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AlienVault OSSIM vs Rapid7 InsightIDR 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
Rapid7 InsightIDR
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (3rd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (20th), Threat Deception Platforms (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 5.0%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 InsightIDR is 2.6%, down from 2.7% 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.
Prasanth Prasad - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers capabilities in areas like threat intelligence and vulnerability management but needs to improve support
The most valuable feature of the product for managing security events stems from the fact that the product's intelligence part is very good since it offers its own threat intelligence and vulnerability management platform. The tool also has its own cloud security posture management platform. The tool also is a dynamic application security testing platform. The aforementioned tools fall under Rapid7 InsightIDR's kitty. The intelligence and the data that Rapid7 gathers from customers across the globe enrich the quality of its detection capabilities. All other tools in the market depend on third-party solutions for intelligence. Rapid7 InsightIDr has the intelligence part natively available within the product, giving it a good edge over other vendors.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 features of this solution are the data correlation and vulnerability assessment."
"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."
"It has helped us remediate threats in the past by providing significant events that assisted in identifying suspicious activities, such as logins from multiple countries."
"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."
"With AlienVault you get everything in one box."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"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."
"The web interface is great — very useful and user-friendly."
"Simple configuration and automatically syncs to the cloud platform."
"It improves because several sensors are deployed within the on-premise environment. It can be very efficient if the customer implements and operates it effectively."
"Dashboards, including the main screen, provide much-needed information at a glance, without hours of coding and sifting through logs to find it. In case of an actual security incident, I have faith that insightIDR has retained all logs in a secure manner that prevents log tampering as well."
"The alerting to drive investigations and remediation has been its most valuable feature.​"
"The solution is very stable and works very well for what I need it to do."
"InsightIDR helps us investigate an environment to discover information about incidents."
"I like that it's a cloud-based solution."
 

Cons

"The incidence reporting could be better."
"AlienVault OSSIM could improve by having better integration with some of the newer tools."
"The correlation engine needs to be improved."
"The main area where the AlienVault product was lacking around the 2018 timeframe was in its ability to scale."
"AlienVault OSSIM is costly."
"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 failed to provide our company a full insight, while also giving out a lot of false positives."
"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."
"Cloud risk assessment is one area where I think they need a lot of improvement."
"The interface for doing investigation needs to be enhanced with minor improvements that would make it more useful."
"Needs a better ability to customize the check within the console."
"Tenable Nessus is easier to deal with. It's more efficient and accurate. InsightIDR is heavier than Tenable in terms of performance and scanning. Rapid7 would be much easier to use if it had a network connector like Tenable. Tenable's connector allows continuous monitoring over the B caps."
"The solution's XDR agents cannot compete with the XDR solutions out there yet."
"One of the things that could be better is digital forensics. It is there, but it can be better. They could provide more on the endpoint detection level."
"It takes time for the product's support team to resolve issues, making it an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The integration capabilities of the solution have certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"The solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"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 licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"AlienVault OSSIM is free."
"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR charges us based on the endpoints we connect to."
"It is more reasonably priced than other vendors."
"I rate Rapid7 InsightIDR's price a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"​I am sure that there are cheaper products out there, but none that meet so many of our needs whilst maintaining stability and usability.​"
"Rapid7 InsightIDR is priced very well and is cost-effective."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR's pricing is reasonable."
"Licensing is by endpoint and amount of retention time (at least ours is). Default retention was one year, but we are able to push the retention further if needed. There's also a provide-your-own-S3 option for longer retention if you don't want to pay for the additional retention years in your Rapid7 agreement."
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
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?
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.
What needs improvement with AlienVault OSSIM?
There are somewhat more false positives with the user behavior analytics, which could benefit from an additional machine learning model to detect user patterns more rapidly. The integration capabil...
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 do you like most about Rapid7 InsightIDR?
During simulations or demonstrations, the tool generates alerts, providing details such as the specific application, its origin, and potential threats. For instance, it can identify if an applicati...
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
InsightIDR
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Liberty Wines, Pioneer Telephone, Visier
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.