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AlienVault OSSIM vs OpenText Enterprise Security Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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
OpenText Enterprise Securit...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 OpenText Enterprise Security Manager is 1.6%, up from 1.1% 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 (%)
AlienVault OSSIM1.9%
OpenText Enterprise Security Manager1.6%
Other96.5%
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.
NM
Senior Security Engineer at Valuepoint Systems
Interpreting data effectively despite challenges in integration and support
If someone lacks the budget for a new SIEM tool with advanced capabilities, I would recommend ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM). However, if they have the budget, I would suggest looking into other options. Overall, I would give ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) a rating of seven out of ten.

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 feature is the logging capability."
"The paid version of the solution has reporting and better scalability options."
"AlienVault OSSIM's GUI is very user-friendly."
"With AlienVault you get everything in one box."
"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 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."
"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."
"I recommend it due to the experience of the people running it."
"We use ArcSight ESM for log analysis and security alerts. It warns us of threats and then helps us conduct a forensic investigation of a cyber attack or internal incident after it happens."
"The most useful features are directories, price, and live reporting."
"Usability is the most valuable feature. The accessibility is quite good."
"Once the rules are defined, it becomes easy to detect changes and generate automated logs."
"I am satisfied with the solution's stability."
"It has absolutely improved the efficiency of our security team. We use it internally as well. It is such a powerful tool that our internal security team became a customer of our ArcSight managed service."
"It prevented my users from getting infected by ransomware. It can also pinpoint the story behind every virus or network attack to our environment."
"SmartConnector: Normalization parses raw logs and converts them into CEF (common event format). This is the core of the product."
 

Cons

"It's so hard to configure and explore something new on it."
"AlienVault OSSIM should improve the deployment and make it unified like the USM."
"We need more dashboards and we need more customization for dashboards."
"AlienVault OSSIM gives unwanted notifications."
"AlienVault OSSIM failed to provide our company a full insight, while also giving out a lot of false positives."
"GUI could be improved."
"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 could be improved."
"The visualization is not very good compared to Splunk."
"The customer experience could be improved."
"Administration of ArcSight is not an easy job. The admin needs to be well experienced in it to identify the root cause and fix it."
"The tool should improve its UI. It also should make data more searchable."
"Its search part can be improved. When I go to the console and search for a few logs or something else, it takes a lot of time. When I try to search for three days or one week, it takes too much time. This is a major area of improvement. I wanted them to include features like SOAR, threat intelligence, and automation, and they seem to have included all these features in version 7.3 or 7.4."
"The security area has room for improvement."
"There are several improvements that we would like to see, including: Building a system based on a log collection (SOC), a scenario for external encroachment, and Operator training."
"The weakness in this system comes about because, with so many different logs, it is possible that the security analyst will lose information."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."
"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."
"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 licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"The solution is super expensive. At our organization size and license model, I think the price is average to what anyone else would charge us."
"​It is best to be an institutional buyer and directly contact the sales team, as they can provide over-the-top discounts for bulk orders.​"
"The product licenses are inexpensive."
"ArcSight ESM is an affordable solution, it cost approximately $200,000 for three years. This price was at a substantial discount."
"Aggregation can help a lot in pushing down licensing costs."
"We're paying a fee for an MSSP, and the cost of the total cost of ArcSight ESM was approximately three to four million dollars a year. The price was less than similar solutions. We did not have additional fees."
"The pricing model is expensive compared to open-source alternatives."
"There is a license required for this solution."
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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%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Performing Arts
9%
Computer Software Company
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 Business37
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise57
 

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...
Which is the best SIEM tool for a mid-sized financial services firm: Arcsight or Securonix?
In my market, a lot of financial companies had or have an ArcSight installation. Just because in former times it was pretty good. Now a lot of them are looking for a more effective solution due to ...
What do you like most about ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM)?
We utilize ArcSight ESM for real-time threat detection in our organization. We have custom rules that we've developed on top of the WAN services, along with scheduled licensing activities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM)?
ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is very cheap compared to other tools. It is worth the investment if you are considering the cost.
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
Micro Focus ArcSight, HPE ArcSight, ArcSight
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Lake Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bank AlJazira, Banca Intesa, and Obrela.
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. OpenText Enterprise Security Manager and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.