Frequently asked questions

Arden Security offers flat-rate SIEM pricing designed specifically for small and mid-size businesses. Unlike Splunk, QRadar, or Microsoft Sentinel which bill per GB of log ingestion, Arden charges a fixed monthly rate regardless of data volume. There are no per-endpoint fees, no ingestion caps, and no surprise overages. The tool runs on-premises as a single Windows executable, so there are no cloud infrastructure costs either. For a detailed pricing breakdown, see our SIEM pricing comparison.

For small businesses that need real threat detection without enterprise pricing, Arden is the most cost-effective option. Enterprise SIEMs like Splunk typically start at $1,800 per year per GB of daily ingestion, and Microsoft Sentinel charges per GB ingested into Azure. Arden provides detection rules covering the full MITRE ATT&CK kill chain, real-time alerting, and compliance reporting at a flat monthly rate with no per-GB billing. It requires no cloud subscription, no dedicated security staff, and no professional services engagement to configure. Read more in our guide to lightweight SIEM alternatives.

EDR monitors individual endpoints for malware and suspicious process behavior. SIEM collects and correlates log data across your environment to detect attack patterns like lateral movement, credential abuse, and privilege escalation. According to CrowdStrike's 2025 Global Threat Report, 79% of attacks are now malware-free, using legitimate credentials and built-in admin tools that EDR is not designed to flag. SIEM fills that gap by analyzing Windows event logs for the activity that EDR misses — RDP abuse, pass-the-hash, PsExec lateral movement, and suspicious service installations. Most small businesses need both, but if you can only add one layer, server-level log monitoring catches the attacks that matter most.

SIEM pricing typically follows one of three models: per-GB ingestion (Splunk, Sentinel), per-endpoint or per-asset (some managed SIEM providers), or flat-rate (Arden). Per-GB pricing means your cost scales with how much log data you generate — a 50-endpoint Windows environment can easily produce 5–10 GB per day, putting annual costs at $10,000 to $50,000 or more. Per-endpoint pricing is more predictable but still scales linearly. Flat-rate pricing charges a fixed monthly fee regardless of data volume or endpoint count, making costs completely predictable for budget planning. See our full SIEM pricing comparison for 2026.

Arden is not a full replacement for a mature enterprise SIEM with dedicated security staff. Enterprise platforms like Splunk, QRadar, and Sentinel ingest data from dozens of source types, offer machine learning models, and integrate with SOAR platforms. However, for organizations whose current alternative is nothing — which describes most small and mid-size businesses — Arden provides the detection capability that matters most: identifying lateral movement, credential theft, privilege escalation, and persistence in Windows event logs. It covers the same MITRE ATT&CK techniques that enterprise SIEMs detect, without the infrastructure overhead or six-figure cost.

Arden monitors the Windows Security, System, and PowerShell event logs. Key event IDs include 4624 and 4625 (logon success and failure), 4672 (special privilege logon), 4688 (process creation), 7045 (new service installed), 4698 (scheduled task created), 1102 (audit log cleared), 4778 and 4779 (RDP session connect and disconnect), and many more. When Sysmon is installed, Arden also analyzes Sysmon events for DLL side-loading, process injection, and registry-based attacks. In total, Arden's detection engine covers over 60 event categories mapped to MITRE ATT&CK. Learn more in our guide to the 5 most critical Windows event IDs.

No. Arden runs as a single portable Windows executable with zero external dependencies. It reads Windows event logs directly, stores data in a local SQLite database, and serves a real-time dashboard on localhost. Nothing leaves your network. This on-premises architecture means Arden does not create additional compliance concerns about data residency or third-party data handling, which matters for organizations subject to HIPAA, PCI DSS, CJIS, or CMMC requirements.

Arden Comply maps Windows event log data to specific controls in HIPAA, PCI DSS, CMMC, CJIS, SOX, and FERPA frameworks. It shows which controls are covered by your current log monitoring, identifies gaps, and generates PDF compliance reports that document your evidence for auditors. Because Arden runs on-premises and alert notifications go through your own SMTP server, the tool itself does not introduce new compliance risks related to data handling or cloud storage. Read more in how to prepare for a compliance audit using Windows event logs.

Managed SIEM services typically cost $2,000 to $10,000 per month for small environments and include 24/7 monitoring by a third-party SOC. For organizations with the budget and compliance requirements that justify it, managed SIEM is valuable. However, many small IT teams find that the cost is prohibitive and the alert volume creates more noise than signal. Arden takes a different approach: it runs locally, focuses on the highest-value Windows event log detections, and delivers alerts directly to your team via email — without the monthly managed service fee or the overhead of tuning thousands of correlation rules.

Yes. Arden's network tier deploys lightweight agents to Windows machines across your network, collects logs centrally via admin share or WinRM, and monitors everything from a single dashboard. It includes network discovery to find hosts, one-click agent deployment, cross-endpoint alert grouping to correlate related events across machines, and email and webhook alerting for real-time notifications. The same flat-rate pricing applies regardless of how many endpoints you monitor.