If you ever used the licensed splunk you'd know it's licensed by the amount of data you log. Once you convert from free license to paid the price adds up quickly! SEM is node based in price and that has big advantages if you log enough data. The other big plus is out of the box functionality. These days auditing log data is a necessity and in some industries you can be literally cut off if you don't pass an audit... having an ATO (authority to operate) taken away comes to mind. Getting SEM running is much easier and requires less infrastructure than Splunk as well. Does anyone else use both and compare features and price?
Bill