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AlienVault OSSIM vs Fortinet FortiSIEM 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
Fortinet FortiSIEM
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
AI Observability (8th)
 

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 Fortinet FortiSIEM is 2.7%, down from 3.0% 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 (%)
Fortinet FortiSIEM2.7%
AlienVault OSSIM1.7%
Other95.6%
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.
SY
Network Engineer at Ogma Consulting
Comprehensive monitoring boosts security, yet incident management features need expansion
Fortinet FortiSIEM should broaden its remediation part to include more features for incident management. Currently, to manage repetitive incidents or for remediation, I need to use a separate software called FortiSOAR. Additionally, the search functionality in FortiAI should be improved to provide more precise results, making it easier for me to understand what actions need to be taken.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Better than other SIEM solutions because almost everything can be integrated."
"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."
"Asset discovery is good."
"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 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."
"You can customize the dashboards as well as the reporting."
"The solution is easy to use and user-friendly."
"It's a very nice solution to work with."
"FortiSIEM helped us discover all the threats at the time that were attacking the IT services of the company. We now have multiple-level authentication."
"FortiSIEM allows you to match IPs with threat intelligence feeds from sources like Kaspersky or Anomali, adding valuable context."
"Analytics is the most valuable feature. The business service summaries in the dashboards and the correlations for the SIEM are also valuable features."
"Some of our customers who use this solution have seen improvement in their connection with load balancing on both connections."
"The most valuable features of the solution is its integration with other technologies, especially its ability to collect logs from Cisco and Aruba devices along with Fortinet products."
"FortiSIEM's best features are the dashboards and customization."
 

Cons

"The incidence reporting could be better."
"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."
"It's so hard to configure and explore something new on it."
"There needs to be more support or some kind of training program so users can self-learn the system more effectively."
"The initial setup was a bit complex. You've got to do a lot of reading. It's not an intuitive implementation."
"The user interface could be improved."
"It's under heavy traffic. If you have heavy traffic, the system is slow."
"The support of the product changed recently, and I don't think it's for the better. They should work to improve the support they offer to clients."
"The solution needs to do a better job with third party integration. Right now, that's lacking on the solution. I specifically am talking about the AWS environment. Most of the AWS environment products do not have that capability to integrate."
"I would like to see more integration with other platforms."
"The performance can be improved. Sometimes it takes a long time to fetch data."
"The process of installing Fortinet FortiSIEM and the customization of the alerts take too long."
"Not very good on non-API features, lacks that functionality."
"Their product support, in general, is not that great. The product support is in the same ecosystem. Their support is improving but it's not that great.vvv"
"They should enhance the solution's AI capabilities, including XDR and EDR."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"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."
"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 licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"We bought the perpetual license, so we own the product, but there is a three-year support renewal fee for that."
"The price of the solution is expensive. The license is scalable. If there are 10 devices it is simple to license."
"The price of Fortinet FortiSIEM is a lot less when compared to other solutions."
"FortiSIEM's licensing is based on EPS, and its pricing is competitive in the market."
"Fortinet's products are not expensive, it is less than the competition."
"There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the product. The free version license of the product is available for two months."
"We pay for a license for FortiSIEM. We pay for the license and renewal."
"This is probably more on the lower cost end of the spectrum compared to competing products. Fortinet's license model is based on events per second, which makes sense, but that's not typical. It makes it very hard to calculate what your costs are going to be as you scale the platform because some log sources, such as firewall logs, are very noisy, and there are lots and lots of events per second, but some of them are not. So, it becomes a bit of a science experiment trying to guess what your costs are going to be as you scale the solution. This is where other competing products perhaps have a more straightforward license model."
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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
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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 Business34
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise24
 

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 Fortinet FortiSIEM?
Fortinet FortiSIEM needs to provide better API integrations to users.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiSIEM?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Fortinet FortiSIEM is wonderful, as it offers an excellent license compared to other vendors.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiSIEM?
Fortinet FortiSIEM is great overall. Performance could be enhanced, but I do not wish to elaborate on needed improvements.
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
FortiSIEM, AccelOps
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
FortiSIEM has hundreds of customers worldwide in markets including managed services, technology, financial services, healthcare, and government. Customers include Aruba Networks, Compushare, Port of San Diego, Cleveland Indians, Infoblox, Healthways, and Referentia.
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. Fortinet FortiSIEM and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.