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NetWitness Platform vs USM Anywhere comparison

 

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

NetWitness Platform
Ranking in Log Management
22nd
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
23rd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
USM Anywhere
Ranking in Log Management
42nd
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
33rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (52nd), Compliance Management (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 0.6%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of USM Anywhere is 1.0%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

MdZaman - PeerSpot reviewer
Really scalable for enterprise customers
The solution should have more integration capabilities with different platforms. The API is nearly open and scalable, so the solution can integrate with many platforms. The solution has more than 200 log sources in the scalability to support, but this is its limit. Installation is pretty easy. However, there are a couple of modules involved, so it is not as easy as it could be. We are talking about a distributed module, not a single-module type. This is what makes things a bit complex, instead of easier. I rate it as a seven out of ten on its installation and configuration capabilities.
Kris Nawani - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers complete coverage without the need to install additional software
USM Anywhere is used for threat detection and investigation. It provides a solution with built-in threat intelligence and various other investigation tools The solution offers complete coverage without the need to install additional software, as it is maintained by the vendor. It helps in saving…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"NetWitness Platform is valuable for creating rules that the solution must detect."
"The most valuable features are the threat prediction and network forensics."
"Their technical support responds quickly and are knowledgable."
"In my opinion, the solution's most valuable feature is its capacity to monitor network traffic, logs from devices within the network, and network captures. This capability extends beyond logs to include full network capturing."
"I can have enterprise security, email security, next generation firewall security log, HIDS and NIDS logs, etc. all on the same dashboard. It makes it easy to pinpoint or correlate our server to this. I can find out if there is lateral movement. This is the biggest advantage of this solution."
"Setting up NetWitness is straightforward. There are multiple connectors, including standard and specialized connectors. One purpose of the connectors is the enhanced capability integrate the custom applications. NetWitness comes with E6 appliances and application images that we use for the initial configurations and for the OS stack information. From there, you can consider the correlation rules, integrate the different log sources, and easily create correlation rules and backlog reports."
"Alerting Module: It provides real-time event processing language on all the logs/packets stream for advanced alerting, i.e., using SQL LIKE statements."
"The most valuable features are its ingestion of logs and raising of alerts based on those logs."
"The main menu: You can see everything there, what is happening on the servers, and in the logs, you can view more details of each event."
"The AlienVault solution has enabled us to create a SOC on a budget with smaller than usual staff requirements, offering a wider range of solutions for our customers."
"Any unusual behaviour, we can monitor. We have alerts set up to be sent when we receive signs of any unusual behaviour."
"AlienVault has an advanced component within one package. With this, we can cover more area with one solution."
"This solution can identify many threats inside the organization (compromised endpoints, configuration issues), as well as "outside" threats (botnets, network scanners, web-attacks, etc)."
"As we have to service several servers, we can manage them in a economical way, which is beneficial to our team and business."
"The setup is very easy and straightforward."
"Having everything in a central place has been helpful."
 

Cons

"Log aggregation is an issue with this solution because there are a huge number of alerts in a single instance."
"They should implement algorithms to digest that data and produce additional, more advanced reporting, alerting and support of internal security teams."
"The threat detection capability and centralizing and upgrading capability need to be improved. The threat alert capability needs to be improved as well because there is some lag time at present. They need to work on their database search too."
"Lots of competing products have vulnerability protection built into their products, and this solution would be improved by including that support."
"The implementation needs assistance."
"More customizability is required, which is something that they need to improve on."
"The system architecture is complex and sometimes it’s hard to troubleshoot potential problems."
"There are instances where you try to run the reports and then it does not give you the desired outcome."
"The GUI needs to improve because it's not user-friendly."
"For creating new rules, you have to be familiar with regular expressions. I feel there could be something built-in to make sure that process is easier."
"Different functions to customize reports should be added."
"We would like more plugins. This being the main point of improvement which would benefit the users."
"The UI and overall processes need a little bit more love. This shows in the error banners that come up when you select certain things. There isn't a day that goes by that the UI doesn't error out and I can't view events for an alarm."
"The other thing is the agent is OSSEC. They needed to create its own agent to help to find threats on the devices that it happens to be installed."
"I've been told that AlienVault doesn't have a full version of NES running in there, but I'm not sure if that's accurate or if my engineer made it that way. I'm not sure he was completely honest either because we had NES in the environment before. Those tools could be improved because AlienVault is a SIEM, and it added all these other features."
"Their threat intelligence platform needs to be broadened. They should integrate it with more threat intelligence platforms. For the threat feed that they get from open intelligence, I would like them to add a few premium threat intelligence platforms. They can provide a bundle in which AlienVault has the threat intelligence background of other premium products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is a pricey solution; it's not cheap."
"Our license is for one year."
"Compared to the competition, the is price is not that high."
"Many clients are not able to purchase the packet capability because there is a huge amount of data, and the cost depends on the number of EPS (Events per second), as well as the number of gigabytes of data per day."
"The licenses are good but the cost is very expensive."
"The product price was reasonable for my region and the market."
"The new pricing and licensing mechanisms are fair. I would advise always to get the full solution (i.e., not only Logs)."
"In comparison to other SIEM solutions such as Splunk, NetWitness is less costly."
"Its price is in the medium to upper range."
"The pricing is a good value. The key thing is that for the new product, the licensing of it, is subscription-based and it's based on data. Clients need to be really careful when thinking about that, because odds are they're going to need to put a lot more data into it than what they initially estimate, which is going to drive their subscription costs up."
"​The price point is good.​"
"I rate the price of AT&T AlienVault USM a four out of five."
"It is affordable, and it also has many features that the premium products such as ArcSight and QRadar have. It is a very good platform for a SIEM solution. Everything is included in the price."
"The price for this solution is very good, but since the features do not work the price is expensive."
"AlienVault is certainly not nearly as expensive as Splunk or QRadar. It's decently priced, but I don't have the exact figure."
"Use the AlienVault team. They are helpful and the documentation that they provide is second to none."
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Comparison Review

VS
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
17%
Insurance Company
6%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about NetWitness Platform?
The product's initial setup phase was not at all difficult.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetWitness Platform?
The product price was reasonable for my region and the market.
What needs improvement with NetWitness Platform?
From an improvement perspective, the NetWitness Platform needs to release new features and improve in areas like log correlation. The tool needs to have easier integrations with the cloud. Building...
What do you like most about AT&T AlienVault USM?
The most valuable feature of the solution is the ease of deployment that it provides to users. The integrations that the product has with third-party applications are useful.
What needs improvement with AT&T AlienVault USM?
There are scalability issues due to a 60 TB limit, which restricts its use for large customers like banks. It is also limited when used with bigger products and has complex password requirements.
 

Also Known As

RSA Security Analytics
AT&T AlienVault USM, AlienVault, AlienVault USM, Alienvault Cybersecurity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
Abel & Cole, Bank of Ireland, Bluegrass Cellular, CareerBuilder, Claire's, Hays Medical Center, Hope International, McCurrach, McKinsey & Company, Party Delights, Pepco Holdings, Richland School District, Ricoh, SaveMart, Shake Shack, Steelcase, TaxAct, Taylor Morrison, Vonage and Zoom
Find out what your peers are saying about NetWitness Platform vs. USM Anywhere and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.