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AlienVault OSSIM vs IBM Security QRadar comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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)
12th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
219
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (7th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (17th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (7th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.9%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 5.6%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Security QRadar5.6%
AlienVault OSSIM1.9%
Other92.5%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

BP
Independent Contractor at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
Enables cost-effective security management for small businesses
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 implementation. The main area where the AlienVault product was lacking around the 2018 timeframe was in its ability to scale. By pushing it to a cloud-based system, they've largely alleviated scale issues. It's native in Amazon but will also run in Azure. They have worked with cloud service providers to offer enough throughput at a cost reasonable for a corporation. Scaling was their biggest problem, and they've largely conquered those issues.
HarshBhardiya - PeerSpot reviewer
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Have managed daily asset and alert monitoring effectively but have encountered limitations with manual processes and interface usability
It's still very manual and doesn't work on its own. It's still in an early stage and not on par where we can consider it a really successful detection system. The accuracy is not there. The UI could be better when compared to Sentinels where we can use flags and tagging. It could be much more user-friendly. IBM Security QRadar has all features and is fully competitive with other SIEM tools, but when it comes to user-friendliness, a new user takes time to get used to it. More intuitive, user-friendly interfaces and more helpful documentation would be beneficial. The query searching and data fetching could be faster. In large to very large organizations with around 5,000 or 6,000 assets or beyond, even with proper configurations and RAM and hardware backing up, the query is fairly slow.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I recommend it due to the experience of the people running it."
"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 features of this solution are the data correlation and vulnerability assessment."
"Network traffic analysis is highly efficient."
"The product is majorly used for threat detection of the agents on servers and endpoints."
"Inbuilt IDS, inbuilt integration with threat intelligence platform and with vulnerability assessment modules."
"The threat alerts it gives me from time to time on harmful code within the network, or if they are generating any network traffic, are very useful."
"You can customize the dashboards as well as the reporting."
"It is incredibly easy to deploy. All the appliances are flexible in the roles that they serve and are all managed the in the same way."
"We've found the solution to be scalable."
"Integrations are quite a useful and key feature of this solution. It has integration with the CVSS score, which is a central point for all the data and scores about the threats. There is an IBM Bluemix dashboard that is integrated with the CVSS score."
"The threat protection network is the most valuable feature, because when you get an offense, you can actually trace it back to where it originated from, how it originated, and why."
"IBM has everything you need in a cybersecurity solution. If you want to build a cybersecurity operation center version then I think QRadar is a perfect solution."
"The timeline and machine learning features are great."
"The solution is quite flexible."
"I like the graphical interface. It's so good and easy."
 

Cons

"The main area where the AlienVault product was lacking around the 2018 timeframe was in its ability to scale."
"The initial setup was a bit complex. You've got to do a lot of reading. It's not an intuitive implementation."
"AlienVault OSSIM could improve by having better integration with some of the newer tools."
"Lacking in depth of reporting."
"It's so hard to configure and explore something new on it."
"The user interface needs to be friendlier across the board."
"The correlation engine needs to be improved."
"AlienVault OSSIM’s configuration and integration could be a little easier."
"Technical support could be improved by a bit."
"The price of IBM Security QRadar is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"There are reports that I would like to generate that are either not included, or I cannot find."
"GUI needs to be improved."
"There is room for improvement in IBM QRadar in integrating features for SOC maturity and security levels directly into QRadar."
"Communication between the silos sometimes becomes an issue, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The only challenge with products like IBM is the EPS. You just have to be really on the events per second, as that's where the cost factor becomes a huge issue."
"They should introduce some automation into the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AlienVault pricing is the best. Whatever cost you are paying, you are getting a return on every penny... It's not like your IBM, your QRadar, or Splunk, where the cost is too high."
"OSSIM is open source, and USM is the paid license. So, if you want, you can switch to USM. There you will have to buy a license, and they have a support team that helps you out on issues you face."
"The solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"AlienVault OSSIM is free."
"AlienVault OSSIM is expensive compared to its competitors."
"OSSIM is free."
"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."
"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."
"QRadar's price is reasonable compared to LogRhythm."
"I would like for them to lower the price."
"The solution comes with a high price tag, while some of the competitors provide identical functionality in their offerings at no extra cost."
"It is costlier as compared to the other alternatives available in the market."
"The pricing is higher but cheaper than others and there are no additional costs."
"It's not expensive for the resources that it gives you."
"A good approach would be to begin with an On Cloud subscription, then later on do a more exact sizing."
"I feel that the price is reasonable but compared to other products that are on the market, such as an offering by Microsoft, it is more expensive."
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Comparison Review

VS
Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Jun 28, 2015
Qradar vs. ArcSight
Continuing with the SIEM posts we have done at Infosecnirvana, this post is a Head to head comparison of the two Industry leading SIEM products in the market – HP ArcSight and IBM QRadar Both the products have consistently been in the Gartner Leaders Quadrant. Both HP and IBM took over niche SIEM…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business91
Midsize Enterprise39
Large Enterprise105
 

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 are the biggest differences between Securonix UEBA, Exabeam, and IBM QRadar?
It mostly depends on your use-cases and environment. Exabeam and Securonix have a stronger UEBA feature set, friendlier GUI and are not licensed based on capacity (amount of logs and information in...
What SOC product do you recommend?
For tools I’d recommend: -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is asking to miss details that are critical, and ending up a statistic. Also, rememb...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Security QRadar?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is great compared to the other vendor.
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. IBM Security QRadar and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.