Sumo Logic vs Splunk

The process of reviewing, interpreting, and understanding computer-generated records is log analysis. The tools of log analysis collect, parse, and analyze the data written to log files. Both Sumo Logic and Splunk are the tools, that are a great option for data log analysis. Sumo Logic is a cloud-only platform that offers services in the SAAS model, while Splunk follows the on-premises deployment model. Though they both are tools for the same category they differ in various aspects. Let us see on what points they differ.

What is Sumo Logic?

This company was based on cloud machine data analytics that focuses on security and operations. It was founded in 2010 and its headquarters is in Redwood City, California, United States. It provides dashboards that is customizable and is used to display security metrics and data performance. It takes machine-generated data and transforms it into the form of charts, and tables.

Key Features

1. Machine learning and advanced analytics.
2. Cloud-native, distributed architecture
3. Integrated log analytics platform
4. Tiered analytics and credit licensing 

Advantages

1. It enables one to create security alerts when data reaches a certain level to notify the threats.
2. The users are given full access to a centralized data management login.
3. It lets you create customized reports and feeds.

Disadvantages

1. It has a steep learning curve.
2. Sometimes, it becomes quite complex to set up. Also, quite expensive to use.
3. It places events that are not in human-readable form.
4. Sumo Logic is quite slow in speed as compared with other tools.

What is Splunk?

Splunk is one of the software of American origin that helps in searching, monitoring, and analyzing machine-generated data. Also, it generates visualizations, dashboards, alerts, reports, and graphs. It uses a web-style interface that lets you edit or add new components to the dashboard. This software is used to monitor and search through large volumes of data. It provides solutions that deliver unified security and observability.

Key Features

1. Data visualization
2. Performance metrics
3. Real-Time Search
4. Reporting and Monitoring

Advantages

1. Documentation is easily provided.
2. Debugging is available and scalable.
3. It is easy to implement and quite fast as compared to Kibana.

Disadvantages

1. It is licensed and thus charged for use and quite expensive.
2. It has a complex setup.
3. It is less interactive as its User Interface is not quite friendly.

Difference between Sumo Logic and Splunk

	Sumo Logic	Splunk
Target Audience	It targets the small and medium-sized organization	It targets log management and data analytics space
Search Mechanism	It has limited functionalities in Search operations.	It uses Splunk processing language (SPL) which allows customers to add queries, manipulate the data, and then perform a conditional search.
Platform	It is a cloud-only platform that offers services in the SaaS model.	It follows the on-premises deployment model.
Apps	It has a limited number of apps.	It has its own app store named as Splunkbase which has more than 600 applications and plugins.
Scalability	It handles lower levels of users. Thus, it has limited scalability.	It has high scalability in handling log data because of its big data management capability.
Expenses	It is a cost-effective solution.	It is quite an expensive platform.
Participation	This lacks in community participation when compared with Splunk.	It has strong community participation.
APIs	It has extensive API support.	It has limited API functionality.
Data Storage	In Sumo Logic, aggregated data is stored.	The storage is depleted at a high rate as the raw data is also stored in the platform.
Focus	It focuses more on security.	It focuses more on application monitoring.
Integration	It provides integration in the cloud.	It does not offer integration in cloud version.

Conclusion

• Both tools have their own pros and cons.
• Sumo Logic is designed better for small or medium-level organizations whereas large organizations can opt for Splunk as it also has strong community support which is not present in the former category.
• It all depends on the user to choose which platform according to their needs and the requirement of an organization.