SIEM Tools Compared (2026): Prices and Who Each Fits

Not every product on the market. Links go to each vendor’s official site unless marked as partner links. How we rank Not ranked: CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen SIEM (quote only); Exabeam (New-Scale SIEM, LogRhythm SIEM) (quote only); Google Security Operations (quote only); IBM QRadar SIEM (quote only); Rapid7 Incident Command (quote only); Splunk Enterprise Security (quote only); Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM (quote only).

None of these vendors pays us, so no ranking here reflects a commission.

How we ranked these SIEM tools

We ranked the 12 SIEM tools by estimated monthly cost for one reference company: 50 employees, about 10 GB of logs a day (300 GB a month), 20 log sources and one month of log history, bought through an MSP where the vendor sells that way. Each figure is our sums of published prices from the vendor’s own pricing page, checked October 24, 2026: the vendor’s price per GB, per log source or per employee, multiplied by the reference company’s volume. For Elastic we added one month of storage for that month’s logs, because Elastic bills storage separately. Tools without a published price come last, A–Z, and we didn’t estimate them.

The 12 SIEM tools

The five tools with published prices come first, in rank order, then the seven quote-only tools A–Z.

Elastic Security

Elastic Security on Elastic’s serverless cloud is the cheapest published option for our reference company, at $32.10 a month. Elastic charges “as low as” $0.09 per GB ingested and $1.70 per 100 GB stored each month on the Security Analytics Essentials tier; the Complete tier, with behavior analytics and an AI assistant, costs $0.11 per GB and $1.90 per 100 GB. Elastic dropped per-endpoint fees on March 23, 2026. Skip it if nobody can write and tune detection rules: storage costs also climb as your log history grows: with a year of logs stored, Elastic costs $88.20 a month in total, more than Huntress via an MSP.

Huntress Managed SIEM

Huntress Managed SIEM costs $4 per log source per month at MSRP, or $80 a month for our 20 sources, with storage pooled across all of them. Huntress is channel-first: MSPs buy with no minimum, while resellers and direct buyers commit to 50 sources ($200 a month) for 12 months. Our full Huntress price list covers its other managed products. Best for a company whose MSP already resells Huntress. Skip it if you want to run detections in-house on your own rules.

Blumira

Blumira prices per employee: $12 a month on Detect, $16 on Respond and $21 on Automate, all on annual contracts with unlimited log ingestion and one year of history. For 50 employees, Detect costs $600 a month. Detect support runs 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern; 24/7 SOC help for security incidents starts on Respond, at $800 a month for 50 employees. Best for a small IT team that wants a predictable bill.

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel charges $4.30 per GB on pay-as-you-go in Microsoft’s East US price table, or $1,290 a month at our 300 GB. Commitment tiers from 100 GB a day save up to 52%, a smaller 50 GB-a-day tier has promotional pricing until December 31, 2026, and Microsoft offers up to 5 MB of free ingestion per user per day for key security logs. Best for companies already on Microsoft 365 and Azure. Skip it if your log volume is unpredictable, because every extra GB is billed.

Datadog Cloud SIEM

Datadog Cloud SIEM starts at $5 per GB analyzed per month on annual billing, or $7.50 on demand, and includes 12 months of searchable history. At our 300 GB that is $1,500 a month, the highest of the five published prices. Datadog lists more than 800 detection rules out of the box. Best for engineering-led companies that already use Datadog monitoring. Skip it if you aren’t on Datadog already.

CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen SIEM

CrowdStrike publishes no price for Falcon Next-Gen SIEM; it isn’t part of the Falcon Go, Pro or Enterprise bundles. CrowdStrike says data from Falcon modules you already license comes into the SIEM “without additional ingestion charges”. Best for companies standardized on CrowdStrike endpoints.

Exabeam

Exabeam sells two lines, the cloud New-Scale SIEM and the self-hosted LogRhythm SIEM, and publishes no prices for either; you request a demo. Best for teams that want a self-hosted SIEM option.

Google Security Operations

Google Security Operations combines SIEM, SOAR (automated response playbooks) and threat intelligence in three packages, Standard, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus, all “contact sales for pricing”. Pricing is based on data ingestion and includes 12 months of hot data retention. Best for teams that want SIEM and automated response in one product.

IBM QRadar SIEM

IBM QRadar SIEM is licensed by events per second and flows per minute, or by managed virtual servers, and IBM shows no list price. The pricing page covers on-premises software and managed services. Best for organizations that need to keep a SIEM on their own hardware.

Rapid7 Incident Command

Rapid7 sells its SIEM as Incident Command in three packages, Essential, Advanced and Ultimate, on what it calls asset-based pricing, with no published dollar figures. Best for companies already using Rapid7 vulnerability management.

Splunk Enterprise Security

Splunk Enterprise Security is a SIEM sold on activity-based, workload or ingest pricing, all by quote. Cisco completed its acquisition of Splunk on March 18, 2024, and Splunk weights eligible Cisco telemetry at half its ingest volume. Best for large teams with dedicated Splunk administrators.

Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM

Sumo Logic sells Cloud SIEM in its Enterprise Suite through sales, with credit-based licensing and SIEM features that need minimum volume commitments. Best for cloud-first companies that also want log analytics for engineering.

What does a SIEM cost?

A SIEM costs whatever its pricing unit times your volume comes to, so the same company can pay $32.10 or $1,500 a month depending on the tool. The four units you’ll see:

• Per GB of logs (Sentinel, Datadog, Elastic): cheapest when you send little data, expensive when a firewall floods you with logs.
• Per log source (Huntress): predictable if you know how many systems you’ll connect.
• Per employee (Blumira): predictable as you add log sources; grows with headcount.
• Per asset or events per second (Rapid7, QRadar): usually quoted.

Before you buy, count your log sources (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, firewall, servers) and ask each vendor what a day of your logs weighs in GB.

Free and open-source SIEM tools

Free SIEM software exists, but you pay in servers and staff time instead of licenses.

• Wazuh calls itself “unified XDR and SIEM protection” and is free and open source (mostly GPL version 2, with parts under AGPL version 3). Wazuh Cloud is the paid hosted version, with no published price.
• Security Onion describes itself as a free and open platform for threat hunting, network security monitoring and log management; a paid Pro edition exists.
• Graylog Open is free under the Server Side Public License (SSPL), a source-available license rather than a classic open-source one; Graylog Security is the paid SIEM.

Managed SIEM vs running your own

A managed SIEM puts an outside team on your alerts; a self-run SIEM needs someone on your staff to tune detections and answer alerts every day. Huntress Managed SIEM and Blumira’s Respond and Automate plans include round-the-clock security help, while Sentinel, Datadog and Elastic leave the watching to you. If you’d rather hand over endpoint and log monitoring together, compare MSSPs that co-manage a SIEM and publish their terms.

How to choose a SIEM tool

Five checks narrow the list quickly:

1. Your log sources. Make sure the tool has ready-made connectors for what you run; Google Security Operations lists 700+ parsers and Datadog 800+ detection rules.
2. Retention you need. PCI DSS requires 12 months of audit log history with three months immediately available (requirement 10.5.1), and daily review of security event logs with automated tools (10.4.1 and 10.4.1.1). Healthcare and defense suppliers have their own logging rules; see HIPAA compliance tools and our CMMC Level 2 guide.
3. Pricing unit vs your volume. Per-GB pricing rewards low log volume; per-employee pricing rewards many log sources.
4. Who watches it. No security staff means a managed option.
5. Detections out of the box. Ask how many rules come enabled and who keeps them current.