Splunk
Tenable
| Feature | Splunk | Tenable |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Contact sales | Free / from $3990/mo |
| Free Plan | ✗ No | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.3 / 5 | 4.3 / 5 |
| Best For | enterprise, security-teams, devops-engineers, data-analysts | security-teams, compliance-officers, it-operations, vulnerability-managers |
| Founded | 2003 | 2002 |
| Log Analysis | ✓ | ✗ |
| Real Time Monitoring | ✓ | ✗ |
| Dashboards | ✓ | ✗ |
| Alerting | ✓ | ✗ |
| Machine Learning | ✓ | ✗ |
| Siem | ✓ | ✗ |
| Vulnerability Scanning | ✗ | ✓ |
| Asset Discovery | ✗ | ✓ |
| Risk Prioritization | ✗ | ✓ |
| Compliance Reporting | ✗ | ✓ |
| Web App Scanning | ✗ | ✓ |
| Cloud Security | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Splunk Pros
- Powerful search capabilities
- Real-time monitoring
- Extensive app ecosystem
- Enterprise-grade
✗ Splunk Cons
- Very expensive
- Complex pricing
- Resource-intensive
✓ Tenable Pros
- Comprehensive vulnerability coverage
- Excellent asset discovery
- Good risk prioritization
- Strong compliance reporting
✗ Tenable Cons
- Expensive for large environments
- Complex initial setup
- Scanning can impact performance
The Verdict
Splunk is built for enterprise and security teams, with a focus on log-analysis and real-time-monitoring. Tenable targets security teams and compliance officers and leads with vulnerability-scanning and asset-discovery.
Splunk uses custom enterprise pricing, while Tenable starts at $3990/mo — a tangible advantage for teams with a fixed budget.
Tenable has a free plan, which gives it a meaningful edge for individuals and small teams exploring their options. Splunk requires a paid subscription from day one.
Both tools are a solid fit for security teams — in those cases, the decision often comes down to workflow style and how your team prefers to organize work.
This is a genuinely close comparison. If you can, sign up for both free trials (where available) and run a one-week test with your actual team tasks before deciding.