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AlienVault OSSIM vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 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)
12th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
375
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (2nd), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

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 Splunk Enterprise Security is 7.4%, down from 10.0% 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 (%)
Splunk Enterprise Security7.4%
AlienVault OSSIM1.9%
Other90.7%
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.
reviewer1469784 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Helps us detect cyber threats quickly and integrate multiple feeds effectively
Overall, the product is good, but when it comes to some infrastructure issues, we have to dig into more logs. There is no straightforward indication of an issue. Health check kind of dashboards are not available. More AI would help us, and more optimization, since security products run more queries. The AI module could suggest solutions, optimizing queries or workload balancing. If the product itself advises on running queries during peak times, it would be similar to what ChatGPT currently offers. We see quite a few issues on stability. Even last week, we faced something, and identifying bottlenecks is not easy. We need more SMEs, and there is no mechanism to tell us about indexer or search head issues. Self-monitoring dashboards could be beneficial. The technical support still requires more improvement. Often, primary support takes a lot of time and forwards most solutions to the engineering side. The primary support team has very limited knowledge to provide.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Better than other SIEM solutions because almost everything can be integrated."
"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 feature is the logging capability."
"The paid version of the solution has reporting and better scalability options."
"The threat policies of the solution are always very advanced and the best in the market. They are very persistent in terms of keeping up with security protocols."
"With AlienVault you get everything in one box."
"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."
"Integrity with many vendors: This simplifies the implementation and integration with different devices"
"The stability of Splunk Enterprise Security is very impressive; it is a very stable product."
"Speeds up root cause analysis and can help identify issues that your organization never realized were occurring."
"Splunk is quite flexible for our customers. Splunk does not filter from a specific lock, you can define it later."
"The solution allows easy gathering and ingestion of the data."
"There are lots of free learning materials on their website."
"The solution's most valuable feature is threat intelligence correlations."
"The two features I appreciate the most in Splunk Enterprise Security are the built-in searches, which have been very easy for us to get started with right out of the box, and the fact that it accesses all of our other systems."
 

Cons

"I suggest more in-built rules based on modern threats and environments to make it a more competitive solution."
"They can add more compliance templates."
"AlienVault OSSIM gives unwanted notifications."
"The documentation 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."
"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 main area where the AlienVault product was lacking around the 2018 timeframe was in its ability to scale."
"The price of this solution is very high and it could be cheaper."
"I would evaluate customer service and technical support as frustrating at times."
"The solution is expensive."
"The solution could use a different licensing model."
"Many of my clients want to get better at Splunk, but they're afraid of using the tool because they feel it's too complex for them."
"It takes time to train people."
"It currently has limited default rules and customizations. If they can concentrate more on the compliance part and the security information part, it would be helpful. The platform part is good, but it requires many features from the security aspect."
"The UI could be better. This is applicable to Splunk in general. I know that a lot of people who get their hands on Splunk are hesitant to use it just because they find it overwhelming. There are a lot of options."
"On-premises scaling of the solution is a bit more limited than it is on the cloud."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"OSSIM is free."
"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"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 solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"The subscription is monthly."
"Splunk's cost is very high. They need to review the pricing. They have to go back and totally readdress the market."
"The price of Splunk is too high for our market."
"The pricing of Splunk Enterprise Security is high."
"The price of Splunk Enterprise Security fluctuates based on the customer, but I believe it's quite costly, especially for our clientele."
"Unlike other security tools, Splunk provides a fixed amount of gigabytes per day, and we are required to pay for any additional usage beyond that limit, in addition to our monthly cost."
"The solution is a little expensive."
"The license for Splunk Enterprise Security is expensive."
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Comparison Review

VS
Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Feb 26, 2015
HP ArcSight vs. IBM QRadar vs. ​McAfee Nitro vs. Splunk vs. RSA Security vs. LogRhythm
We at Infosecnirvana.com have done several posts on SIEM. After the Dummies Guide on SIEM, we are following it up with a SIEM Product Comparison – 101 deck. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Let me know what you think by posting your comments below. The key products compared here are…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

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 Business109
Midsize Enterprise50
Large Enterprise264
 

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 SOC product do you recommend?
For tools I’d recommend: -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is asking to miss details that are critical, and ending up a statistic. Also, rememb...
What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?
It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingestion of anything, but the charge per GB/Day Indexed and it gets expensive as log ...
How does Splunk compare with Azure Monitor?
Splunk handles a high amount of data very well. We use Splunk to capture information and as an aggregator for monitoring information from different sources. Splunk is very good at alerting us if we...
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Splunk has more than 7,000 customers spread across over 90 countries. These customers include Telenor, UniCredit, ideeli, McKenney's, Tesco, and SurveyMonkey.
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.