AlienVault OSSIM vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

AT&T and Splunk are both solutions in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category. AT&T is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.4, while Splunk is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4. AT&T holds a 4.1% mindshare in SIEM, compared to Splunk’s 9.8% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of AT&T users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

AlienVault OSSIM

Read 31 AlienVault OSSIM reviews

5,634 Views
3,768 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Splunk Enterprise Security

Read 305 Splunk Enterprise Security reviews

14,400 Views
11,689 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

AlienVault OSSIM

Splunk Enterprise Security

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

Splunk Enterprise Security and AlienVault OSSIM compete in the cybersecurity and data management category. Based on features and capabilities, Splunk Enterprise Security seems to have the upper hand due to its robust data analysis and comprehensive security features.

Features: Splunk Enterprise Security is renowned for its strong log management, rapid data search, and machine data ingestion capabilities, making it ideal for large-scale data correlation and analysis. It offers extensive search functions and efficient data dashboards for actionable insights and compliance. AlienVault OSSIM, as an open-source solution, provides valuable integrations with multiple systems, including data correlation and vulnerability assessment. It features an inbuilt intrusion detection system and an open threat exchange platform, offering integrative cybersecurity management at no cost.

Room for Improvement: Splunk Enterprise Security could enhance user-friendliness in its interface and visualization areas while improving operational workflows. Better support for user-friendly roles and authentication setup would make it more appealing for SOC environments. AlienVault OSSIM's integration with emerging tools and environments could be improved, and its outdated user interface needs modernization. Enhancing user behavior analytics would help in minimizing false positives.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Splunk Enterprise Security supports various deployment environments, including on-premises, hybrid, and public cloud, offering flexibility for different infrastructure needs. Its customer service, although efficient for premium users, could improve responsiveness and knowledge transfer at initial contact. AlienVault OSSIM, typically deployed on-premises, offers basic features in its community edition for free, though limited support unless upgraded. Its community greatly assists in compensating for the more limited structured support compared to Splunk.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk Enterprise Security is considered expensive due to its licensing based on data ingestion volume, potentially unsuitable for smaller enterprises. However, the extensive features and insights it offers justify the cost, providing measurable ROI through enhanced security capabilities. AlienVault OSSIM, as an open-source solution, ensures substantial cost savings, with its community version free and paid version offering additional features at competitive rates. While affordable, AlienVault may lack the advanced functionalities of Splunk, potentially impacting ROI in complex security environments.

To learn more, read our detailed AlienVault OSSIM vs. Splunk Enterprise Security Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AlienVault OSSIM vs. Splunk Enterprise Security

March 2025

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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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Splunk Enterprise Security

Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

305

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (2nd), IT Operations Analytics (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 4.1%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 9.8%, down from 13.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

Featured Reviews

Aman Aijaz

Assistant Manager Global Security at Convergys Corporation

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.

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ROBERT-CHRISTIAN

CTO Security & Resilience at Kyndryl

Has many predefined correlation rules and is brilliant for investigation and log analysis

It is very complicated to write your own correlation rules without the help of Splunk support. What Splunk could do better is to create an API to the standard SIEM tools, such as Microsoft Sentinel. The idea would be to make it less painful. In ELK Stack, Kibana is the query language with which you can search log files. I believe Splunk has also a query language in which they search their log files, but once you have identified the log file that you want to use for further security correlation, you want to very quickly transport that into your SIEM tool, such as Microsoft Sentinel. That is something that Splunk could make a little bit less painful because it is a lot of effort to find that log file and forward it. An API with Microsoft Sentinel or a similar SIEM tool would be a good idea.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"AlienVault OSSIM is an enterprise solution that sells easily. It is rated highly by organizations."

"The most valuable feature is the logging capability."

"AlienVault OSSIM's GUI is very user-friendly."

"I recommend it due to the experience of the people running it."

"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."

"With AlienVault you get everything in one box."

"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 most valuable features of this solution are the data correlation and vulnerability assessment."

More AlienVault OSSIM pros

"I have also been able to take advantage of some of the more complex statistical capabilities when analyzing logs."

"Splunk is extremely flexible, which allows us to create custom visualizations along with other customizations."

"From the class that I took this week, being able to create notable events from whatever you find in the data set is pretty useful."

"The benefits include the easy integration with other Splunk tools including Splunk UEBA, Splunk ITSI, and Splunk Core. The ease of integration and the organization's experience and familiarity with searching and passing logs through Splunk are the main benefits."

"The ability to manage large amounts of generated data and to protect all devices from unauthorized use are the most valuable features."

"It can log more logs than other solutions. It's a good way to troubleshoot problems."

"The consolidated overview of all the events that come in through our environment and an easy-to-access interface for all our end users are valuable."

"It follows MITRE ATT&CK and Cyber Kill Chain frameworks. There are certain notable events for which we can configure our security posture."

More Splunk Enterprise Security pros

Cons

"When comparing AlienVault OSSIM to other solutions it looks a bit outdated. Additionally, they need to improve their integration."

"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."

"There needs to be more support or some kind of training program so users can self-learn the system more effectively."

"AlienVault OSSIM’s configuration and integration could be a little easier."

"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."

"The incidence reporting could be better."

"The price of this solution is very high and it could be cheaper."

"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."

More AlienVault OSSIM cons

"It needs integration with a configuration management solution."

"We'd like to have the number of devices covered under the license to be increased."

"In terms of the interface, it could include some improvements for the look and feel."

"I'd say I am happy with the technical support, not elated. They provide great support, but sometimes they don't have the answers that I need."

"It is important to make sure that everything is built off of the threat models and all the underlying items within Splunk."

"Considering the contract thing and the whole legal area, it takes forever to get the contracts signed and to be able to agree to the terms and conditions for my company as well as for Splunk's team."

"Some of the search functions can be better. There has been a lot of talk at the conference about the update of SPL before each iteration. That will be a lot of help."

"The level of scalability depends on the license you have. You can expand or reduce it based on the environment. It does cost more money to scale, however."

More Splunk Enterprise Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AlienVault OSSIM is expensive compared to its competitors."

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."

"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."

"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 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."

"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 an open-source solution."

More AlienVault OSSIM pricing and cost advice

"Splunk can be an expensive solution. It all depends on how we configure the alerts and the events from the endpoints. You can save some money if you do that correctly. If not, it becomes an expensive solution."

"Truly evaluate the data you want to ingest and go slow. Pulling in data that can provide no use to your mission only wastes data against your license."

"It is expensive. I used to buy it early on, but then they combined it into a higher-up organization. They buy it for multiple systems now. Last time, I paid around 60K for it. There is just the licensing fee. That's all."

"Splunk Enterprise Security's pricing is pretty competitive."

"Splunk Enterprise Security is not at all cost-friendly to be deployed in very small enterprises like start-ups."

"Our customers often complain that the price of Splunk is too high."

"Most people share the same thought that the ingestion rates can get pretty pricey. There is a lot of work we do to curate the data that we send to Splunk so that it is not too noisy or too expensive."

"We have seen ROI and improvements as we have continued to use the product, but they are more reactive."

More Splunk Enterprise Security pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

Vinod Shankar

Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at Deloitte & Touche

Feb 26, 2015

HP ArcSight vs. IBM QRadar vs. McAfee Nitro vs. Splunk vs. RSA Security vs. LogRhythm

We at Infosecnirvana.com have done several posts on SIEM. After the Dummies Guide on SIEM, we are following it up with a SIEM Product Comparison – 101 deck. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Let me know what you think by posting your comments below. The key products compared here are…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

University

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AlienVault OSSIM?

Asset discovery is good.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?

It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingestion of anything, but the charge per GB/Day Indexed and it gets expensive as log ...

See all answers

How does Splunk compare with Azure Monitor?

Splunk handles a high amount of data very well. We use Splunk to capture information and as an aggregator for monitoring information from different sources. Splunk is very good at alerting us if we...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 4% of the time

Rapid7 InsightIDR vs AlienVault OSSIM

Compared 2% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs AlienVault OSSIM

Compared 2% of the time

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Wazuh vs Splunk Enterprise Security

Compared 10% of the time

IBM Security QRadar vs Splunk Enterprise Security

Compared 9% of the time

Dynatrace vs Splunk Enterprise Security

Compared 8% of the time

Datadog vs Splunk Enterprise Security

Compared 5% of the time

Sentinel vs Splunk Enterprise Security

Compared 4% of the time

More Splunk Enterprise Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AlienVault OSSIM

March 2025

Download AlienVault OSSIM product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk Enterprise Security

February 2025

Download Splunk Enterprise Security product report

Also Known As

OSSIM

No data available

Overview

AlienVault OSSIM, Open Source Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), provides you with a feature-rich open source SIEM complete with event collection, normalization and correlation. Launched by security engineers because of the lack of available open source products, AlienVault OSSIM was created specifically to address the reality many security professionals face: A SIEM, whether it is open source or commercial, is virtually useless without the basic security controls necessary for security visibility.

AT&T

Splunk Enterprise Security is widely used for security operations, including threat detection, incident response, and log monitoring. It centralizes log management, offers security analytics, and ensures compliance, enhancing the overall security posture of organizations.

Companies leverage Splunk Enterprise Security to monitor endpoints, networks, and users, detecting anomalies, brute force attacks, and unauthorized access. They use it for fraud detection, machine learning, and real-time alerts within their SOCs. The platform enhances visibility and correlates data from multiple sources to identify security threats efficiently. Key features include comprehensive dashboards, excellent reporting capabilities, robust log aggregation, and flexible data ingestion. Users appreciate its SIEM capabilities, threat intelligence, risk-based alerting, and correlation searches. Highly scalable and stable, it suits multi-cloud environments, reducing alert volumes and speeding up investigations.

What are the key features?

Comprehensive Dashboards: Provide a holistic view of security operations.
Flexible Data Ingestion: Supports various data sources for better analysis.
Robust Log Aggregation: Centralizes log management for easier monitoring.
Machine Learning Toolkit: Enhances threat detection and prediction capabilities.
SIEM Capabilities: Integrates security information and event management.
Threat Intelligence: Utilizes external information to improve security measures.
Risk-Based Alerting: Prioritizes alerts based on the risk they pose.
Correlation Searches: Identifies and correlates security events effectively.

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Enhanced Visibility: Improves monitoring across endpoints, networks, and users.
Faster Incident Response: Speeds up identification and resolution of security issues.
Reduced Alert Volumes: Lowers false positives and enhances signal-to-noise ratio.
Scalability: Adapts to growing and changing security needs.
Improved Security Operations: Integrates multiple security facets into one platform.

Splunk Enterprise Security is implemented across industries like finance, healthcare, and retail. Financial institutions use it for fraud detection and compliance, while healthcare organizations leverage its capabilities to safeguard patient data. Retailers deploy it to protect customer information and ensure secure transactions.

Splunk

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District

Splunk has more than 7,000 customers spread across over 90 countries. These customers include Telenor, UniCredit, ideeli, McKenney's, Tesco, and SurveyMonkey.

Buyer's Guide

AlienVault OSSIM vs. Splunk Enterprise Security

March 2025

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