EDR solutions ensure an organization's endpoints are running properly by monitoring and troubleshooting tech on the network. Compare the top tools now.
EDR solutions ensure an organization's endpoints are running properly by monitoring and troubleshooting tech on the network. Compare the top tools now.
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User and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) tools help organizations identify and mitigate user-driven threats with greater accuracy by analyzing behavioral patterns across accounts, devices, and applications. Modern UEBA platforms establish behavior baselines, apply machine learning to detect anomalies, and often integrate threat intelligence to provide richer context when unusual activity occurs. Many solutions also include automated investigation or response workflows that help security teams act quickly.
If your organization is looking to strengthen detection of compromised insiders, credential misuse, and lateral movement, I’ve compiled a list of leading enterprise UEBA platforms designed to analyze behaviors across hybrid and multi-cloud environments and surface threats more efficiently.
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Exabeam– Best for cloud-native and advanced behavioral analytics
Overall Rating: 4.34/5
Pricing: 4.1/5
Core features: 4.6/5
Additional features: 4.4/5
Ease of use and administration: 4.0/5
Customer support: 4.6/5
Exabeam New-Scale is known for its mature UEBA capability and strong behavioral modeling engine. Its session-based analytics, automated timelines, and anomaly scoring give SOC teams deep visibility into risky patterns. New-Scale focuses on behavioral context rather than raw events and offers powerful detection models out of the box. For organizations that prioritize behavioral analytics above traditional SIEM correlation, Exabeam is often a top choice.
Risk-based alerting: Reduces alert fatigue by scoring and prioritizing behaviors.
Automated incident timelines: Visualizes user activity for rapid triage.
LogRhythm SIEM– Best for integrated SIEM + UEBA in on-premises deployments
Overall Rating: 4.18/5
Pricing: 4.2/5
Core features: 4.1/5
Additional features: 4.0/5
Ease of use and administration: 4.0/5
Customer support: 4.6/5
LogRhythm provides a unified SIEM, SOAR, and UEBA experience with strong analytics built into its core engine. Its UEBA features, like user modeling and anomaly detection, help identify risky activity early. LogRhythm’s dashboards and correlation rules make it a solid fit for mid-market and enterprise teams needing a single-stack security platform.
Threat lifecycle management: Guides analysts through detect-investigate-respond workflows.
User and entity behavior modeling: Detects behavioral deviations and privilege misuse.
Pre-built correlation rules: Helps with faster incident setup and detection tuning.
Integrated case management: Tracks investigations in one place.
Splunk Enterprise– Best for scalable, customizable UEBA detection
Overall Rating: 4.04/5
Pricing: 3.5/5
Core features: 4.4/5
Additional features: 4.5/5
Ease of use and administration: 3.8/5
Customer support: 4.0/5
Splunk Enterprise delivers a flexible SIEM with UEBA functionality through Splunk User Behavior Analytics. The platform excels in large-scale data ingestion and allows extensive customization for advanced security teams. Splunk’s ML models and correlation searches support deep behavioral detection, making it ideal for organizations with mature SOC processes and high data throughput.
Requires experienced administrators to tune effectively
Can be resource-intensive to deploy and maintain at scale
Usage-based pricing depending on data ingestion
Optional UBA module priced separately
Free trial available
Machine-learning anomaly models: Detect insider threats and lateral movement.
Deep ingestion capabilities: Handles diverse logs and unstructured data.
Behavior-based threat detection: Identifies suspicious user sessions and account misuse.
Extensive marketplace content: Thousands of integrations and detection packs.
IBM QRadar– Best for compliance-driven security environments
Overall Rating: 4.0/5
Pricing: 4.0/5
Core features: 4.1/5
Additional features: 3.9/5
Ease of use and administration: 3.8/5
Customer support: 4.2/5
IBM QRadar is a well-established SIEM solution that provides UEBA through QRadar User Behavior Analytics. It combines strong correlation rules with behavioral modeling, helping large organizations detect insider threats and unusual account activity. QRadar is popular in highly regulated industries due to its compliance and audit capabilities.
Longer implementation cycles compared to more modern, cloud-native platforms
Tiered licensing based on events per second and data volume
UBA module is an add-on
Free community edition available
Behavioral baseline modeling: Detects deviations from normal user activity.
Correlation-driven detection: Fuses rules and analytics for accurate alerts.
Incident forensics: Provides deep packet analysis for investigation.
Compliance templates: Streamlines reporting for regulated sectors.
Microsoft Sentinel– Best for Azure ecosystems
Overall Rating: 4.24/5
Pricing: 4.8/5
Core features: 4.3/5
Additional features: 4.2/5
Ease of use and administration: 4.0/5
Customer support: 3.9/5
Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native SIEM that delivers strong UEBA capabilities, including incident prioritization, peer grouping, and user activity timelines. Sentinel excels at providing broad security coverage across hybrid and multi-cloud environments and integrates tightly with Microsoft Defender for extended detection and response. It’s a top choice for organizations heavily invested in Azure or Microsoft security ecosystems.
Strong option for Windows and Azure-based organizations
Cons
Limited deployment flexibility due to cloud-only model
Can generate high data ingestion costs in large environments
Pricing structure may be challenging for some teams
Pricing varies based on region and log type
Free trial available
Broad data collection: Ingests data from users, devices, apps, infrastructure, and multiple clouds.
Lateral movement tracking: Visualizes potential movement across systems when suspicious behavior occurs.
AI-driven investigation: Uses artificial intelligence to accelerate threat hunting and anomaly analysis.
No query limits: Cloud-native architecture avoids the restrictions common in on-prem querying tools.
Rapid7 InsightIDR– Best for fast deployment and out-of-the-box UEBA
Overall Rating: 4.18/5
Pricing: 4.3/5
Core features: 4.2/5
Additional features: 4.0/5
Ease of use and administration: 4.4/5
Customer support: 4.0/5
Rapid7 InsightIDR offers built-in UEBA alongside SIEM, making it easy for teams to deploy behavioral detection without heavy tuning. It excels in identifying compromised credentials, lateral movement, and risky user actions. InsightIDR’s dashboards and investigation workflows are highly intuitive, making it ideal for small to mid-sized SOCs.
ManageEngine Log360– Best budget-friendly UEBA + SIEM option
Overall Rating: 4.02/5
Pricing: 4.6/5
Core features: 3.9/5
Additional features: 3.7/5
Ease of use and administration: 3.9/5
Customer support: 4.0/5
ManageEngine Log360 provides cost-effective SIEM and UEBA in one suite. Its behavioral analytics help detect suspicious logins, privilege changes, and insider threats. Log360 is especially suited for mid-market organizations that need UEBA without enterprise-level cost. While not as advanced as premium vendors, it offers strong value for budget-conscious teams.
Limited scalability for larger or more complex enterprise environments
Per-user or per-server licensing
Transparent pricing through ManageEngine
Free trial available
Risk scoring: Prioritizes unusual activity with user risk indicators.
AD and log monitoring: Tracks suspicious account behavior.
Threat analytics dashboards: Highlights user deviations and anomalies.
Pre-built compliance reports: Supports HIPAA, GDPR, PCI DSS, and more.
Key Features of UEBA Tools
While UEBA capabilities are now often built into larger security platforms, several foundational capabilities remain consistent across the industry. Core UEBA features include behavior-centric analytics, anomaly detection, risk scoring, and context-rich monitoring of both users and entities.
Monitoring
In modern security infrastructures, networks, devices, applications, and accounts must be continually observed. UEBA tools monitor activity across these environments and flag deviations from typical patterns — not only based on static rules, but on learned baselines of normal behavior. This complements SIEM log collection by highlighting when people or systems behave in ways that don’t match historical norms.
Analytics
UEBA platforms apply machine learning and statistical modeling to establish behavior baselines for users, service accounts, and devices. Instead of focusing on the behavior of code (as an EDR tool would), UEBA evaluates human or entity behavior — logins, resource access, data movement, and privilege use. When behavior falls outside expected patterns, the system elevates the anomaly for review.
Alerts & Prioritization
UEBA solutions generate alerts when significant behavioral anomalies occur. Because these anomalies are evaluated against learned baselines over time, alerts are often more meaningful and context-rich. Many UEBA tools also apply risk scoring, allowing security teams to prioritize threats based on the likelihood that an account or asset is compromised.
User & Entity Management
UEBA continuously monitors user permissions and activity to determine whether actions align with expected roles. This reduces the risk of privilege abuse and helps surface compromised insiders—users who have unintentionally allowed an attacker access by clicking a phishing link or enabling macros on a malicious file. UEBA also evaluates entities like servers and laptops to detect anomalous device behavior that may require containment.
Advanced Threat Identification
When UEBA flags anomalies, it often classifies the threat type — such as lateral movement, credential misuse, or data exfiltration. In more advanced stacks where UEBA is combined with SIEM and EDR telemetry, AI-driven analysis can correlate the full attack chain, from phishing email to compromised endpoint to lateral movement attempts. This level of visibility far exceeds what any single tool (SIEM-only or EDR-only) can provide.
How I Evaluated the Best UEBA Solutions
To determine the top UEBA solutions, I created a scoring framework with weighted evaluation categories. Each category contained multiple subcriteria and was evaluated based on product research and real-world feature validation.
Evaluation Criteria
I evaluated each solution according to its behavioral analytics capabilities, platform usability, pricing, extended features, and support options.
Core features (30%): I evaluated features like log retention, incident prioritization, behavioral analytics depth, and integrations with directories such as Active Directory.
Criterion winner: Multiple winners
Ease of use and administration (25%): This category included capabilities that make a UEBA solution easier to use, such as intuitive investigation workflows, documentation, and administrative simplicity.
Additional features (15%): In this category, I considered role-based access controls, lateral movement detection, automated remediation, and extended security integrations.
Customer support (15%): I analyzed availability of support channels, demo access, and the option for enhanced technical engagement.
Criterion winner: Multiple winners
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What’s the Difference Between SIEM & UEBA?
SIEM and UEBA often work together, but they serve different roles:
SIEM aggregates and correlates logs from across the environment to form a complete narrative of activity. It can include UEBA-like features but traditionally focuses on centralized logging, rule-based alerts, and event correlation.
UEBA focuses specifically on the behavior of users and entities — how they log in, what they access, and how their actions differ from normal patterns.
Modern SIEM platforms increasingly embed UEBA engines, allowing behavioral analytics to run across all ingested log sources. When the two are combined, organizations gain full-context visibility into attacks such as compromised insiders who unknowingly execute malicious actions after a phishing event.
What’s the Difference Between UEBA & EDR?
UEBA and EDR analyze different aspects of security activity:
EDR focuses on the behavior of code and processes running on an endpoint. It uses heuristics to detect malicious actions such as unusual process trees, memory injections, or command execution.
UEBA focuses on the behavior of the user or entity — logins, resource access, privilege use, and movement across systems.
EDR shows what happened on the device. UEBA shows what the user (or attacker using the user’s identity) is doing across the entire environment.
When EDR telemetry is sent into a SIEM equipped with UEBA, organizations can see the entire attack story — from the phishing email that compromised a user, to the malicious macro they enabled, to the C2 connection and lateral movement attempts. XDR attempts to unify these perspectives but is often limited because it begins from an endpoint-centric view rather than a whole-enterprise view like a SIEM.
Why Do I Need a UEBA Tool?
If your organization has multiple users accessing corporate environments, UEBA provides essential visibility into how those users behave over time. Because user behavior is often unpredictable and can be exploited through social engineering, UEBA helps detect anomalies that traditional logging tools may miss.
UEBA also identifies patterns, not just isolated events. For example, if a user frequently exports large data sets or accesses unusual systems, UEBA elevates this as a potential risk — even if the actions appear valid on the surface.
Bottom Line: UEBA Helps You Understand Behavior and Risk More Deeply
UEBA solutions help organizations interpret complex user and asset behavior across their environment. As network and application data grow, human analysts cannot manually track patterns over time. UEBA takes on that burden, enabling SOC teams to focus on strategic defense rather than constant low-level monitoring.
UEBA isn’t a set-and-forget solution, but tuning it to your environment significantly improves detection accuracy. When combined with SIEM and EDR, UEBA contributes to a fully correlated view of threats, enabling early detection of compromised insiders, account misuse, and attacker lateral movement. It’s a long-term investment that strengthens an organization’s overall security posture by illuminating exactly how users and systems behave.
Ken Underhill is an award-winning cybersecurity professional, bestselling author, and seasoned IT professional. He holds a graduate degree in cybersecurity and information assurance from Western Governors University and brings years of hands-on experience to the field.
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