Abstract Security Platform vs Substation: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)

Abstract Security Platform

Mid-market and enterprise security teams drowning in log volume will find real value in Abstract Security Platform's ability to detect threats before data hits your SIEM, cutting both storage costs and alert fatigue. The platform's version-controlled pipeline configuration and out-of-the-box detection rules with daily updates mean you can operationalize detection in weeks rather than months. Skip this if you need a full incident response platform; Abstract prioritizes the Detect and Analyze phases of NIST CSF 2.0 and leaves recovery workflows to your existing tools.

Substation

Security teams building custom detection pipelines on AWS will get immediate value from Substation's event-driven architecture; it routes security data across services and enriches events with APIs without the overhead of commercial SIEM licensing. The free, open-source model (390 GitHub stars) means no vendor lock-in and full control over data formatting and routing logic. Skip this if your team lacks AWS expertise or needs out-of-the-box alerting and dashboards; Substation is a data plumbing tool, not a detection platform.