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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)
13th
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 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 OpenText Enterprise Security Manager is 1.5%, 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 OSSIM1.7%
OpenText Enterprise Security Manager1.5%
Other96.8%
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 paid version of the solution has reporting and better scalability options."
"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 product is majorly used for threat detection of the agents on servers and endpoints."
"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 AlienVault OSSIM are case management, ease of configuration, and investigation."
"The solution is very stable. Compared to Qradar and Splunk, it's very stable."
"The most valuable feature is the logging capability."
"The initial setup was straightforward. I didn't have any problems."
"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."
"It makes maintenance very easy."
"Usability is the most valuable feature. The accessibility is quite good."
"The most valuable features of ArcSight ESM are ease of use and readily usable components."
"ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is very cheap compared to other tools."
"The correlation feature is good."
"SmartConnector: Normalization parses raw logs and converts them into CEF (common event format). This is the core of the product."
"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."
 

Cons

"The incidence reporting could be better."
"AlienVault OSSIM is costly."
"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 initial setup was a bit complex. You've got to do a lot of reading. It's not an intuitive implementation."
"AlienVault OSSIM on-premise version is more difficult to implement than the cloud version. Additionally, they should add integration between several different environments at once and improve their online knowledge base."
"It's so hard to configure and explore something new on it."
"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 customer experience could be improved."
"The stability of ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is not very robust."
"When we need to consume old events, we have to wait for a long time. ArcSight should improve the database capability to reply to queries faster. It would also be interesting if they implemented network visibility. For example, they could add a feature like NetWitness with a model just for looking through the packets."
"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 product should include a lot more predefined scenarios so the adopted company will have knowledge and a broader skill set in security and network."
"There could be more API features for extracting logs on different devices included in the product."
"Deployment typology could be improved. Difficult to scale across all the different lines of businesses."
"The roadmap is not clear."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."
"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."
"AlienVault OSSIM is free."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"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."
"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 licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"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 can be a little bit expensive because of the area that we work in and the cost. Licensing is mostly on a yearly basis, not monthly."
"We have a license to use this solution. The price of ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager is expensive."
"HPE ArcSight pricing might be more expensive than other SIEM solutions, but in my opinion it has powerful features and great flexibility in developing complex use cases."
"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."
"Thanks to Micro Focus's licensing model, as an MSSP, we are able to see a complete return on our investment almost immediately."
"It's a good price, it's one of the cheaper solutions."
"​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.​"
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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%
Marketing Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Performing Arts
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.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.