Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

AlienVault OSSIM vs Cortex XSIAM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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)
12th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cortex XSIAM
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (7th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.9%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cortex XSIAM is 2.4%, up from 2.3% 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 OSSIM1.9%
Cortex XSIAM2.4%
Other95.7%
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.
reviewer2666148 - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Director at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Integration challenges highlight the need for manual workflows
The standard integrations are very limited, and the integrations available are not listed in the marketplace. Obtaining validation for integrations from Palo Alto takes around eight months, which is quite long. The solution would benefit from having more standard playbooks and templates available, as in other partners. Currently, everything must be created from scratch. In terms of incident response automation, it is quite poor due to the lack of integration with all security tools, making manual intervention necessary.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has a very good open source community, and whenever we have problems, we are always able to resolve it online."
"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are vulnerability assessment, network intrusion detection system, response to critical events, and awareness of the whole network."
"You can customize the dashboards as well as the reporting."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an enterprise solution that sells easily. It is rated highly by organizations."
"The tool's security detection is good. It helps us with login tracking and generating reports. We aim to identify potential issues, such as brute-force attacks on user accounts or server-level anomalies. For instance, if I receive a report indicating a server is at an abnormal level, I investigate and address the issue."
"Asset discovery is good."
"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."
"It has helped us remediate threats in the past by providing significant events that assisted in identifying suspicious activities, such as logins from multiple countries."
"The advanced visualization capabilities of the product are important for understanding security trends in an organization."
"The most valuable feature is the integration capability."
"Since implementing Cortex XSIAM, incident response times have been significantly reduced by approximately twenty percent."
"I would give Cortex XSIAM a rating of ten out of ten."
"The flexibility for creating manual workflows stands out."
"Cortex XSIAM enhances our ability to apply endpoint protection policies, implement restrictions, conduct scans, and engage in sandboxing."
"One of the valued aspects of the product is its use of artificial intelligence to detect security vulnerabilities."
"It does a better job of identifying anomalies that are more likely to be incidents of compromise without as many false positives or false negatives."
 

Cons

"I don't like to work on OSSIM because it is unpredictable."
"The user interface could be improved."
"The initial setup was a bit complex. You've got to do a lot of reading. It's not an intuitive implementation."
"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."
"When comparing AlienVault OSSIM to other solutions it looks a bit outdated. Additionally, they need to improve their integration."
"The solution needs more integration with cyber intelligence systems."
"Lacking in depth of reporting."
"The user interface needs to be friendlier across the board."
"The standard integrations are very limited, and the integrations available are not listed in the marketplace."
"At the beginning, we experienced some difficulties setting up the product with connectivity and infrastructure, but ultimately it functioned really effectively."
"The standard integrations are very limited, and the integrations available are not listed in the marketplace. Obtaining validation for integrations from Palo Alto takes around eight months, which is quite long."
"The platform isn't very developer-friendly and it should provide more flexibility and ease."
"There is room for improvement in expanding integrations to include more cybersecurity solutions."
"It could provide more integration with a large variety of products."
"The first impression is that XSIAM would be more expensive than others we tried."
"The support could be a bit faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AlienVault OSSIM is free."
"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."
"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."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"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 licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"The solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"In terms of pricing, we found Cortex XSIAM to offer a very reasonable and competitive rate."
"The solution is expensive compared to its competitors."
"Since Palo Alto is trying to get as many new customers as possible, they're offering very competitive pricing."
"The product cost could be considered value for money compared to other solutions in the market, though it is quite high."
"The solution comes at a significant cost."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions are best for your needs.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
 

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 Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

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 experience regarding pricing and costs for Cortex XSIAM?
I did not participate in pricing discussions for Cortex XSIAM solutions, so I cannot provide a review regarding prices for this solution.
What needs improvement with Cortex XSIAM?
Cortex XSIAM is on the expensive side and requires substantial improvement in pricing. There are other features that could be improved, including integration with vendors such as CyberArk. I would ...
What is your primary use case for Cortex XSIAM?
With Cortex XSIAM, we installed an agent on Active Directory on-premise. We connected our Firewalls to the Data Lake and the Active Directory, and protected the Firewalls with another authenticatio...
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. Cortex XSIAM and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.