Navigating the Shifting Sands: My Take on the 2025 Gartner SIEM Magic Quadrant
The annual release of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) always sparks conversation, and the 2025 edition is no exception. As someone who has been somewhat involved in the SIEM MQ for almost a decade, I’ve had a chance to digest the report, and there are several shifts and subtleties that I believe are particularly noteworthy.
First, let’s talk about the titans. Microsoft and Splunk have firmly cemented their positions as the enterprise SIEM leaders. This consolidation at the top isn’t entirely surprising, given their extensive market penetration and robust offerings. What is impressive, however, is Splunk’s continued strength. I, like many, anticipated a more immediate impact from the Cisco acquisition. It seems the “stickiness” of SIEM, particularly for established players, is incredibly strong, allowing Splunk to maintain its leadership position despite the looming integration challenges.
The Slow Bleed of the Former Contenders
Further down the Leaders quadrant, we see Securonix and Exabeam, who appear to be slowly bleeding market differentiation. While still recognized as leaders by Gartner, their struggle to stand out in the broader SIEM space is becoming increasingly apparent. They seem to be gravitating back towards their roots as best-of-breed User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) providers. Joining them in this trend, after years of chasing the Leaders quadrant, is Gurucul. I expect to see these three fall out of the Leaders quadrant soon, as the major platform players continue to dominate market share with more comprehensive offerings. Evidence of that? Just check how these vendors have been positioning their products as add-ons to Splunk and Microsoft Sentinel.
The Ascending Challenger: Google
The most significant challenger to the established duopoly of Splunk and Microsoft, in my view, is Google. Their Security Operations stack is evolving, perhaps slowly, but with a beautiful roadmap and relentless execution. While data gravity remains a hurdle for Google to gain significant traction among Azure and AWS customers, the sheer volume of business within the GCP sphere provides ample fuel for the continuous evolution and refinement of their security products. Their progress here is definitely one to watch.
Other notable entries this year are Palo Alto Networks and Crowdstrike. Both have made their debut on the MQ, and I anticipate both will join the Leaders quadrant in the next year. They share a similar strategic advantage with Google: the ability to fuel their SIEM evolution by cross-selling to their extensive platform customer bases. This integrated approach, leveraging existing customer relationships, provides a powerful engine for growth and development in the SIEM space.
Absences and the “Line in the Sand”
However, the most interesting aspect of this year’s MQ, for me, lies in its absences. Firstly, ArcSight is finally gone, marking the end of an era for many. More importantly, the new crop of innovative SIEMs, such as Hunters, Panther, and Anvilogic, are still not present. This is primarily due to Gartner’s strict, business-metrics-based inclusion criteria.
It’s crucial to understand that their absence does not diminish their quality or potential. These criteria often serve as an arbitrary line in the sand, designed to manage the workload of the analysts producing the MQ. From a new business and growth perspective, many of these emerging players are outperforming established names like Securonix and Exabeam. It’s a pity we don’t get to see their progress reflected in this particular report. While Datadog managed to squeeze in, Databricks, another intriguing player, is still noticeably absent.
Beyond the Quadrant: A Call for a Modern Comparison
The Gartner Magic Quadrant (and its associated Critical Capabilities report) remains an invaluable resource for understanding the SIEM market at a high level. It offers a snapshot of market dynamics and vendor positioning. However, I believe we’re still missing a truly comprehensive SIEM comparison resource.
What I envision is a resource with a more modern set of requirements, a more rigorous claim validation process (the things vendors say they do…), and significantly less weight placed on factors such as the size of sales teams or the volume of marketing campaigns.
Will anyone step up to this challenge and provide the industry with the truly modern, in-depth SIEM comparison we need?
Great analysis on the SIEM landscape shifts! The observation about Securonix and Exabeam gravitating back to their UEBA roots is particularly insightful - it's a classic example of platform players squeezing out point solutions through bundling economics. Your prediction about PANW and CrowdStrike joining the Leaders quadrant makes sense given their massive install bases and cross-sell momentum. What I find most compelling is the emerging dynamic between Google's data gravity within GCP, Microsoft's Azure-native advantage, and the pure-play SIEM challengers. The point about missing innovators like Hunters, Panther, and Anvilogic highlights a fundemental problem with MQ inclusion criteria - these vendors are often solving modern SOC problems (cloud-native, code-first detection, collaborative investigation) better than the incumbents, but get excluded due to arbitrary revenue thresholds.