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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)
14th
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 October 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.2%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sentinel is 2.7%, down from 4.1% 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."
"Inbuilt IDS, inbuilt integration with threat intelligence platform and with vulnerability assessment modules."
"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are vulnerability assessment, network intrusion detection system, response to critical events, and awareness of the whole network."
"It is a perfectly nice and free tool for compliance testing, assessment, and some basic vulnerability."
"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 product is majorly used for threat detection of the agents on servers and endpoints."
"I recommend it due to the experience of the people running it."
"What I like about this product, is that it is a fully-fledged solution."
"The native integration with out-of-the box format is hassle free and allows data to be used advantageously."
"It provides real time security event analytics."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it provides a central locking system for many event sources."
"Transactional user information improves security, prevents fraud, and promotes best practices."
"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."
"Sentinel has positively impacted my organization by improving monitoring significantly."
"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 stability is phenomenal and we never had any issues with downtime or even had to restart."
 

Cons

"The incidence reporting could be better."
"AlienVault OSSIM failed to provide our company a full insight, while also giving out a lot of false positives."
"Sometimes it takes very long for your issue to get resolved."
"The price of this solution is very high and it could be cheaper."
"The log collection is okay, but tracing the logs or tracing the events is a bit difficult."
"The solution needs more integration with cyber intelligence systems. Our customers want to use a single tool for managing cybersecurity."
"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 user interface could be improved."
"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."
"There are still a few vendor-specific devices for which Sentinel needs to work on integration, such as Netskope devices."
"The solution does not allow outsourced authorizations."
"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 rate Sentinel a six out of ten for scalability."
"This product's connection to certain types of cloud systems could be improved."
 

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."
"AlienVault OSSIM is expensive compared to its competitors."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"The licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"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."
"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 OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"OSSIM is free."
"We inquired about getting support from the vendor, Micro Focus, but the cost was very high."
"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 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
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
8%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
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.
915,383 professionals have used our research since 2012.