AlienVault OSSIM vs NetWitness Platform comparison

AT&T and NetWitness are both solutions in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category. AT&T is ranked #13 with an average rating of 7.2, while NetWitness is ranked #32 with an average rating of 8.3. AT&T holds a 1.7% mindshare in SIEM, compared to NetWitness’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of AT&T users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 75% of NetWitness users who would recommend it.

AlienVault OSSIM

Read 31 AlienVault OSSIM reviews

4,374 Views
4,287 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

NetWitness Platform

Read 36 NetWitness Platform reviews

2,149 Views
1,311 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

AlienVault OSSIM

NetWitness Platform

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

NetWitness Platform and AlienVault OSSIM are reputable cybersecurity solutions known for their advanced threat detection capabilities. While users prefer AlienVault OSSIM's support and pricing, NetWitness Platform's comprehensive features justify its cost.

Features: NetWitness Platform offers deep packet inspection, threat intelligence, and more advanced extensive features. AlienVault OSSIM is recognized for its simplicity and integration capabilities, making it user-friendly.

Room for Improvement: NetWitness needs better scalability and third-party tool integration. AlienVault OSSIM requires enhanced documentation and more frequent updates, focusing on support improvements.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetWitness Platform's deployment is complex but supported by strong customer service. AlienVault OSSIM provides a straightforward deployment process with reliable customer support.

Pricing and ROI: NetWitness Platform has higher setup costs but offers significant ROI through its enhanced capabilities. AlienVault OSSIM offers competitive pricing and reasonable ROI, being more cost-effective upfront.

To learn more, read our detailed AlienVault OSSIM vs. NetWitness Platform Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

AlienVault OSSIM vs. NetWitness Platform

February 2026

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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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NetWitness Platform

Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

32nd

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (35th)

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 NetWitness Platform is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
AlienVault OSSIM	1.7%
NetWitness Platform	0.9%
Other	97.4%

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

Featured Reviews

Brandon Pearce

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.

Read full review

MOTASHIM Al Razi

CISO at One Bank Limited

It is a stable solution, but they should make the user interface easier to understand

The solution's initial setup takes work. We have to organize multiple paths and many features. The deployment process takes less than a week. But it takes a month to complete if we want to make the solution smarter by integrating it with various devices. I rate the process as a six out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With AlienVault you get everything in one box."

"OSSIM is the only solution that includes the large number of modules that we need: a vulnerability scanner, a network IDS system, a host IDS system."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the data correlation and vulnerability assessment."

"AlienVault OSSIM is an enterprise solution that sells easily. It is rated highly by organizations."

"The solution is very stable. Compared to Qradar and Splunk, it's very stable."

"The initial setup was straightforward. I didn't have any problems."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"The product is easy to use."

More AlienVault OSSIM pros

"The most valuable feature is the security that it provides."

"The product's initial setup phase was not at all difficult."

"Offers a good wireless feature."

"Alerting Module: It provides real-time event processing language on all the logs/packets stream for advanced alerting, i.e., using SQL LIKE statements."

"NetWitness Platform offers flexibility for deployment and robust integration capabilities."

"What we are mainly using are the RSA concentrator, RSA Decoder, Archiver, Broker, and Log Decoder."

"The most valuable feature is that we can create our own connectors for any application, and NetWitness provides the training and tools to do it."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to write rules and triggers for network communication, and then being able to investigate based on that."

More NetWitness Platform pros

Cons

"I suggest more in-built rules based on modern threats and environments to make it a more competitive solution."

"The user interface needs to be friendlier across the board."

"The solution is not scalable."

"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."

"The user interface could be improved."

"AlienVault OSSIM could improve by having better integration with some of the newer tools."

"The correlation engine needs to be improved."

"AlienVault OSSIM should improve the deployment and make it unified like the USM."

More AlienVault OSSIM cons

"The threat detection capability and centralizing and upgrading capability need to be improved. The threat alert capability needs to be improved as well because there is some lag time at present. They need to work on their database search too."

"Its technical support could be better."

"The log system is a bit complex and has room for improvement."

"We have encountered issues with unresolved crashes."

"If we have the ability to run a dynamic analysis through malware in the same suite, it would be great to have a sandbox solution to analyze malware through dynamic analysis."

"I'd like to see improvement in its ease of use. It's basically unusable. It's overly complex."

"The documentation is not as structured as I would like, personally, and I think that it can be improved and made much more user-friendly."

"Lots of competing products have vulnerability protection built into their products, and this solution would be improved by including that support."

More NetWitness Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."

"The licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."

"AlienVault OSSIM is expensive compared to its competitors."

"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 tool's licensing costs are yearly."

"The solution is open source, so it's free to use."

"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."

"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."

More AlienVault OSSIM pricing and cost advice

"We have yearly licensing costs. The license fee can be based on the volume of EPS. Some organizations may have, as a gentlemanly gesture, 10,000 EPS and get a 3,000 EPS license but actually use 5,000 EPS."

"RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets do not have a subscription model, it's a one-time purchase. There is only a perpetual license."

"It is cheap."

"Compared to the competition, the is price is not that high."

"The new pricing and licensing mechanisms are fair. I would advise always to get the full solution (i.e., not only Logs)."

"The product price was reasonable for my region and the market."

"It’s cheaper to run virtual machines in a VMware environment."

"We have a perpetual license, so the total cost of ownership is not very expensive. It's a good investment."

More NetWitness Platform pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

Vinod Shankar

Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Feb 26, 2015

HP ArcSight vs. IBM QRadar vs. McAfee Nitro vs. Splunk vs. RSA Security vs. LogRhythm

We at Infosecnirvana.com have done several posts on SIEM. After the Dummies Guide on SIEM, we are following it up with a SIEM Product Comparison – 101 deck. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Let me know what you think by posting your comments below. The key products compared here are…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Performing Arts

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	18
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	20

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AlienVault OSSIM?

Asset discovery is good.

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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...

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What needs improvement with AlienVault OSSIM?

See all answers

What do you like most about NetWitness Platform?

The product's initial setup phase was not at all difficult.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetWitness Platform?

The pricing is comparable to others, and I consider the cost to be intermediate. Specific cost details are unknown to me.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetWitness Platform?

There is currently no need for improvement in the SIEM ( /categories/security-information-and-event-management-siem ), though there could be potential enhancements by integrating with AI.

See all answers

Comparisons

Wazuh vs AlienVault OSSIM

Compared 40% of the time

Venusense USM vs AlienVault OSSIM

Compared 10% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs AlienVault OSSIM

Compared 7% of the time

USM Anywhere vs AlienVault OSSIM

Compared 7% of the time

Sentinel vs AlienVault OSSIM

Compared 2% of the time

More AlienVault OSSIM Competitors

IBM Security QRadar vs NetWitness Platform

Compared 10% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs NetWitness Platform

Compared 7% of the time

Elastic Security vs NetWitness Platform

Compared 6% of the time

USM Anywhere vs NetWitness Platform

Compared 5% of the time

RSA enVision vs NetWitness Platform

Compared 4% of the time

More NetWitness Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AlienVault OSSIM

February 2026

Download AlienVault OSSIM product report

Buyer's Guide

NetWitness Platform

January 2026

Download NetWitness Platform product report

Also Known As

OSSIM

RSA Security Analytics

Overview

AlienVault OSSIM, Open Source Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), provides you with a feature-rich open source SIEM complete with event collection, normalization and correlation. Launched by security engineers because of the lack of available open source products, AlienVault OSSIM was created specifically to address the reality many security professionals face: A SIEM, whether it is open source or commercial, is virtually useless without the basic security controls necessary for security visibility.

AT&T

NetWitness Platform is an evolved SIEM and threat detection and response solution that functions as a single, unified platform for ALL your security data. It features an advanced analyst workbench for triaging alerts and incidents, and it orchestrates security operations programs end to end. In short: NetWitness Platform is all you need to run an intelligent SOC.

NetWitness

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District

Los Angeles World Airports, Reply

Buyer's Guide

AlienVault OSSIM vs. NetWitness Platform

February 2026

Free Report: AlienVault OSSIM vs. NetWitness Platform

Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. NetWitness Platform and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

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