AlienVault OSSIM vs Sentinel comparison

AT&T and OpenText 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 OpenText is ranked #17 with an average rating of 7.5. AT&T holds a 1.7% mindshare in SIEM, compared to OpenText’s 3.1% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of AT&T users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of OpenText users who would recommend it.

AlienVault OSSIM

Read 31 AlienVault OSSIM reviews

4,374 Views
4,287 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Sentinel

Read 17 Sentinel reviews

4,240 Views
4,155 Comparison Views

82% willing to recommend

AlienVault OSSIM

Sentinel

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Sentinel and AlienVault OSSIM compete in the cybersecurity sector. Sentinel has the upper hand in pricing and customer service, while AlienVault OSSIM is preferred for its robust features.

Features: Sentinel users like its real-time threat detection, comprehensive reporting tools, and user-friendly interface. AlienVault OSSIM users value its integration capabilities with various security tools, extensive threat intelligence, and advanced monitoring features.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest Sentinel improve scalability, alert management, and user interface intuitiveness. AlienVault OSSIM users highlight the need for a more intuitive interface, faster processing speeds, and better user documentation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Sentinel is praised for its straightforward deployment process and responsive customer service. AlienVault OSSIM users find the setup more complex but recognize the comprehensive support provided post-deployment.

Pricing and ROI: Sentinel is generally seen as cost-effective with a quicker ROI. Users find AlienVault OSSIM pricier with a longer ROI period, but its advanced capabilities justify the investment.

To learn more, read our detailed AlienVault OSSIM vs. Sentinel Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AlienVault OSSIM vs. Sentinel

December 2025

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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

Sentinel

Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

17th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

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 Sentinel is 3.1%, down from 3.2% 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%
Sentinel	3.1%
Other	95.2%

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.

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Simon Johnston

Manager, Customer Success at Coltek Business Soltuions

Simple antivirus solution integrates well but could improve pricing and currency options

I don't really have experience working with these solutions. I promote them for our clients, but I don't work with them. I can't share my experience with these tools as I make assumptions about that. For both Adlumin and CrowdStrike, both confirm that they're scalable and enterprise-ready and all those kinds of things. We haven't had any specific problem with either of those. We just have a preference for which one we would prefer. If somebody says they want to use a different one from the one that we prefer, then we have to find reasons why they aren't. But scalability is not one of the reasons that one is better over the other. I don't really have advice for people that are looking into using Sentinel; just do your research across what is available. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Sentinel a seven.

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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

"I recommend it due to the experience of the people running it."

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

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"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."

"There are a lot of people you will find using OSSIM since they are also offering OTX as a service"

"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are case management, ease of configuration, and investigation."

"Inbuilt IDS, inbuilt integration with threat intelligence platform and with vulnerability assessment modules."

"The dashboard is the solution's most valuable aspect. It brings everything into one central point where I can actually look at it and go, "Okay, I understand what's going on.""

More AlienVault OSSIM pros

"We can do advanced hunting queries and modify SQL queries to get desired results based on the rules triggering over the console."

"One of the most valuable features is the business intelligence engine. It's very important because it keeps track of everything that's happening and alerts us if something is different than expected. The first time I used it, I was shocked at how well it performed. Another valuable feature that I think makes this product worth the price you pay for it is that it connects to basically every system that provides some form of logging, and it's very easy to set up what triggers this."

"The stability is phenomenal and we never had any issues with downtime or even had to restart."

"The solution lets us get all the logs properly and regularly monitor customer infrastructure."

"In my opinion, Sentinel's best features include that it's a very easy product to use, it's very simple, and the after-sale service is very good."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it provides a central locking system for many event sources."

"The most valuable feature is the flexible log for identifying security threats inside an application. Sentinel is very good at this."

"Sentinel gave us logs to tell us what's going right and wrong in your environment so we could secure the network."

More Sentinel pros

Cons

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

"The solution is not scalable."

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

"The incidence reporting could be better."

"The price of this solution is very high and it could be cheaper."

"The solution needs more integration with cyber intelligence systems."

"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."

"Sometimes technical issues take very long to get resolved."

More AlienVault OSSIM cons

"There is a need for more flexibility in customization, especially when working with different vendors and platforms."

"I rate Sentinel a six out of ten for scalability."

"I would like to see a better reporting work structure on the dashboard."

"This product's connection to certain types of cloud systems could be improved. We can do Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, but there are a lot of other things happening in the cloud that we do not connect well enough to. This product could be improved with better connection to cloud-based solutions."

"It is an ancient product."

"There is no integration in the web-side of the tool."

"There are still a few vendor-specific devices for which Sentinel needs to work on integration, such as Netskope devices."

"Price is always a consideration, so the price would be nice if it were lower."

More Sentinel cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AlienVault OSSIM is expensive compared to its competitors."

"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."

"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."

"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."

"OSSIM is free."

"AlienVault OSSIM is free."

"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."

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

More AlienVault OSSIM pricing and cost advice

"Sentinel is moderately priced."

"The solution’s pricing is aligned with its competitors."

"We receive a pricing discount because of our ongoing partnership with Micro Focus."

"We inquired about getting support from the vendor, Micro Focus, but the cost was very high."

"Sentinel's slightly on the expensive side."

"Sentinel is a subscription-based solution."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

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	9
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AlienVault OSSIM?

Asset discovery is good.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with AlienVault OSSIM?

See all answers

What do you like most about NetIQ Sentinel?

The solution lets us get all the logs properly and regularly monitor customer infrastructure.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetIQ Sentinel?

I don't have too many comments overall about pricing as we're in South Africa, so it makes more sense if it's billed in rand. They nearly always bill it in dollars, so if it can be billed in our cu...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetIQ Sentinel?

I'm not sure what the room for improvement is for Sentinel. It needs to stay current, and it does, so I suppose that's fine. I don't have a high demand for what it should do. Price is always a cons...

See all answers

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Cortex XSIAM vs Sentinel

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AlienVault OSSIM

January 2026

Download AlienVault OSSIM product report

Buyer's Guide

Sentinel

January 2026

Download Sentinel product report

Also Known As

OSSIM

NetIQ Sentinel, Novell SIEM

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

Sentinel is a full-featured Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution that simplifies the deployment, management and day-to-day use of SIEM, readily adapts to dynamic enterprise environments and delivers the true "actionable intelligence" security professionals need to quickly understand their threat posture and prioritize response.

OpenText

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District

Faysal Bank, GaVI, Handelsbanken, ISC Mªnster, Lambeth Council, Swisscard, The Municipality of Siena, Tukes, University of Dayton, University of the Sunshine Coast

Buyer's Guide

AlienVault OSSIM vs. Sentinel

December 2025

Free Report: AlienVault OSSIM vs. Sentinel

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