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AlienVault OSSIM vs Microsoft Sentinel 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)
13th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Sentinel
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (6th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.7%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Sentinel is 4.8%, down from 7.6% 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 (%)
Microsoft Sentinel4.8%
AlienVault OSSIM1.7%
Other93.5%
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.
Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
Centralized monitoring has improved threat response but cost control still needs refinement
Based on real operations used in our corporate IT environment, the key features include log correlation and incident view. Microsoft Sentinel's biggest strength is how it correlates multiple related alerts into a single incident. This significantly reduces alert noise and helps the SOC focus on real threats instead of isolated events. Another valuable feature is KQL-based threat hunting with Kusto Query Language. The flexibility of this language allows us to build custom hunting queries based on our environment's behavior. This is extremely useful for detecting low and slow threats or hidden threats that default rules may miss. Cloud-native scalability and stability is another important feature. Being cloud-native, Microsoft Sentinel scales well for medium to large corporate environments without infrastructure management. Stability has been solid in day-to-day production. SOAR automation using playbooks is a feature we highly recommend. Microsoft Sentinel's SOAR functionality helps automate repetitive SOC tasks like alert enrichment and notification. This saves analyst time and improves response consistency.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are case management, ease of configuration, and investigation."
"Its user-friendliness is the most valuable. It is very easy to use and explore. The dashboard is very well packaged and integrated. You don't have to spend a lot of time in configuring it and checking out the RPM etc. It is also free and very powerful."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are vulnerability assessment, network intrusion detection system, response to critical events, and awareness of the whole network."
"The tool's security detection is good. It helps us with login tracking and generating reports. We aim to identify potential issues, such as brute-force attacks on user accounts or server-level anomalies. For instance, if I receive a report indicating a server is at an abnormal level, I investigate and address the issue."
"With AlienVault you get everything in one box."
"AlienVault OSSIM's GUI is very user-friendly."
"Microsoft Sentinel helps us understand the areas that we have to improve and provides information on our current coverage."
"While Microsoft Sentinel provides a log of security events, its true power lies in its integration with Microsoft Defender."
"Microsoft Sentinel delivers ROI mainly by reducing response time, improving analysis efficiency, and simplifying audits."
"One of the most valuable features is that it creates a kind of a single pane of glass for organizations that already use Microsoft software. So, when they have things like Microsoft 365, it is very easy for them to kind of plug in or enroll those endpoints into the Azure Sentinel service."
"We have no complaints about the features or functionality."
"The ability of Microsoft Sentinel to correlate data from multiple sources greatly helps our threat detection capabilities because correlation enables faster threat detection, even proactively."
"I like the unified security console. You can close incidents using Sentinel in all other Microsoft Security portals, when it comes to incident response."
"Microsoft Sentinel stands out mainly for its signal-to-noise reduction; LogRhythm required numerous AI rules to reach a similar level of noise reduction."
 

Cons

"There are somewhat more false positives with the user behavior analytics, which could benefit from an additional machine learning model to detect user patterns more rapidly."
"They can add more compliance templates."
"The price of this solution is very high and it could be cheaper."
"AlienVault OSSIM is costly."
"The solution is not scalable."
"I don't like to work on OSSIM because it is unpredictable."
"AlienVault OSSIM’s configuration and integration could be a little easier."
"Lacking in depth of reporting."
"When compared to other industry standard SIEM solutions like Splunk or Palo Alto, Microsoft Sentinel can improve a lot."
"When it comes to ingesting Azure native log sources, some of the log sources are specific to the subscription, and it is not always very clear."
"We are invoiced according to the amount of data generated within each log."
"The SOC optimization feature of Microsoft Sentinel does not appear applicable at the moment in terms of data management and cost efficiency."
"If their UI was a bit more streamlined and easy to find when I need it, then that would be a great improvement."
"Microsoft Sentinel can be improved in terms of automation or connecting with security products so that it is easier to use for general IT admins."
"One key area that can be improved is by building a strong integration with our XDR platform."
"The solution should allow for a streamlined CI/CD procedure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I used the paid version of the tool and found it to be expensive. It has been a while since I changed to Securonix. I will have to check whether AlienVault charges per device, user, or log."
"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 solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"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."
"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."
"AlienVault OSSIM is free."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"AlienVault OSSIM is expensive compared to its competitors."
"Sentinel is pretty competitive. The pricing is at the level of other SIEM solutions."
"From a cost perspective, Microsoft Sentinel is quite costly."
"The pricing is reasonable, and we think Sentinel is worth what we pay for it."
"The pay-as-you-go model is beneficial to customers."
"Cost-wise, Sentinel is based on the volume of information being ingested, so it can be quite pricey. The ability to use strategies to control what data is being ingested is important."
"Azure Sentinel is very costly, or at least it appears to be very costly. The costs vary based on your ingestion and your retention charges."
"I am not involved on the financial side, but from an enterprise-wide use perspective, I think the price is good enough."
"Pricing for Microsoft Sentinel could always be lower, but it's workable. The ingestion costs for the data analytics is usually the highest cost, but the licensing per Microsoft Sentinel is fairly straightforward and transparent."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

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 Business38
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise45
 

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...
Is there a common threat intelligence tool that aggregates multiple threat intelligence sources?
Yes, Azure Sentinel is a SIEM on the Cloud. Multiple data sources can be uploaded and analyzed with Azure Sentinel and its Threat Hunting functionality with AI available as templates or customized ...
What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?
It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingestion of anything, but the charge per GB/Day Indexed and it gets expensive as log ...
Which is better - Azure Sentinel or AWS Security Hub?
We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel is auto-scaling - you will not have to worry about performance impact, you will...
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
Azure Sentinel
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. Microsoft Sentinel and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.