moving into the Microsoft Defender portal. Microsoft says that after 31 March 2027 Sentinel will be available only there.
Pricing. Per GB ingested into the analytics tier, or a daily commitment tier from 100 GB. Microsoft's billing page also lists a lower-cost data lake tier, 90 days of free retention, and free sources such as Office 365 audit logs and Defender alerts. At Microsoft's East US list price on 23 September 2026, pay-as-you-go was $4.30 per GB. Our Microsoft Sentinel pricing guide works through example bills.
Splunk migration. The SIEM migration experience "analyzes Splunk and QRadar detections, including custom detections, and recommends best-fit Microsoft Sentinel detections and Defender XDR native detections". It needs Security Copilot enabled but, per Microsoft, does not consume Security Compute Units. It does not install connectors or enable rules for you.
Watch for. The bill is still volume-driven, and playbooks, notebooks and some connectors run on separately billed Azure services. The cheaper data lake tier is not a way round it for detection: Microsoft says lake data "isn't available for real-time analytics features and threat hunting". Our Sentinel pricing guide sets out that trade-off.
2. Google Security Operations
What it is. Google's SIEM and SOAR platform, formerly Chronicle. Data is normalised into the Unified Data Model and detections are written in YARA-L.
Pricing. Google's package overview says "the pricing for all packages is based on ingestion volume". The Standard package includes 12 months of hot retention and runs "up to 1,000 single-event and 75 multi-event detection rules". Enterprise adds threat intelligence, UEBA and Gemini assistance. Google's retention page says retention can be extended "for up to five years". No list price is published.
Watch for. Rule limits by package, and SPL detections need translating to YARA-L.
3. Elastic Security
What it is. A SIEM built on Elasticsearch, available serverless, hosted on Elastic Cloud, or self-managed.
Pricing. Elastic publishes per-GB list prices on its serverless security pricing page. On 23 September 2026 it showed Security Analytics Essentials from $0.09 per GB ingested and $0.017 per GB retained per month, and Security Analytics Complete from $0.11 and $0.019. Elastic states that per-endpoint fees stopped applying on 23 March 2026. Hosted deployments are priced on resources and self-managed on a licence.
Splunk migration. Automatic Migration converts Splunk saved searches to Elastic detection rules and migrates Classic and Dashboard Studio dashboards. It uses an LLM connector to translate SPL to ES|QL. It is generally available from Elastic Stack 9.4 and on Serverless, and needs an Enterprise or Security Complete subscription.
Watch for. Self-managed deployments move cost into the infrastructure and staff you run.
4. CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen SIEM
What it is. CrowdStrike's SIEM. CrowdStrike lists Falcon LogScale, its log management product, within the Next-Gen SIEM range, and offers LogScale in its cloud or self-hosted.
Pricing. CrowdStrike's Next-Gen SIEM page says "data from licensed Falcon modules is available in Falcon Next-Gen SIEM without additional ingestion charges". Pricing for third-party data is by quote.
Watch for. The strongest economics apply when Falcon is already your endpoint platform. Check how third-party log volume is priced before you commit.
5. Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM
What it is. A SaaS log analytics platform with a Cloud SIEM that includes UEBA, MITRE ATT&CK coverage mapping and detection-as-code.
Pricing. Sumo Logic's pricing page describes Flex pricing with "$0 ingest" and charges based on data scanned. Cloud SIEM sits in the Enterprise Suite and needs a sales quote.
Watch for. Ingest-free pricing moves cost to search, so heavy hunting or dashboard use drives the bill. Model your query volume.
6. Rapid7 Incident Command
What it is. Rapid7's cloud SIEM. Rapid7's InsightIDR pages now redirect to it.
Pricing. Rapid7's packages page offers "asset-based pricing". Essential keeps logs for 90 days and Advanced and Ultimate for 180 days, with alerts kept for 13 months on every package. No list price is published.
Watch for. Log retention beyond 90 or 180 days is an add-on, which matters if you must keep a year of searchable logs.
7. Where SenseOn fits
What it is. A different shape of replacement. Instead of moving the same logs and SPL rules to another SIEM, SenseOn collects its own evidence with one lightweight Universal Sensor, which captures endpoint, network and identity telemetry on Windows, macOS and Linux. The Data Fabric adds other supported sources, through out-of-the-box integrations with Microsoft 365, AWS and identity providers plus log ingestion, and the Intelligence Fabric correlates detected signals from endpoint telemetry and the sources you route to Detection & Response into cases. Detection runs at three speeds: in real time on the endpoint, in near real time across every log source you route to Detection & Response, as it streams through SenseOn's message queue, and with behavioural analytics that run about every five minutes across those same sources. You start from built-in detection rather than a backlog of SPL searches to translate; Forge drafts and tests detection changes for a detection engineer to approve.
Pricing. An annual pool of Flex Intelligence Credits. You pay for outcomes: detection and response across your data, analytics included, and the investigations its AI completes. Data volume is one meter, not the whole bill. SenseOn's cost compression combines three things: edge processing removes unnecessary data before the pipeline; intelligent routing down three pipelines, configured by Weave, SenseOn's security engineering agent, separates storage from compute; and ClickHouse compression, with storage priced on the compressed volume. Together these cut costs by about 40% against a traditional SIEM. The saving on SIEM costs alone would be larger, because SenseOn's price also includes the work of its Agentic Cybersecurity Team (ACT), the AI agents that investigate and resolve cases. You pay for the investigations the agents complete, not for an MDR service. Thirty days of hot storage are included in the detection and response pipeline cost; data then rolls to compressed cold storage automatically, with retention set per pipeline and queryable through standard APIs. There is no restore step: humans and SenseOn's AI agents can search and hunt across the Observability and Compliance pipelines, for as long as you keep your data.
Outcomes. About 97% of alert noise is removed before an analyst sees a queue, and 92.5% of incidents are resolved by AI under human governance, measured across all customer environments over a rolling 30-day window. In AV-Comparatives' Business Security Test (March to June 2024), SenseOn scored 95.9% real-world protection and 98.7% malware protection with zero false alarms. That is an endpoint protection test, in which a false alarm is a clean file or website wrongly blocked. SenseOn is ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified by British Assessment Bureau (UKAS-accredited).
Splunk migration. SenseOn deploys alongside your existing SIEM and EDR, so it runs next to Splunk for a 14 to 28 day proof window. You compare detections and case volume on your own estate, then retire Splunk sources only where the evidence is clear.
Watch for. SenseOn's tiers are designed for agents: long-horizon queries over older, colder data run in the background and can take a little longer. Older data is also queryable in open table formats through standard APIs or with tools such as Snowflake, Databricks, DuckDB or Athena. On Linux, network telemetry needs kernel 5.2 or later with eBPF; a network probe covers segments where no agent can run. The SenseOn vs Splunk comparison covers the trade-offs in detail.
Moving off Splunk: a numbered plan
A SIEM migration fails when it copies everything or cuts over too early. This order keeps risk low. Our SIEM migration guide has the full checklist.
- Inventory what you actually use. List data sources by daily volume, and detections by whether they fired in the last 90 days. Microsoft's migration tool starts from the same export: a query over Splunk saved searches and macros.
- Decide what each log is for. NIST's log management guide (SP 800-92) asks you to set purpose and retention per source. CISA and partner agencies published guidance on SIEM and SOAR implementation in May 2025, including a document on which logs to prioritise for SIEM ingestion.
- Shortlist two platforms and run a proof of value. Use your own data and your own top 20 detections, not vendor demo data.
- Measure alert quality, not only coverage. Oxford researchers found that SOC analysts reported high false positive rates and that most were benign triggers explained by legitimate activity. Count how many alerts each platform raises that an analyst must validate.
- Run in parallel. Keep Splunk live while the new platform ingests the same sources, and compare detections week by week.
- Cut over by source group. Move identity, endpoint, cloud and network sources in turn, retiring each Splunk input once parity is shown.
- Handle retention last. Archive Splunk data you must keep for audit before you decommission, or keep a reduced licence until it expires. If the archive is Splunk's own, allow up to 24 hours per restore and a one-month searchable window by default.
For a wider view that includes managed services and platforms beyond SIEM, see our SIEM alternatives comparison and our list of the five best SIEM tools.
Sources
- Bushra A. Alahmadi, Louise Axon, Ivan Martinovic, "99% False Positives: A Qualitative Study of SOC Analysts' Perspectives on Security Alarms", USENIX Security Symposium, 2022, https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity22/presentation/alahmadi (open access)
- NIST, SP 800-92: Guide to Computer Security Log Management, September 2006, accessed 23 September 2026
- CISA, Guidance for SIEM and SOAR Implementation, 27 May 2025, accessed 23 September 2026
- Splunk, Splunk pricing models, accessed 23 September 2026
- Splunk, Store expired Splunk Cloud Platform data in a Splunk-managed archive, Splunk Cloud Platform Admin Manual 10.5.2605, accessed 23 September 2026
- Splunk, Splunk Enterprise Security, accessed 23 September 2026
- Microsoft Learn, Plan costs and understand pricing and billing for Microsoft Sentinel, updated 1 April 2026, accessed 23 September 2026
- Microsoft Learn, Use the SIEM Migration Experience, updated 1 July 2026, accessed 23 September 2026
- Google Cloud, Google SecOps packages overview, last updated 22 September 2026, accessed 23 September 2026
- Google Cloud, Configure SIEM data retention, last updated 22 September 2026, accessed 23 September 2026
- Elastic, Elastic Security serverless pricing, accessed 23 September 2026
- Elastic, Automatic Migration, accessed 23 September 2026
- CrowdStrike, Falcon Next-Gen SIEM, accessed 23 September 2026
- CrowdStrike, Falcon LogScale, accessed 23 September 2026
- Sumo Logic, Sumo Logic pricing, accessed 23 September 2026
- Sumo Logic, Cloud SIEM, accessed 23 September 2026
- Rapid7, Incident Command packages, accessed 23 September 2026
- AV-Comparatives, Business Security Test 2024 (March - June), accessed 23 September 2026
How SenseOn writes, checks and corrects its content: editorial standards.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Splunk alternative for a security team?
It depends on what you already own. Microsoft 365 E5 estates often start with Microsoft Sentinel. Teams that want long retention included in the price look at Google Security Operations. Teams that want to self-host or pay per GB at low rates look at Elastic Security. Falcon customers look at CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen SIEM. Teams that want to pay for outcomes rather than for data volume alone, and would rather not rebuild every SPL detection, look at SenseOn, which runs alongside Splunk while you compare.
Is there a free alternative to Splunk Enterprise Security?
Not a like-for-like one. Elastic Security has a free trial and a self-managed option, and Microsoft Sentinel gives new workspaces 10 GB a day free for 31 days. Every option in this guide has paid tiers for production security use.
Can I migrate Splunk detection rules automatically?
Partly. Microsoft Sentinel has a SIEM migration experience that analyses exported Splunk detections and recommends matching Sentinel and Defender XDR detections. Elastic Security has Automatic Migration, which translates Splunk rules and dashboards to Elastic using an LLM connector; it is generally available from Elastic Stack 9.4. Both still need a person to review each rule.
Are observability tools good Splunk alternatives?
For metrics and application monitoring, they can be. For security operations they are a different purchase: a SIEM needs detection content, case management, threat intelligence and audit-grade retention. SenseOn covers log search as well as security: it searches and visualises any log, and runs detection and response on the log sources you route to Detection & Response.
How long does it take to move off Splunk?
Plan in phases rather than a single cutover. Inventory sources and detections, run the new platform in parallel, prove detection parity on your own data, then retire Splunk sources one group at a time. Keep Splunk until your retention obligations are met or the data is archived elsewhere.
