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AlienVault OSSIM vs Fortinet FortiSIEM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

AlienVault OSSIM
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
10th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortinet FortiSIEM
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
73
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 3.9%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiSIEM is 3.1%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Aman Aijaz - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-scale open-source solution used for monitoring events on devices
The area for improvement is a lot. When I started using it on our enterprise side, the issue we faced was, for example, if we were running at that time on AlienVault OSSIM v5.7.4. So, for some orders, we had to install some packages, and when we tried installing that package, some dependencies got upgraded to a new version. Now once that dependency got upgraded, the SQL, since you might be aware that OSSIM uses SQL database, now SQL and all the dependency in everything was not on the same version, and that caused the database to crash. The aforementioned area should be eased out by upgrading the patches and upgrading dependencies. This kind of thing is a disadvantage of OSSIM, and I would like them to work on this. But I have also raised service requests many times and gave it a push on the community section too. However, since it is a local source, they don't reply much over there. That is why I don't like to work on OSSIM because it is unpredictable. Once the storage goes above 50 percent, it starts behaving unpredictably. If you get stuck with a situation, then you need to drill a lockdown into that. Sometimes you get no luck. Then you have to just reimage the server with the new fresh OS of AlienVault. As for additional features, not much because if you move to the newer version, it is kind of getting more stable. But, to make my life easier, then I would say try to give more features. I know it's open source, so they also cannot provide me with more features. But still, if they can provide me with more features because right now it's becoming old. Right now, we are even moving from SIEM to Security Data Lake. So when we move to it, this will be literally outdated. No one can even expect anything out of it. The way security is moving, it will be outdated very soon. They have to also provide something new to keep this going for the future also.
Oliver Jackson - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems monitoring enhanced by firewall and intrusion detection features
My primary use case for Fortinet FortiSIEM is systems monitoring and alerting. I use it for standard functions like log monitoring, incident detection, and notification.  My customers are mostly medium-sized enterprises ranging from engineering companies, mining companies, independent schools, and…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The initial setup is straightforward."
"I recommend it due to the experience of the people running it."
"The solution is free to use."
"The solution has a very good open source community, and whenever we have problems, we are always able to resolve it online."
"It has helped us remediate threats in the past by providing significant events that assisted in identifying suspicious activities, such as logins from multiple countries."
"You pay monthly for the solution. I think it's one of the best products. If you compare with other companies, like LogRhythm, etc., the top 8 or 10 CMs, I think Alien Vault has the best price-performance ratio."
"The product is majorly used for threat detection of the agents on servers and endpoints."
"The threat policies of the solution are always very advanced and the best in the market. They are very persistent in terms of keeping up with security protocols."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiSIEM is the user and entity behave as analytics(UEBA). This feature mixes your data and provides useful information based on the behavior of the targeted."
"AccelOps can handle a lot of data and it's just so important to true monitoring. Also, I can create a lot of rules to detect anything I like."
"The seamless integration with FortiGate is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"Fortinet FortiSIEM has its own validated and authentic IP database that marks malicious IP attacks against the firewall and generates an alert for the same."
"The most valuable feature is the dashboard. CMDB database collects data from a lot of pre-configured devices."
"Our customer did not have security monitoring in the first place. With this solution, it provided security posture management and visibility about the security landscape and threats that they had."
"There are things like dashboards and reports (pre-configured and custom) that let me know that things are operating the way they should be, and when they are not."
"Its automated response feature has benefited our customer communication. Analysts feel more confident in providing timely responses."
 

Cons

"The initial setup was a bit complex. You've got to do a lot of reading. It's not an intuitive implementation."
"The price of this solution is very high and it could be cheaper."
"The main area where the AlienVault product was lacking around the 2018 timeframe was in its ability to scale."
"I don't like to work on OSSIM because it is unpredictable."
"It's under heavy traffic. If you have heavy traffic, the system is slow."
"I would like the solution to be able to integrate with my firewall, my IDS and my Honeypot solutions so that it can provide real-time reporting as things occur and then have alert sent to me on my phone when suspicious activity is happening."
"The user interface needs to be friendlier across the board."
"Lacking in depth of reporting."
"Customer support service could be better."
"Fortinet FortiSIEM could improve by having a signature update."
"FortiSIEM needs to expand its integration with third-party vendors. I don't know if Forcepoint has been added, but there were limited resources for integrating Forcepoint solutions when we implemented FortiSIEM. It integrates well with other Fortinet products and solutions from established cybersecurity companies like Palo Alto but doesn't integrate with some of the newer vendors."
"The solution's technical support didn't help our company a lot."
"If there is a configuration on the wrong side of the network or there are changes that result in harm to our IT infrastructure, the solution should immediately fix it."
"They should enhance the solution's AI capabilities, including XDR and EDR."
"The log collection and configuration management are not great."
"The support of the product changed recently, and I don't think it's for the better. They should work to improve the support they offer to clients."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of AlienVault OSSIM is too high sometimes for us to present to our customers. The price should be lower. We are on a three-year license to use the solution. We had to pay extra for the support."
"The licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"We are using a free version of the solution. If you purchase a license there are more features available but the price is a little high. The solution should be cheaper to allow more customers to be able to afford it."
"OSSIM is free."
"The solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"AlienVault OSSIM is free."
"When comparing AlienVault OSSIM to Microsoft Sentinel, AlienVault OSSIM incurs additional costs due to its licensing price structure. If you are using AlienVault for security purposes at a certain level it can have a higher price point than the current pricing of Microsoft Sentinel."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"Fortinet FortiSIEM is very cost-efficient compared to other SIEM solutions."
"The price of the solution is expensive. The license is scalable. If there are 10 devices it is simple to license."
"Pricing is determined based on the customer's budget."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive. I rate the tool's price as an eight out of ten. Compared with Splunk or Oracle, Fortinet is cheap."
"We bought the perpetual license, so we own the product, but there is a three-year support renewal fee for that."
"The solution is available for both, perpetual and subscription licenses."
"We pay for a license for FortiSIEM. We pay for the license and renewal."
"This is probably more on the lower cost end of the spectrum compared to competing products. Fortinet's license model is based on events per second, which makes sense, but that's not typical. It makes it very hard to calculate what your costs are going to be as you scale the platform because some log sources, such as firewall logs, are very noisy, and there are lots and lots of events per second, but some of them are not. So, it becomes a bit of a science experiment trying to guess what your costs are going to be as you scale the solution. This is where other competing products perhaps have a more straightforward license model."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AlienVault OSSIM?
It depends. I would need to review their cost models, but generally, they are on a scaled basis based on throughput usage. Because it's a software as a service solution for their core product for U...
What needs improvement with AlienVault OSSIM?
Scaling for USM is always challenging for any product unless it is purpose-built or overbuilt at the front end. They will use Palo Alto and its competitors, and LevelBlue will manage that implement...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiSIEM?
Fortinet FortiSIEM needs to provide better API integrations to users.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiSIEM?
As a service, the cost is reasonable and affordable with scalable pricing based on the number of monitored devices. However, setting it up for oneself as an enterprise-licensed product can be quite...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiSIEM?
The built-in APIs in Fortinet FortiSIEM are somewhat lacking and could be improved for better integration with external ITSM products. Improving software stability and reducing bugs will make it a ...
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
FortiSIEM, AccelOps
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
FortiSIEM has hundreds of customers worldwide in markets including managed services, technology, financial services, healthcare, and government. Customers include Aruba Networks, Compushare, Port of San Diego, Cleveland Indians, Infoblox, Healthways, and Referentia.
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. Fortinet FortiSIEM and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.