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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.
Simon Johnston - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Customer Success at Coltek Business Soltuions
Simple antivirus solution integrates well but could improve pricing and currency options
I don't really have experience working with these solutions. I promote them for our clients, but I don't work with them. I can't share my experience with these tools as I make assumptions about that. For both Adlumin and CrowdStrike, both confirm that they're scalable and enterprise-ready and all those kinds of things. We haven't had any specific problem with either of those. We just have a preference for which one we would prefer. If somebody says they want to use a different one from the one that we prefer, then we have to find reasons why they aren't. But scalability is not one of the reasons that one is better over the other. I don't really have advice for people that are looking into using Sentinel; just do your research across what is available. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Sentinel a seven.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The paid version of the solution has reporting and better scalability options."
"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."
"You can customize the dashboards as well as the reporting."
"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," and the solution works well and allows me to have visibility into anomalous events."
"Technical support is excellent; they are very helpful and responsive."
"AlienVault OSSIM's GUI is very user-friendly."
"The initial setup was straightforward. I didn't have any problems."
"The product is majorly used for threat detection of the agents on servers and endpoints."
"The most valuable feature is the flexible log for identifying security threats inside an application. Sentinel is very good at this."
"We can do advanced hunting queries and modify SQL queries to get desired results based on the rules triggering over the console."
"Sentinel gave us logs to tell us what's going right and wrong in your environment so we could secure the network."
"If Sentinel is integrated with Identity Manager and User Application Portal, the solution runs simply perfect!"
"Novell SIEM was my second technology of this kind."
"One of the most valuable features is the business intelligence engine. It's very important because it keeps track of everything that's happening and alerts us if something is different than expected. The first time I used it, I was shocked at how well it performed. Another valuable feature that I think makes this product worth the price you pay for it is that it connects to basically every system that provides some form of logging, and it's very easy to set up what triggers this."
"Transactional user information improves security, prevents fraud, and promotes best practices."
"It makes everything easier by automating some tasks and growing with our needs."
 

Cons

"There needs to be more support or some kind of training program so users can self-learn the system more effectively."
"AlienVault OSSIM failed to provide our company a full insight, while also giving out a lot of false positives."
"The main area where the AlienVault product was lacking around the 2018 timeframe was in its ability to scale."
"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."
"We need more dashboards and we need more customization for dashboards."
"The log collection is okay, but tracing the logs or tracing the events is a bit difficult."
"The biggest thing I always complain about is that the user intake is a very old version."
"It's probably not a product that I would recommend to anyone."
"This product's connection to certain types of cloud systems could be improved."
"You need a lot of Unix scripting knowledge in order to manage the tool, which is one of the main issues that we faced."
"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."
"Frankly speaking, we did not find this product to be valuable, at all."
"There is a need for more flexibility in customization, especially when working with different vendors and platforms."
"Price is always a consideration, so the price would be nice if it were lower."
 

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

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
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.
912,801 professionals have used our research since 2012.