When comparing SolarWinds Log & Event Manager vs Timber, the Slant community recommends Timber for most people. In the question“What are the best log management, aggregation & monitoring tools?” Timber is ranked 17th while SolarWinds Log & Event Manager is ranked 38th. The most important reason people chose Timber is:
The Timber interface stands out in the space: 1. It's beautiful, easy, and modern. 2. It's fast. It uses advanced front-end technologies to maximize performance and usability (react, redux, etc).
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Has custom search for in-depth log analysis
The in-depth, custom search helps you search by IP addresses, user names, etc, enabling faster root cause analysis when troubleshooting network, system, application and database issues.
Pro Peripheral security for enhanced visibility into malicious activities
All-in-one security solution that includes file integrity monitoring (zero-day malware& APT detection), SQL Auditor and USB detection
Pro Active response to detect and respond to threats in real-time
Automated response to events, like deleting user account, sending warning messages, kill processes, log off user, adding user to privileged account groups, etc
Pro Reduced costs with straight-forward licensing
Licensed by nodes (not log volume). No add-on purchases, DBA or expensive consultant support required. Extensive number of free connectors. Reduces SIEM management, training and operational overhead for resource-sensitive security departments.
Pro Automated industry-standard rules and reports to meet compliance and audit requirements
Demonstrate compliance and meet audit requirements with out of the box compliance reports for HIPAA, SOX, PCI DSS, DISA STIG and many more. Beyond SIEM monitoring and remediation capabilities, Log & Event Manager includes stronger security and broader compliance capabilities – like, SQL Auditor, File Integrity Monitoring, Active Response and USB Defender.
Pro Intuitive interface
Graphical Web UI with easy to read customizable dashboards, and search functionality to find the right information among thousands of logs. Log data and events are represented in bar graphs, with respect to time, and you can easily drill down to the specific system or node that's generating excessive or suspicious traffic.
Pro Centralized threat detection improves security incident awareness
Real-time, in-memory event correlations, based on built-in and custom rules, for instantaneous detection of unauthorized application/user-activity, database, configuration changes and suspicious network traffic
Pro Beautiful, modern, easy interface
The Timber interface stands out in the space:
- It's beautiful, easy, and modern.
- It's fast. It uses advanced front-end technologies to maximize performance and usability (react, redux, etc).
Pro Great search
Timber offers a really great simple search, with a support for advanced features like: term negation, condition grouping (parenthesis), regex, field searches and conditions, etc.
Pro SQL query your logs (w/ join support)
Timber allows you to SQL query your logs just like you would a traditional database. The JOIN support is very powerful.
Pro Six month searchable retention
The retention Timber offers is exceptionally longer. The default is generally 2 - 4 weeks, Timber offers 6 months.
Pro Real-time graphing
Because Timber fully embraces structured data, graphing is simple, real time, and fast. They provide a number of aggregates you can graph on.
Pro Automatic context & structured data
Timber provides native libraries that automatically attach metadata to your logs. They've designed a schema that defines events and context, which normalizes the data and makes querying, alerting, and graphing simple and reliable.
Pro Easy installation
Timber can be installed in < 1 min and usually with a single command. It asks your for your application details and provides 1 set of simple instructions.
Pro Simple pricing and plans. No feature matrices.
Besides the free plan, Timber doesn't impose limits on the number of users, alerts, etc. It's entirely based on the amount of data allowed for the plan. It's refreshingly straightforward.
Pro Real-time alerts with thresholds
The alerts are real-time and the approach is thoughtful. Instead of blasting you with alerts every time it's triggered, they change the state of the alert once, notify you once, and then notify you again when the alert is no longer an issue.
Pro Excellent documentation
Timber's docs are detailed and thoughtful, both for the service as well as the libraries they offer.
Pro No rate limiting
Beyond the space your plan is allowed to use, there is no rate limiting.
Pro Logs show up quickly
Logs show up < 3 seconds of when they are generated
Cons
Con Linux agent don't manage to read logs
Linux agent made do not manage to read system logs which are in the default format which LEM is supposed to manage and also the installer seems to mess up the system during install as it assumes you are using a sysv like init system.
Con Bad UI
UI is confusing and difficult to find the information from the logs which you are looking for
Con Windows only
SolarWinds Log & Event Manager only works on Windows.
Con Not really a centralized log management tool
It only takes in events from specified "apps", not all unstructured data. And, if you select "other" (apps), it just says:
Bummer! We don't support apps of this type yet.