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AlienVault OSSIM vs OpenText Enterprise Security Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 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)
27th
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)
25th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.1%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Enterprise Security Manager is 1.6%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OpenText Enterprise Security Manager1.6%
AlienVault OSSIM1.1%
Other97.3%
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.
SM
Cloud Security Archirect at IBM
Unified log analysis has strengthened incident detection and supports continuous attack simulation
I do not have any areas for improvement in ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) as I have not delved deeply into it; overall, it is a good package. I would like to see the detection and response features included in the next release of ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM), as security orchestration and automation are increasingly important.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The solution is very stable, and compared to QRadar and Splunk, it's very stable."
"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."
"AlienVault OSSIM's GUI is very user-friendly."
"Network traffic analysis is highly efficient."
"The initial setup was straightforward. I didn't have any problems."
"Asset discovery is good."
"The solution has a very good open source community, and whenever we have problems, we are always able to resolve it online."
"I would rate the ease of use for new users an eight out of ten, with ten being easy to use. It is a good tool."
"ArcSight functions to integrate all network and security logs, and it's very easy to use so real-time monitoring has become easy by implementing active channels with all correlated alerts."
"ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) also gives you the main reason for the alert so it saves time in terms of investigating all alerts, including false alerts, so it improved my company."
"I think the correlation feature is one of the best features of ArcSight."
"The most useful features are directories, price, and live reporting."
"The feature that I have found the most useful is that it can be deployed to the cloud."
"ArcSight ESM help customer in Automation for their complex security use case in order to detect the bad guys."
"Customization. ArcSight gives you a platform to on-board out-of-the-box devices with a more accurate way of collecting desired logs/events."
 

Cons

"AlienVault OSSIM gives unwanted notifications."
"The main area where the AlienVault product was lacking around the 2018 timeframe was in its ability to scale."
"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 solution is not scalable."
"From a management console perspective and the maturity of the dashboards, I would probably put it slightly behind some of the other players that have been in the market for ages."
"The user interface could be improved."
"Sometimes it takes very long for your issue to get resolved."
"AlienVault OSSIM should improve the deployment and make it unified like the USM."
"The first limitation is with the ArcSight Data Storage Manager (ADSM). ArcSight's total capacity is currently capped at 12 TB. This becomes an issue if a customer needs a longer real-time data retention period, such as exceeding 90 days or reaching a year or even ten months. Increasing the disk space beyond 12 TB is not currently possible."
"ArcSight ESM's UI is a little cumbersome and complex, especially for first-time and occasional users using the console manager."
"ArcSight also has a very high bandwidth consumption to pull the local servers."
"It can be overloaded when rules and data monitoring are not optimized and the system receives too many events."
"Best SIEM product but it's high on pricing and licensing."
"Initial deployment of ArcSight is pretty challenging. It takes at least 3-4 months to install, integrate, define content and fine tune before starting the security operation."
"It's very expensive in its licensing model."
"When I asked our networking juniors for a comparison between LogRhythm and ArcSight, they said that both platforms are almost the same. It is just that LogRhythm is more modern with a digital platform, which probably gives it some advantage over ArcSight. ArcSight is a very old and mature product that is running on an old platform. It is an old legacy platform. In terms of new features, it just requires platform upgrades so that it becomes lighter and easily adaptable, specifically in the cloud. It would be a good thing if they can also make reporting easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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 an open-source solution."
"AlienVault OSSIM is 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."
"AlienVault OSSIM is expensive compared to its competitors."
"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."
"The solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"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."
"We have a license to use this solution. The price of ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager is expensive."
"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's a good price, it's one of the cheaper solutions."
"The product licenses are inexpensive."
"Thanks to Micro Focus's licensing model, as an MSSP, we are able to see a complete return on our investment almost immediately."
"Price-wise, ArcSight ESM was a bit high compared to competitors, which factored into our decision to switch to Splunk. It couldn't cover all our business needs for what we wanted to implement."
"ArcSight ESM is an affordable solution, it cost approximately $200,000 for three years. This price was at a substantial discount."
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908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
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 Enterprise59
 

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 is your primary use case for AlienVault OSSIM?
This solution is very similar to most of the other MSSPs that you would find out there. When I look at use cases, AlienVault was initially aimed at small to medium businesses. It grew, and that was...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM)?
I would rate the pricing of ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) around seven, as it varies based on features and demand, making it more affordable for larger organizations, while smaller one...
What needs improvement with ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM)?
I do not have any areas for improvement in ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) as I have not delved deeply into it; overall, it is a good package. I would like to see the detection and respo...
 

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: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.