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AlienVault OSSIM vs Snare comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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
Snare
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
54th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (49th)
 

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 Snare is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AlienVault OSSIM1.1%
Snare0.8%
Other98.1%
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.
Frank Eargle - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Engineer at Glasshouse Systems
A highly scalable solution that is easy to manage and super easy to set up
We use Snare for picking up Windows logs, and we used to use it for SQL as well. We had used it for Linux once or twice. We're mainly using it for Windows and Windows flat files The most valuable feature of Snare is flexibility or the ability to filter all things you don't want and don't have…

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 features of AlienVault OSSIM are vulnerability assessment, network intrusion detection system, response to critical events, and awareness of the whole network."
"What I like about this product, is that it is a fully-fledged solution."
"The most valuable feature is the logging capability."
"There are a lot of people you will find using OSSIM since they are also offering OTX as a service"
"The threat alerts it gives me from time to time on harmful code within the network, or if they are generating any network traffic, are very useful."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an enterprise solution that sells easily. It is rated highly by organizations."
"Inbuilt IDS, inbuilt integration with threat intelligence platform and with vulnerability assessment modules."
"Better than other SIEM solutions because almost everything can be integrated."
"Snare has good agents, especially for Windows."
"The most valuable feature of Snare is flexibility or the ability to filter all things you don't want and don't have security value."
"The best thing about Snare is its format and consistency."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"AlienVault OSSIM could improve by having better integration with some of the newer tools."
"AlienVault OSSIM’s configuration and integration could be a little easier."
"The price of this solution is very high and it could be cheaper."
"I don't like to work on OSSIM because it is unpredictable."
"The initial setup was a bit complex. You've got to do a lot of reading. It's not an intuitive implementation."
"The correlation engine needs to be improved."
"The solution is now developing a SIEM-like feature on Snare Central Server, but it's not complete yet."
"Users will initially find it difficult to identify the event types and installation in Snare."
"Snare should modernize its GUI a little bit."
 

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 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."
"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."
"AlienVault OSSIM is expensive compared to its competitors."
"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 licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate Snare's pricing a four out of ten."
"Snare is a cheap solution because a lot of customers are using it."
"Snare has reasonable pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise8
No data available
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Military, Defence and Security Agencies, Banking Finance and Insurance companies, Retail, Health and Utilities.
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. Snare and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.