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AlienVault OSSIM vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 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)
8th
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
7.6
Number of Reviews
308
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (2nd), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 3.7%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 9.5%, down from 12.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Aman Aijaz - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-scale open-source solution used for monitoring events on devices
The area for improvement is a lot. When I started using it on our enterprise side, the issue we faced was, for example, if we were running at that time on AlienVault OSSIM v5.7.4. So, for some orders, we had to install some packages, and when we tried installing that package, some dependencies got upgraded to a new version. Now once that dependency got upgraded, the SQL, since you might be aware that OSSIM uses SQL database, now SQL and all the dependency in everything was not on the same version, and that caused the database to crash. The aforementioned area should be eased out by upgrading the patches and upgrading dependencies. This kind of thing is a disadvantage of OSSIM, and I would like them to work on this. But I have also raised service requests many times and gave it a push on the community section too. However, since it is a local source, they don't reply much over there. That is why I don't like to work on OSSIM because it is unpredictable. Once the storage goes above 50 percent, it starts behaving unpredictably. If you get stuck with a situation, then you need to drill a lockdown into that. Sometimes you get no luck. Then you have to just reimage the server with the new fresh OS of AlienVault. As for additional features, not much because if you move to the newer version, it is kind of getting more stable. But, to make my life easier, then I would say try to give more features. I know it's open source, so they also cannot provide me with more features. But still, if they can provide me with more features because right now it's becoming old. Right now, we are even moving from SIEM to Security Data Lake. So when we move to it, this will be literally outdated. No one can even expect anything out of it. The way security is moving, it will be outdated very soon. They have to also provide something new to keep this going for the future also.
ROBERT-CHRISTIAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Has many predefined correlation rules and is brilliant for investigation and log analysis
It is very complicated to write your own correlation rules without the help of Splunk support. What Splunk could do better is to create an API to the standard SIEM tools, such as Microsoft Sentinel. The idea would be to make it less painful. In ELK Stack, Kibana is the query language with which you can search log files. I believe Splunk has also a query language in which they search their log files, but once you have identified the log file that you want to use for further security correlation, you want to very quickly transport that into your SIEM tool, such as Microsoft Sentinel. That is something that Splunk could make a little bit less painful because it is a lot of effort to find that log file and forward it. An API with Microsoft Sentinel or a similar SIEM tool would be a good idea.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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.""
"The solution has a very good open source community, and whenever we have problems, we are always able to resolve it online."
"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are vulnerability assessment, network intrusion detection system, response to critical events, and awareness of the whole network."
"I recommend it due to the experience of the people running it."
"AlienVault OSSIM's GUI is very user-friendly."
"The paid version of the solution has reporting and better scalability options."
"The solution is very stable. Compared to Qradar and Splunk, it's very stable."
"You can customize the dashboards as well as the reporting."
"The solution helped reduce our alert volume."
"It is very stable. We have not had any problems."
"From my experience, the visual aid that it provides is most valuable. There are charts and other means to provide information."
"Its compatibility with other SIEMS is very useful."
"The data analysis part is good in Splunk, which is something that I like the most. It is also quite easy to use. Its dashboards, visualizations, and analytics are good."
"I like the ease of setting up dashboards on Splunk. They're easy to create, manage, alter, and share. You can fine-tune them any way you see fit."
"The most valuable features of the solution are it is straightforward to use and the documentation is good for finding out how to get the data you are looking for."
"I have noticed a return on investment with Splunk Enterprise Security, as it delivers substantial value for money."
 

Cons

"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 documentation could be improved."
"The price of this solution is very high and it could be cheaper."
"The correlation engine needs to be improved."
"Sometimes technical issues take very long to get resolved."
"They can add more compliance templates."
"GUI could be improved."
"When comparing AlienVault OSSIM to other solutions it looks a bit outdated. Additionally, they need to improve their integration."
"It would be nice if Splunk provided a little more documentation and instructions on how to upload. The steps are short, but sometimes it's not so intuitive."
"The tool should include more real-world use case examples built out either through videos or in the community."
"We are waiting for Dashboard Studio to mature a little bit more. There are some things that we are using with Classic Dashboards which have not yet made it to Dashboard Studio. We are waiting for that."
"If you have to do your own stuff, such as customized charts, it is a little bit more work, but once you're familiar with the Splunk query language, you can pretty much do whatever you want. In terms of features, it should probably have the features that other competitors provide."
"Splunk Enterprise Security can provide more details and help CISOs resolve vulnerability situations better. The reason is that the tools we choose for data analysis and log collection cannot collect all the data and logs. Splunk Enterprise Security should help me with this, but it cannot."
"The licensing price is high and has room for improvement."
"Resource usage can probably be described as an area with shortcomings in the product where improvements are required."
"Splunk could be improved by reducing the cost. The cost is one of the biggest challenges for us in keeping to our production requirements."
 

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."
"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 solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"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 free."
"AlienVault OSSIM is expensive compared to its competitors."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"While some clients find the cost of Splunk Enterprise Security to be on the higher end, its pricing is comparable to other SIEM solutions."
"Splunk is priced higher than other solutions."
"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 pricing is based on the volume of data fed into it, which can lead to substantial costs. This pricing model is complex and unpredictable, making cost management difficult."
"Expensive compared to other options."
"Free Splunk license for PoCs on personal machines and the ability to scale the PoC to an enterprise level app."
"We have seen ROI and improvements as we have continued to use the product, but they are more reactive."
"The license for Splunk Enterprise Security is expensive."
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Comparison Review

VS
Feb 26, 2015
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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
17%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.