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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)
12th
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 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 Microsoft Sentinel is 5.0%, down from 7.5% 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 Sentinel5.0%
AlienVault OSSIM1.9%
Other93.1%
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 initial setup is straightforward."
"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."
"Network traffic analysis is highly efficient."
"The open vault component and the checking of vulnerabilities are the most valuable features. The page management helps with this. If you know how your device is vulnerable at least you can do something about it."
"Better than other SIEM solutions because almost everything can be integrated."
"The product is majorly used for threat detection of the agents on servers and endpoints."
"The product is easy to use."
"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 most valuable feature is the UEBA. It's very easy for a security operations analyst. It has a one-touch analysis where you can search for a particular entity, and you can get a complete overview of that entity or user."
"We feel safe knowing that we have a solution that we can use to react in case of an emergency."
"The query language of Microsoft Sentinel is easy to understand and use."
"The connectivity and analytics are great."
"It is able to connect to an ever-growing number of platforms and systems within the Microsoft ecosystem, such as Azure Active Directory and Microsoft 365 or Office 365, as well as to external services and systems that can be brought in and managed. We can manage on-premises infrastructure. We can manage not just the things that are running in Azure in the public cloud, but through Azure Arc and the hybrid capabilities, we can monitor on-premises servers and endpoints. We can monitor VMware infrastructure, for instance, running as part of a hybrid environment."
"Microsoft Sentinel delivers ROI mainly by reducing response time, improving analysis efficiency, and simplifying audits."
"Sentinel improved how we investigate incidents. We can create watchlists and update them to align with the latest threat intelligence. The information Microsoft provides enables us to understand thoroughly and improve as we go along. It allows us to provide monthly reports to our clients on their security posture."
"Log aggregation and data connectors are the most valuable features."
 

Cons

"The price of this solution is very high and it could be cheaper."
"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."
"The correlation engine needs to be improved."
"The documentation could be improved."
"Sometimes technical issues take very long to get resolved."
"We need more dashboards and we need more customization for dashboards."
"It takes some time. It does not give me a prompt response for any such [malicious] traffic. It takes time to get that alert from the AlienVault system."
"The interface could be more user-friendly. It''s a small improvement that they could make if they wanted to."
"Not all information shows up in Sentinel. Sometimes there are items provided in 365 and if you looked in Sentinel you would not see them and therefore think they do not exist. There can be discrepancies between Microsoft tools."
"I would like Sentinel to have more out-of-the-box analytics rules. There are already more than 400 rules, but they could add more industry-specific ones. For example, you could have sets of out-of-the-box rules for banking, financial sector, insurance, automotive, etc., so it's easier for people to use it out of the box. Structuring the rules according to industry might help us."
"The costs and pricing of Microsoft Sentinel are expensive. That's my biggest complaint, especially from customers who are concerned about the significant expense."
"One key area that can be improved is by building a strong integration with our XDR platform."
"Microsoft Defender has a built-in threat expert option that enables you to contact an expert. That feature isn't available in Sentinel because it's a huge product that integrates all the technologies. I would like Microsoft to add the threat expert option so we can contact them. There are a few other features, like threat assessment that the PG team is working on. I expect them to release this feature in the next quarter."
"Sometimes, it is hard for us to estimate the costs of Microsoft Sentinel."
"If we want to use more features, we have to pay more. There are multiple solutions on the cloud itself, but the pricing model package isn't consistent, which is confusing to clients."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 free."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"AlienVault OSSIM is expensive compared to its competitors."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"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 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 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 expensive and there is a daily usage fee."
"Sentinel is a pay-as-you-go solution. To use it, you need a Log Analytics workspace. This is where the logs are stored and the cost of Log Analytics is based on gigabytes... On top of that, there is the cost of Sentinel, which is about €2 per gigabyte. If a customer has an M365 E5 license, the logs that come from Microsoft Defender are free."
"For us, it is not expensive at this time, but if we start to collect all logs from our on-premise SIEM solutions, it will cost more than QRadar. If we calculate its cost over the next five or ten years, it will cost more than what we paid for QRadar."
"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."
"The pricing is reasonable, and we think Sentinel is worth what we pay for it."
"The product is costly compared to Splunk."
"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."
"I'm not happy with the pricing on the integration with Defender for Endpoint. Defender for Endpoint is log-rich. There is a lot of information coming through, and it is needed information. The price point at which you ingest those logs has made a lot of my customers make the decision to leave that within the Defender stack."
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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
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

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: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.