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AlienVault OSSIM vs Sentinel comparison

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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)
25th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sentinel
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.2%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sentinel is 2.7%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sentinel2.7%
AlienVault OSSIM1.2%
Other96.1%
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.
PT
Senior Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Improved incident monitoring has reduced false positives and supports audit-ready reporting
The best features Sentinel offers, in my experience, include the filtering features and the ability to run KQL queries so that I can understand what table has what and when the last log has been monitored and reported. Sentinel has positively impacted my organization by improving monitoring significantly. As a pay-as-you-go service, we are ingesting logs as needed. When the pay-as-you-go service is enabled, we can either ingest whenever there is a spike in the logs, and when there are fewer logs, we can reduce the ingestion. This approach is helpful for both the organization and me. In terms of metrics showing how Sentinel has helped, as part of log filtering, we have reduced around thirty to thirty-five percent of false-positive incident creation. We have also cleared some audits by enabling log retention in Sentinel, allowing us to pull out data for audits when necessary using both hot retention and cold retention. This has helped the organization as a whole.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have deployed it widely because I find that it gives value for money."
"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."
"Inbuilt IDS, inbuilt integration with threat intelligence platform and with vulnerability assessment modules."
"The solution is free to use."
"The paid version of the solution has reporting and better scalability options."
"The threat policies of the solution are always very advanced and the best in the market, and they are very persistent in terms of keeping up with security protocols."
"The solution is very stable, and compared to QRadar and Splunk, it's very stable."
"The solution lets us get all the logs properly and regularly monitor customer infrastructure."
"The correlation engine allows our clients to generate rules more efficiently."
"Sentinel is a tool that, if it's well configured, removes from view all unnecessary information and shows you only needful entries, so you can do your job faster, more conveniently, and with high performance."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it provides a central locking system for many event sources."
"Sentinel has positively impacted my organization by improving monitoring significantly."
"Sentinel gave us logs to tell us what's going right and wrong in your environment so we could secure the network."
"We can do advanced hunting queries and modify SQL queries to get desired results based on the rules triggering over the console."
"The stability is phenomenal and we never had any issues with downtime or even had to restart."
 

Cons

"From a management console perspective and the maturity of the dashboards, I would probably put it slightly behind some of the other players that have been in the market for ages."
"They can add more compliance templates."
"The correlation engine needs to be improved."
"AlienVault OSSIM could improve by having better integration with some of the newer tools."
"There needs to be more focus on the NOC and IIS in terms of developing applications for behavior detection."
"The price of this solution is very high and it could be cheaper."
"The incidence reporting could be better."
"The documentation could be improved."
"The solution does not allow outsourced authorizations."
"Price is always a consideration, so the price would be nice if it were lower."
"I would like to see a better reporting work structure on the dashboard."
"Documentation for security aspects could be improved. It is difficult to find clear information about encryption or risks that are addressed."
"You need a lot of Unix scripting knowledge in order to manage the tool, which is one of the main issues that we faced."
"Frankly speaking, we did not find this product to be valuable, at all."
"I would prefer to extend dashboards part and their functions in Web GUI version, so the charts could be for configurable."
"There are still a few vendor-specific devices for which Sentinel needs to work on integration, such as Netskope devices."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the community version, which can be used for 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."
"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."
"OSSIM is free."
"AlienVault OSSIM is free."
"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."
"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."
"Sentinel is a subscription-based solution."
"The solution’s pricing is aligned with its competitors."
"Sentinel's slightly on the expensive side."
"Sentinel is moderately priced."
"We inquired about getting support from the vendor, Micro Focus, but the cost was very high."
"We receive a pricing discount because of our ongoing partnership with Micro Focus."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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 Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
 

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 is your primary use case for AlienVault OSSIM?
This solution is very similar to most of the other MSSPs that you would find out there. When I look at use cases, AlienVault was initially aimed at small to medium businesses. It grew, and that was...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetIQ Sentinel?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows that while it is a little on the higher side, since it is part of a package for all Microsoft products, I feel it is a better choice comp...
What needs improvement with NetIQ Sentinel?
Sentinel needs minimal improvement, though improvements are ongoing. Everything seems to be functioning perfectly, and I don't have any specific inputs for improvements I would like to see in Senti...
What is your primary use case for NetIQ Sentinel?
My main use case for Sentinel is that I'm a subject matter expert for Sentinel, specifically for security incident event and event management. I head the SME for SIEM in LTIMindtree for this curren...
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
NetIQ Sentinel, Novell SIEM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Faysal Bank, GaVI, Handelsbanken, ISC Mªnster, Lambeth Council, Swisscard, The Municipality of Siena, Tukes, University of Dayton, University of the Sunshine Coast
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. Sentinel and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.