--- title: SolarWinds Security Event Manager Reviews meta_title: 'SolarWinds Security Event Manager Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 76 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how SolarWinds Security Event Manager works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.0 review_count: 76 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-07-17' parent_category: name: System Security url: https://www.g2.com/categories/system-security --- # SolarWinds Security Event Manager Reviews **Vendor:** SolarWinds Worldwide LLC **Category:** [Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/security-information-and-event-management-siem) **Average Rating:** 4.0/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 76 ## About SolarWinds Security Event Manager Security Event Manager (SEM) is a powerful, real-time Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution designed to act as a virtual Security Operations Center (SOC). It provides active monitoring and automated threat detection across multi-vendor network devices, servers, workstations, and applications. SEM is delivered as a downloadable virtual appliance for rapid deployment, and allows IT teams to centralize log data and enable real-time event correlation right out of the box. SEM goes beyond simple alerting by offering automated remediation actions. When suspicious behavior is detected, the platform can automatically block malicious IPs, disable compromised user accounts, kill unauthorized applications, or detach unmanaged USB devices via its integrated USB Defender. This immediate response capability significantly reduces the window of vulnerability during a cyber-attack. To ensure deep visibility, SEM features built-in File Integrity Monitoring (FIM), allowing you to track sensitive file changes, deletions, and registry modifications. The platform also streamlines audit preparation with hundreds of pre-built, out-of-the-box compliance reports for major regulatory frameworks, including HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOX, ISO, DISA STIGs, and FISMA. With its intuitive text-based searching and integrated threat intelligence feed, SEM normalizes disparate log data into a readable format. This enables faster forensic analysis and historical searching, helping your team identify patterns from known bad actors and strengthen your overall security posture. Whether you are managing internal threats or external breaches, SolarWinds SEM provides the essential tools to detect, respond, and report with confidence. For organizations seeking tailored security control, SEM is highly effective as a standalone SIEM tool, providing dedicated log management and incident response. However, for those looking to eliminate silos between security and IT operations, SEM can also function as a core component of SolarWinds Observability. ## SolarWinds Security Event Manager Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users value the **high detection efficiency** of SolarWinds Security Event Manager, finding it easy to monitor and manage. (1 reviews) - Users find the **ease of use** for admins particularly beneficial, especially when adding devices effortlessly. (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **licensing complexity** of SolarWinds Security Event Manager to be a significant drawback in usability. (1 reviews) - Users find **poor customer support** frustrating, especially due to limited expert assistance and ineffective online help. (1 reviews) ## SolarWinds Security Event Manager Reviews ### 1. Decent software but really hard to find any assistance and has gone downhill **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Manisha P. | Software Developer & Outreach Director, Renewables & Environment, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 12, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Five years ago they used to allow a free demo which made the pricing to be easier to understand. On the product end, there is ease of management. Ease of Alerts/alert suppression within SAM and NPM. NTA mapping of whole environment makes a huge difference in scalability. Lots of documentation tools and resources. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Initially I was frustrated that their support people have only a basic idea of how the product works but now its hard to even reach assistance and although their website continues to acknowledge their flaws, not many steps have been taken to rectify them. Also a bit pricey. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Security Event Manager:** Switch to PRTG or OpManager. Wait until Solarwinds is back to focusing on growing its customer base with better service. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** We used Solarwinds for database and systems management. Benefits were that documentation, upgrades, and scaling became a lot easier. We did venture towards IT support but that was not as well handled. ### 2. SolarWinds - The power of the sun **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Financial Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 13, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** From my perspective I really like the ease of use and how it fits in so well with other SolarWinds products. It makes monitoring our systems that much easier **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Not much, the product like most of SolarWinds products has been well thought out and meshes well with most systems. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use the event manager and log to track issues that occur primarily within our network, but we have found use for it in other areas like watching our hosts and virtual environment. ### 3. Solarwinds is an amazing product with a lot of features that can help any organization.. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Warehousing | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 13, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** I love the itemized view of everything on SolarWinds. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** The slowness at times can be hard to track real time events in SolarWinds. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are able to see what networking equipment is down and how long it has been down for remotely. ### 4. Absolutely Fantastic! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Government Administration | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 03, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Solarwinds Log and Event manager is a great tool to help monitor all of our connections and is a great SIEM tool. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Solarwinds LEM is difficult to set up properly and has a great deal of reports to customize exactly what you need to review **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Security Event Manager:** Take your time to customize your reports **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** LEM helps us monitor traffic to distinguish potential threats to our systems and networks ### 5. Setup and management **Rating:** 2.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Retail | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 15, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Installation of the node is easy and works quickly **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Hard to get useful insights, requires extensive creation of rules. There was excessive need to learn in depth functions of the product. Not easy to set up long term. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Security Event Manager:** Just go spend more money on another product. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Provides security and event management to help manage IT Security incidents and change management ### 6. Solarwinds Log ad Event Manager **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 23, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** I've been using SW log and event manager for quite some time now. I really like the features it offers especially the following compliance reporting Real-time event correlation Real-time remediation Advanced search and forensic analysis and File integrity monitoring/USB device monitoring **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** The software meets all my demands. Would appreciate more feature set in the future. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Realtime forensic analysis assists with new threats an vulnerabilities we see everyday now. ### 7. Solarwinds - Montoring all devices on one simple platform. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 30, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Monitoring tools on one simple platform. Provide instant alert to email and user. SNMP works great on many plateform including cisco switches, routers, as well as servers. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Setting up custom MIBs is very difficult. Hard to tune false alert alarming. Need to better streamline alerts. Resolved alerts do not populate quickly leading to false alerts. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Provide quick response to down equipment and alerting methods. ### 8. REVIEW ON SOLARWINDS **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mehdi T. | Senior ETL Developer, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 12, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Extreme modularity and its flexible ability to integrate with other products of the company's. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** one of the biggest disadvantage with creating topological maps created automatically during the process of discovery. This fails to support a graphical visualization of the ISO/OSI levels of conection between the equipment. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Security Event Manager:** Scalability, user intuitive, easy to install and not very high on costs. I would recommend it. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Solarwinds is very simple and intuitive user interface. For example, the dashboard for each piece of equipment. Scalability was one of the biggest concerns in our business. and solarwinds offers a solution to that. It offers scalability on infrastructure at all levels, starting with the easy installation of additional polling engines to increase the number of managed devices. ### 9. Solar winds **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 08, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Great product for monitoring my environment **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** The searches can be clunky and the query results can be slow. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Monitoring and real time Analytics ### 10. Great for meeting requirements **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 16, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** I found it to be pretty easy to configure and to search through to find the information you need from the logs. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** I had an issue getting one Linux system connected to it via rsyslog, but installing the client resolved that issue **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Provides centralized log management, and searchability. ### 11. Director, IT Risk and Compliance **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Victor H. | Business Owner, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 18, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Allowing me to see change control information for the devices **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Limited ability to add custom events for different types of regulatory requirements **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** IT compliance with government regulations ### 12. Using Solarwinds **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shalisha H. | Founder & Senior Repair Technician, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 21, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** It provides a large variety of resources on the main dashboard. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** I have no true dislikes, works well for me and my organization. The summary page provides most of the information. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Network connectivity issue's and locating devices/users by IP address. ### 13. Not terribly useful or int **Rating:** 2.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Scott D. | Director of IT, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 28, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Well... it does collect logs, so it has that going for it **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Agents don’t work in a consistent manner. Management is not intuitive. Data analysis options are poor **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Yeah, not solving that much ### 14. Quite average **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 23, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Detail of alerting is specific but concise **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** How manual customisation is, lots of alerting hardware side you can’t disable **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Proactive alerting of issues ### 15. Solarwinds LEM **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Food Production | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 16, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** I like the simplicity of the LEM running on a Unix console. Updates are very easy to apply to the console and then pushing them out to the client via the GUI is very easily accomplished. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** So far I have not found any dislikes, other then I would like the hardware based version and not the virtual version. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use this primary to stop the use of non-authorized USB devices. ### 16. Worth paying for the enterprise edition **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Telecommunications | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 12, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Customer Service. The product became so popular to us as we could fix everything very quickly with the support **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** It is little too pricey is what I think. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Network administration. Easy to troubleshoot than ever ### 17. This review is about Solarwinds SIEM. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 05, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** I like best about Solarwinds SIEM is that it is very quite flexible. Solarwinds SIEM has the ability to monitor servers. Solarwinds SIEM has the ability to keep you, your group, and your organization informed of specified servers that you choose to monitor within the corporation. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** At this time, I cannot find any dislikes about Solarwinds SIEM. I am only a user of Solarwinds SIEM and I have not personally implemented the solution, so I cannot provide any information on any hardships that might have been faced when installing the application in our environment. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Security Event Manager:** My recommendations to others considering Solarwinds SIEM is what I had previously suggested. I think there are some good features that it is able to offer, but unfortunately, I have not completely and entirely explored the software and application in its full. That being said, what I have used it for though is what I would recommend. I believe that for our usage at my organization with Solarwinds SIEM it has met some of our needs because it has the ability to actively monitor our hardware. However, I am certain that there is a huge part of the software that I have not yet explored as well, so I cannot comment on that. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** The business problems that we are solving with Solarwinds SIEM is being able to provide real-time support and proactively monitor crucial and critical processes that might affect a Production system and environment. By being able to monitor the health of these Production servers, Solarwinds SIEM will allow us to quickly identify any potential issue with specified processes. ### 18. Great log and event manager **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 22, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** SolarWinds is a great log/event manager that does everything is promises. It makes viewing event information very easy. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Honestly, I cannot think of anything that I dislike about it. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** With SolarWinds, I can see what resources are being used where. ### 19. It does it's job **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 11, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** It's easy to re-assign tickets, and easy to respond to users. The interface is clean and provides means of changing the ticket categories as needed. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** I don't dislike anything that is in the creator's power. It'd be nice if it auto-closed tickets. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Security Event Manager:** It's a decent product. I don't know what else is out there, but it does the job. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Any computer issues that come up and network issues have tickets put in for repair. It helps keep a record of what was done or who still needs help. ### 20. I use Solarwinds multiple times everyday **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Stephen D. | Systems Administrator, Religious Institutions, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 05, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** It puts all of the tools that I need in one easy to access place. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** The reporting could be a little more robust. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Monitoring and management of all our network devices ### 21. Beginner to solarwinds , Blew my mind **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 23, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Solarwinds is supercool. The way it merges everything in one place for network monitoring is cool **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** It is not the easiest tool to configure and use. Requires special skills and training. Also very few people know it exists in back. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Network monitoring, Network Assurance ### 22. User Experience with SolarWinds **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Naga V. | Head of Enterprise Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 12, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Web, Application Server and URL monitoring **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Application functionality monitoring is not a strong point **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Application availability and NOC monitoring ### 23. Very nice monitor **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Aviation & Aerospace | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 30, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Help us a lot to monitor any problem on our Smarteam server around the World. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** I think there is nothing I dislike for now **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** On time resolution for Smarteam services. ### 24. Great System to Track Wifi Points **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Real Estate | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 28, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** Easy to use and great to see different areas and types of points that we have mapped **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** nothing super easy to use and understand **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Security Event Manager:** easy to use and great for wifi checkpoints tracking **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Wifi checkpoints and strengths ### 25. It was easy to install, but the configuration needed vendor involvement **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Food & Beverages | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 05, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** The GUI is nice. Easy to navigate features. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** The difficulty configuring and understanding all the settings. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** The ability to easily monitor the issues we had with security such as USB devices. ### 26. Insight into important details! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 05, 2016 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** What I like about solarwinds SEIM is the ability to efficiently track down events and possible issues. Either security or leaks. It's great. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Security Event Manager?** It's tedious setting up the environment to report to solarwinds seim but once done, it works and it works well. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Security Event Manager:** MAke sure you have a great team that can make the changes on our end gear so the devices correctly report to the solarwinds seim. **What problems is SolarWinds Security Event Manager solving and how is that benefiting you?** Securing the infrastructure we hold ## SolarWinds Security Event Manager Discussions - [What is Access rights Manager?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-access-rights-manager) - 1 comment - [View SolarWinds Security Event Manager pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/solarwinds-security-event-manager/reviews?page=2§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-07-22+12%3A55%3A55+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=e80d6e58-8ec9-4dc0-9303-a2aa481c88e8&secure%5Btoken%5D=e31fc647ecdab1635b6dfcc2a6b1a71be5bc22bbe0b289d1ba1a64552f1b54c1&format=llm_user) ## SolarWinds Security Event Manager Features **User Maintenance** - Bi-directional Identity Synchronization **Network Management** - Activity Monitoring - Asset Management - Log Management **Governance** - Identifies and Alerts for Threats - Compliance Audits **Incident Management** - Event Management - Automated Response - Incident Reporting **Administration** - Reporting **Security Intelligence** - Threat Intelligence - Vulnerability Assessment - Advanced Analytics - Data Examination ## Top SolarWinds Security Event Manager Alternatives - [IBM QRadar SIEM](https://www.g2.com/products/ibm-ibm-qradar-siem/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (282 reviews) - [Splunk Enterprise Security](https://www.g2.com/products/splunk-enterprise-security/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (223 reviews) - [Datadog](https://www.g2.com/products/datadog/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (715 reviews)