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AlienVault OSSIM vs USM Anywhere 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)
13th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
USM Anywhere
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
30th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (37th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (45th), Compliance Management (13th)
 

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 USM Anywhere is 1.0%, down 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%
USM Anywhere1.0%
Other97.3%
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.
Kris Nawani - PeerSpot reviewer
Co-Founder/Director at Bangkok MSP Company Limited
Offers complete coverage without the need to install additional software
USM Anywhere is used for threat detection and investigation. It provides a solution with built-in threat intelligence and various other investigation tools The solution offers complete coverage without the need to install additional software, as it is maintained by the vendor. It helps in saving…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"AlienVault OSSIM is an enterprise solution that sells easily. It is rated highly by organizations."
"You can customize the dashboards as well as the reporting."
"The solution is free to use."
"There are a lot of people you will find using OSSIM since they are also offering OTX as a service"
"The paid version of the solution has reporting and better scalability options."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the logging capability."
"The solution is very stable. Compared to Qradar and Splunk, it's very stable."
"The best feature of this product is the ease of use. It is extremely easy to set up and get going. This is a very useful tool for a small organization."
"The vulnerability manager and the file integration are very good."
"Easy to use, scalable, stable, and very intuitive platform that provides protection against security threats."
"We are able to get alerts perfectly with FIM and VA features."
"The Event Correlation and vulnerability scans have been the most useful. As a 24/7 SOC, we use the incoming alarms to give an overview of suspicious traffic going through the network. It's easy to look at the correlated events and see the broad picture of traffic for that customer. Vulnerability scans are good for providing patch and remediation guidelines to keep customer systems secure."
"The new cloud-based panel is excellent both for client review as well as for our SOC to review and respond to threats. It is much easier to configure and use than the previous solution from AlienVault.​"
"AlienVault provides a checklist answer when using SIEM."
"Reports are customized, so you can present them to executives or engineers.​"
 

Cons

"The initial setup was a bit complex. You've got to do a lot of reading. It's not an intuitive implementation."
"I don't like to work on OSSIM because it is unpredictable."
"I suggest more in-built rules based on modern threats and environments to make it a more competitive solution."
"The main area where the AlienVault product was lacking around the 2018 timeframe was in its ability to scale."
"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."
"AlienVault OSSIM could improve by having better integration with some of the newer tools."
"They can add more compliance templates."
"The user interface needs to be friendlier across the board."
"The vulnerability reporting needs to have options to be able to sort or customize the output."
"AlienVault must improve their correlation feature. Some of the events do not match with the correlation rules and some of the correlation events are false-positive."
"The reporting aspect could be improved. While there are a lot of different options available, there are still pieces which are missing."
"Windows log collection works with HIDS, but documentation is sparse and confusing."
"Reporting is convoluted and difficult at times, although they claim to have hundreds of pre-built reports, very few of them are actually useful for anything but what the USM is doing."
"USM Anywhere relies a lot on the community putting the data in. Often, you'll right-click on the attack, but nothing will be found. That's a weakness of it."
"The one thing I continue to dislike about the USM is the limitation on reports."
"I've been told that AlienVault doesn't have a full version of NES running in there, but I'm not sure if that's accurate or if my engineer made it that way. I'm not sure he was completely honest either because we had NES in the environment before. Those tools could be improved because AlienVault is a SIEM, and it added all these other features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"AlienVault OSSIM is free."
"The solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"OSSIM is 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."
"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."
"The licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"I don't think the product's pricing is a good value because they try to raise the price 50 percent every year... AlienVault needs to understand that not all customers are huge enterprises... Their sales team is way too aggressive. The price they advertise is not always the price you get."
"Its price is in the medium to upper range."
"We checked out several competitors. For what it can do and the cost, it was the best option!"
"Use an MSSP instead. It is much cheaper."
"We ran a few PoCs. The price and feature set were the best with AlienVault."
"QRadar, ArcSight and Splunk are some of the most expensive SIEM products out there in the market and not everyone has the budget to buy them. In such cases, AV USM is a very cost effective alternative."
"So far, I feel the product's pricing is a good value. The technology is decent. You get what you pay for. I think it's fair."
"Do the one month trial and try to work out the kinks during it, as it has free support and service hours."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Performing Arts
7%
Educational Organization
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 Business64
Midsize Enterprise29
Large Enterprise25
 

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 do you like most about AT&T AlienVault USM?
The most valuable feature of the solution is the ease of deployment that it provides to users. The integrations that the product has with third-party applications are useful.
What needs improvement with AT&T AlienVault USM?
There are scalability issues due to a 60 TB limit, which restricts its use for large customers like banks. It is also limited when used with bigger products and has complex password requirements.
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
AT&T AlienVault USM, AlienVault, AlienVault USM, Alienvault Cybersecurity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Abel & Cole, Bank of Ireland, Bluegrass Cellular, CareerBuilder, Claire's, Hays Medical Center, Hope International, McCurrach, McKinsey & Company, Party Delights, Pepco Holdings, Richland School District, Ricoh, SaveMart, Shake Shack, Steelcase, TaxAct, Taylor Morrison, Vonage and Zoom
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. USM Anywhere and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.