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AlienVault OSSIM vs Exabeam 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)
10th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Exabeam
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (3rd), Security Incident Response (5th), Threat Intelligence Platforms (7th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (7th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 3.9%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Exabeam is 1.4%, up from 1.3% 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.
Stephen-Armstrong - PeerSpot reviewer
The SIEM provides a user-friendly UI experience
When events come into the system, the dashboard categorizes them by the highest risk score, not when they appear on the system. When you've got multiple ongoing incidents you can only see the highest risk score at the top of the list rather than the most recent detection. Exabeam's reporting dashboard could have included a filtering option to filter by the most recent detection.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its user-friendliness is the most valuable. It is very easy to use and explore. The dashboard is very well packaged and integrated. You don't have to spend a lot of time in configuring it and checking out the RPM etc. It is also free and very powerful."
"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."
"I recommend it due to the experience of the people running it."
"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 product is majorly used for threat detection of the agents on servers and endpoints."
"You can customize the dashboards as well as the reporting."
"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are case management, ease of configuration, and investigation."
"Network traffic analysis is highly efficient."
"The platform is not extremely expensive compared to its direct competitors; I would rate its pricing around six out of ten."
"Exabeam includes machine learning features and out-of-the-box rules that we rely on."
"The Exabeam SIEM has a user friendly UI interface."
"Exabeam has improved our organization by speeding up the investigation process."
"The most valuable feature of Exabeam Fusion SIEM is the easy-to-use user interface."
"The advanced analytics has a really great overview of user behavior."
"I have customers that like the EUBA functionality of it. The solution has the ability to build a session, basically. It pulls a lot of information together, for example, everything a user does in a specific timeframe. It's quite helpful."
"Exabeam Fusion SIEM has a good performance and more advantages than traditional solutions."
 

Cons

"The user interface needs to be friendlier across the board."
"They can add more compliance templates."
"AlienVault OSSIM should improve the deployment and make it unified like the USM."
"AlienVault OSSIM’s configuration and integration could be a little easier."
"The main area where the AlienVault product was lacking around the 2018 timeframe was in its ability to scale."
"The solution is not scalable."
"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."
"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."
"The only problem is that the UI is not very impressive."
"We still have questions surrounding hardware deployment."
"Exabeam lacks customizable dashboards, which might be a limitation if visualization is a key requirement."
"One area for the solution's improvement is integration capabilities, particularly out-of-the-box integration which sometimes requires additional professional services."
"Exabeam needs to improve its adaptive nature towards rules and its capability to understand the entire client environment faster."
"Exabeam's reporting dashboard could have included a filtering option to filter by the most recent detection."
"The customer service and support are not satisfactory."
"They need to focus on more of the MITRE ATT&CK Framework and coverage. They claim they cover about 70 to 80%. I'm not sure if it's really quite that much, however."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"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."
"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."
"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 expensive compared to its competitors."
"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."
"Exabeam is not a cheap solution."
"There is an annual license required to use Exabeam Fusion SIEM. The price of the solution should be reduced."
"They have a great model for pricing that can be based either on user count or gigabits per day."
"The solution is expensive."
"Exabeam Fusion SIEM's pricing is reasonable."
"The platform is not extremely expensive compared to its direct competitors; I would rate its pricing around six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

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 are the biggest differences between Securonix UEBA, Exabeam, and IBM QRadar?
It mostly depends on your use-cases and environment. Exabeam and Securonix have a stronger UEBA feature set, friendlier GUI and are not licensed based on capacity (amount of logs and information in...
What do you like most about Exabeam Fusion SIEM?
The solution's initial setup process is easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Exabeam Fusion SIEM?
I do not have much information about the pricing. However, I am aware that Exabeam is cheaper than Palo Alto based on discussions in meetings.
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Hulu, ADP, Safeway, BBCN Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. Exabeam and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.