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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

"The product is easy to use."
"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are vulnerability assessment, network intrusion detection system, response to critical events, and awareness of the whole network."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Better than other SIEM solutions because almost everything can be integrated."
"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 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."
"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."
"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are case management, ease of configuration, and investigation."
"The correlation engine allows our clients to generate rules more efficiently."
"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."
"In my opinion, Sentinel's best features include that it's a very easy product to use, it's very simple, and the after-sale service is very good."
"Sentinel gave us logs to tell us what's going right and wrong in your environment so we could secure the network."
"The tool is simple to use."
"If Sentinel is integrated with Identity Manager and User Application Portal, the solution runs simply perfect!"
"It provides real time security event analytics."
 

Cons

"AlienVault OSSIM could improve by having better integration with some of the newer tools."
"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."
"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."
"We need more dashboards and we need more customization for dashboards."
"They can add more compliance templates."
"AlienVault OSSIM gives unwanted notifications."
"The initial setup was not so easy, partly because the documentation was not up to date."
"I don't like to work on OSSIM because it is unpredictable."
"This product's connection to certain types of cloud systems could be improved. We can do Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, but there are a lot of other things happening in the cloud that we do not connect well enough to. This product could be improved with better connection to cloud-based solutions."
"You need a lot of Unix scripting knowledge in order to manage the tool, which is one of the main issues that we faced."
"The dashboard and customer view should be improved."
"I would prefer to extend dashboards part and their functions in Web GUI version, so the charts could be for configurable."
"There is no integration in the web-side of the tool."
"Creating a drag-and-drop dashboard or workbook in Sentinel is a little more complex compared to other tools like LogRhythm and IBM QRadar."
"I would like to see a better reporting work structure on the dashboard."
"This product's connection to certain types of cloud systems could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"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."
"OSSIM is free."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Sentinel is moderately priced."
"Sentinel's slightly on the expensive side."
"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."
"Sentinel is a subscription-based solution."
"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%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
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.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.