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AlienVault OSSIM vs OpenText Enterprise Security Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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)
13th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OpenText Enterprise Securit...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.7%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Enterprise Security Manager is 1.5%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
AlienVault OSSIM1.7%
OpenText Enterprise Security Manager1.5%
Other96.8%
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.
NM
Senior Security Engineer at Valuepoint Systems
Interpreting data effectively despite challenges in integration and support
If someone lacks the budget for a new SIEM tool with advanced capabilities, I would recommend ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM). However, if they have the budget, I would suggest looking into other options. Overall, I would give ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) a rating of seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of this solution are the data correlation and vulnerability assessment."
"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 solution is free to use."
"The open vault component and the checking of vulnerabilities are the most valuable features. The page management helps with this. If you know how your device is vulnerable at least you can do something about it."
"There are a lot of people you will find using OSSIM since they are also offering OTX as a service"
"AlienVault OSSIM is an enterprise solution that sells easily. It is rated highly by organizations."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Better than other SIEM solutions because almost everything can be integrated."
"On the positive side, ArcSight ESM's performance was excellent. It was very fast when writing queries. It provided good performance monitoring and had built-in rules to show which rules triggered most often and impacted performance. This performance monitoring was well-implemented."
"The correlation feature is good."
"There are many features that are good for clients who are looking for a good SIEM solution. They like the ease of creating a business that is effective and impressive."
"The most important feature is ArcSight's event correlation capabilities. It's powerful and easy. I also like the flex connector capability. It's easy to develop a new connector that isn't fully supported out of the box. For example, say you created a solution internally that's completely different, and it's not unsupported by the solution. You can write your own connector using the flex connector."
"We have been satisfied with the support."
"Customization. ArcSight gives you a platform to on-board out-of-the-box devices with a more accurate way of collecting desired logs/events."
"Support is very good."
"​It is a vital tool for live monitoring and helps us to understand the traffic alerts of any major issue on the network, thereby reducing hacking attempts."
 

Cons

"Sometimes technical issues take very long to get resolved."
"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."
"I suggest more in-built rules based on modern threats and environments to make it a more competitive solution."
"Lacking in depth of reporting."
"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."
"AlienVault OSSIM could improve by having better integration with some of the newer tools."
"We need more dashboards and we need more customization for dashboards."
"AlienVault OSSIM should improve the deployment and make it unified like the USM."
"The initial setup could be more straightforward."
"I faced some problems implementing certain attacks, which was my biggest concern. The visualization wasn't very good, and I couldn't create good monitoring dashboards."
"The solution could be more stable."
"Could benefit from a more modern interface."
"The security area has room for improvement."
"I am having issues with report generation with older versions. I don't know if this is because of compatibility issues, but report generation has been a little bit difficult in older versions. It is not similar to the newer and current versions. We are looking at moving to the cloud. It would be good if ArcSight ESM can move to the cloud. They already seem to be working on this. It would also be very helpful and great if we can integrate external threat intelligence, machine learning, and AI into this solution. It has good dashboards, but they can always be better. Its stability can also be improved."
"They need to develop NetFlow appliances that can be installed in the customer network on span ports, collect NetFlow, and send it to ArcSight without relying on the devices' NetFlow capability and their position in the network."
"ArcSight ESM's UI is a little cumbersome and complex, especially for first-time and occasional users using the console manager."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"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."
"The licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"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 free."
"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."
"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 pricing model is expensive compared to open-source alternatives."
"Aggregation can help a lot in pushing down licensing costs."
"The product licenses are inexpensive."
"​It is best to be an institutional buyer and directly contact the sales team, as they can provide over-the-top discounts for bulk orders.​"
"We're paying a fee for an MSSP, and the cost of the total cost of ArcSight ESM was approximately three to four million dollars a year. The price was less than similar solutions. We did not have additional fees."
"There is a license required for this solution."
"The pricing is great compared to others."
"It's a good price, it's one of the cheaper solutions."
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Comparison Review

VS
Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Jun 28, 2015
Qradar vs. ArcSight
Continuing with the SIEM posts we have done at Infosecnirvana, this post is a Head to head comparison of the two Industry leading SIEM products in the market – HP ArcSight and IBM QRadar Both the products have consistently been in the Gartner Leaders Quadrant. Both HP and IBM took over niche SIEM…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Marketing Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Performing Arts
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 Business37
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise57
 

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...
Which is the best SIEM tool for a mid-sized financial services firm: Arcsight or Securonix?
In my market, a lot of financial companies had or have an ArcSight installation. Just because in former times it was pretty good. Now a lot of them are looking for a more effective solution due to ...
What do you like most about ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM)?
We utilize ArcSight ESM for real-time threat detection in our organization. We have custom rules that we've developed on top of the WAN services, along with scheduled licensing activities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM)?
ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is very cheap compared to other tools. It is worth the investment if you are considering the cost.
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
Micro Focus ArcSight, HPE ArcSight, ArcSight
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Lake Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bank AlJazira, Banca Intesa, and Obrela.
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. OpenText Enterprise Security Manager and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.