The Problem
Why teams leave Splunk
Per-GB pricing is extremely expensive at scale
50GB/day costs $7,500-$15,000/month
Storage costs compound on top of ingestion
Complex deployment and management for on-premise
Cisco acquisition brings uncertainty
Splunk Processing Language (SPL) creates lock-in
What We Build Instead
Your custom devops & engineering tool
Log management and SIEM on your infrastructure
Log ingestion, parsing, and indexing
Real-time search and alerting
Security dashboards and correlation rules
Long-term retention at storage cost, not license cost
Custom query language or SQL-based search
The Math
Splunk vs. custom build
Based on 20 seats at $200/seat/month, with ~10% annual SaaS price increases.
Keep paying Splunk
Build with 86 SaaS
3-year savings with 20 seats
$67,775
43% less than Splunk
Pricing Breakdown
Splunk tier pricing vs. one-time custom build
Compare what you pay per seat across Splunk's tiers against a single investment in software you own forever.
| Tier | Monthly/Seat | Annual/Seat | Key Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Workload | $150/mo | $150/mo | Per-GB/day ingestion, Search & reporting, Alerts, Dashboards |
| Enterprise | $300/mo | $300/mo | SIEM, Compliance, Federated search, Dynamic data self-storage |
| Observability Cloud | $15/mo | $15/mo | Per-host monitoring, APM, On-call alerting, Infrastructure monitoring |
| Custom Build by 86 SaaS | $45,000–$80,000 one-time | $0/seat | Unlimited users, full ownership, no recurring fees |
Migration Timeline
From Splunk to ownership — week by week
A structured migration plan to move off Splunk in 12-18 weeks with zero downtime.
Discovery & Audit
2 weeksAudit log sources, SIEM rules, dashboards, and data volumes
Architecture & Design
2-3 weeksDesign log management and SIEM with search, alerting, and retention
Core Development
6-10 weeksBuild log ingestion, indexing, search engine, SIEM rules, and dashboards
Data Migration & Testing
2-3 weeksOnboard log sources, migrate SIEM rules, validate search and alerting
Deployment & Training
1-2 weeksDeploy platform and train security and ops teams
Total build time
12-18 weeks
Feature Comparison
What you keep, what you skip, and why
A transparent comparison of Splunk features vs. your custom-built alternative.
| Feature | Splunk | Custom Build | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Log Ingestion & Indexing | |||
| Real-time Search | |||
| SIEM & Security Rules | |||
| Custom Dashboards | |||
| Alerting & Notifications | |||
| Data Correlation | |||
| Compliance Reporting | |||
| Long-term Retention | At storage cost, not license cost | ||
| SPL Query Language | SQL-based search — no proprietary language lock-in | ||
| Predictable Pricing | Pay for storage, not per-GB ingestion rates |
Your custom build focuses on the features your team actually uses — typically 15-20% of what Splunk offers — built exactly for your workflow.
How It Works
From Splunk to ownership in 12-18 weeks
Free Audit
We analyze your Splunk usage and identify exactly which features your team actually uses.
Scope & Build
We build your custom devops & engineering tool with only the features you need. 12-18 weeks.
Deploy & Migrate
We deploy to your infrastructure, migrate your data from Splunk, and train your team.
You Own It
Full source code, documentation, and optional maintenance retainer. No vendor lock-in. Ever.
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