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AlienVault OSSIM vs Cynet 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

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (6th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (5th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
AlienVault OSSIM
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (16th)
Cynet
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (21st), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (18th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (7th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (18th), Threat Deception Platforms (2nd), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (9th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (13th), Ransomware Protection (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

ABHISHEK_SINGH - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Gained full visibility and streamlined threat detection through behavior-based insights and AI integration
Initially, we got to have a lot of false positives when we onboarded, but nowadays it's quite smooth. We have fine-tuned our security policies and allowed different levels of policies to get rid of those false positives. Currently, we are getting a fairly good amount of incidents that are not false positives or benign, but actionable items. The process is streamlined. In the initial days, the operations used to get involved in a lot of benign and other activities, but now the process is streamlined. We are leveraging the auto-detection and remediation plans. The operations teams are now more involved in other business roles as well, not just looking into the logs and fetching out what's happening there. They have fixed a lot of things. Initially, they didn't have IAC code drift detection, cloud posture management, or security posture management, but they have those now. They purchased different vendors and did a merger with that. They have now Prisma Cloud that gets integrated and now they are working with Cortex Cloud. Everything that was negative has now been addressed, and the product altogether looks to be in a very better and mature shape now. Currently, it's more or less detecting the workloads with AI-based best practices. Since most organizations are consuming AI agents and other things, we are looking forward to seeing what other feature enhancements Palo Alto can support in that.
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.
Roshan Jadhav - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Consultant at Vincacyber
Has improved threat detection and streamlined incident analysis through centralized control and AI-driven insights
People are looking for Cynet because it has next-generation threat protection that detects zero-day threats. It has UEBA (user entity behavior analysis), threat hunting features, and storage device control where we can create profiles and block unauthorized USB storage devices. We can also create threat protection policies to detect malware, ransomware, and many other threats. The most valuable feature is the UBA (User behavior analysis). It has integration with SIEM solutions, allowing us to share our logs to third-party SIEM servers. Cynet has AI integration which showcases complete forensic data about threats, making it very easy to understand what happened with the system and what type of incident was detected. Autonomous breach protection is a feature of Cynet which can detect and mitigate known and unknown threats based on signatures. If there are any signature-less files, malware, or ransomware, it will detect them based on autonomous breach protection capabilities. The centralized management console provides a dashboard where we can see four types of attack vectors and incident counts in real-time. It continuously scans the radar and shows open alerts related to files, hosts, users, or networks. We can easily export these alerts and send reports via email.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cortex is the best tool for endpoint detection, and I have used it to verify hashes or domains to identify malicious activity, trigger playbooks that automate and gather endpoint logs, block malicious processes, and update incident tickets, showcasing end-to-end processes with automation in investigation and reducing the analysis workflow."
"We can use Cortex XDR to get the entire graph of the incidents from source to destination, and we can take remedial action."
"We have a complete overview of all our PCs and it's very easy to handle and to use the interface. It has a lot of benefits for us."
"One of the main benefits of the solution is its intelligence to correlate the events into an incident."
"We switched because there were a lot of added features with Palo Alto that Check Point didn't have, and it was an upgrade for us."
"The integrations are out-of-the-box, as are the playbooks."
"The main benefit of using Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks while employing Palo Alto Firewall at the internet edge is that it improves security on our endpoint devices, integrating seamlessly with Palo Alto Firewalls to deliver comprehensive network, analyst, and security details all in a single dashboard, which allows us to manage everything from our network devices."
"WildFire AI is the best option for this product."
"I have deployed it widely because I find that it gives value for money."
"The most valuable feature is the logging capability."
"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."
"Better than other SIEM solutions because almost everything can be integrated."
"Inbuilt IDS, inbuilt integration with threat intelligence platform and with vulnerability assessment modules."
"The dashboard is the solution's most valuable aspect; it brings everything into one central point where I can actually look at it and go, "Okay, I understand what's going on," and the solution works well and allows me to have visibility into anomalous events."
"It is a perfectly nice and free tool for compliance testing, assessment, and some basic vulnerability."
"The solution is very stable. Compared to Qradar and Splunk, it's very stable."
"Cynet's centralized control feature is very user-friendly, has a good user interface, and is very convenient, requiring hardly one or two people to manage the entire console, which is not resource-heavy and automates many processes, making it very easy to use without alert fatigue due to low false positives."
"The solution's most valuable aspect is the complete coverage as well as automation of protection and response, including its complimentary 24/7 SOC service, CyOps."
"Technical support staff were very responsive and very helpful."
"We are very satisfied with the level of performance we get."
"The clients are surprised at the coverage and the peace of mind they get where they don't have to worry about certain things."
"I like that it is possible to use the solution to check more information about the users' devices."
"It provides good protection from ransomware and malware attacks, it is very good as compared to other products, and if any threat is there, their support is very good as they immediately respond to the users, do a follow-up, call us, and also provide email support."
"It is a very stable solution...It is a very scalable solution...The initial setup of Cynet was easy."
 

Cons

"The setup is quite easy. We had appropriate support from the manager. One thing that was missing was the integration part."
"The only issues that we have are, one the cost, two the dashboard is not very intuitive, even though you can drill down within the dashboard, we usually have to gather information from other sources to determine locations and if its a false positive."
"There are some false positives. What our guys would have liked is that it would have been easier to manipulate as soon as they found a false positive that they knew was a false positive. How to do so was not obvious. Some people complained about it. The interface, the ESM, is not user-friendly."
"Impact on system performance is horrible, adding a lot of delays for users."
"The solution should offer more dashboards and they should be better customized."
"I would like to see some additional features related to email protection included."
"I would like to see improvement in the tool's user interface, particularly in the area of managing alerts and providing more reporting capabilities."
"Cortex XDR could be improved with more GUI features."
"AlienVault OSSIM is costly."
"The solution needs more integration with cyber intelligence systems."
"It takes some time. It does not give me a prompt response for any such [malicious] traffic. It takes time to get that alert from the AlienVault system."
"We need more dashboards and we need more customization for dashboards."
"From a management console perspective and the maturity of the dashboards, I would probably put it slightly behind some of the other players that have been in the market for ages."
"The user interface needs to be friendlier across the board."
"The initial setup was a bit complex. You've got to do a lot of reading. It's not an intuitive implementation."
"I would advise others to not implement it for any enterprise-level organization."
"I would like to see more emphasis on building the data lake and storing all endpoint data in the enterprise data lake so that data mining can be performed"
"The solution just needs to keep maturing and they need to keep up with the threat landscape to ensure they're protecting clients well as time passes."
"SIEM - Although with their Centralised Log Management Cynet has created the basis for SIEM functionality, this is to be expanded in the near future."
"The key is the devices - which is an aspect that is lacking right now."
"I have had a bit of trouble in the commercial support as a reseller in a country where we started to sell Cynet."
"Management of the console could be simplified and made more user-friendly because right now it's not very easy to use."
"Cynet could improve when a reverse proxy is being used to connect to the servers. There could be an easier configuration because it is not plug-and-play."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say the usability of this product for new threats. Meaning, not everything which is new is properly seen by the product and not all the required actions are taken."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The return on investment is from the user side because we have seen the performance of it increase the delivery time of the product if we are using too many web-based and on-premise applications. In indirect ways, we saw the return of investment in terms of performance and user satisfaction increase."
"The tool's price is moderate."
"It's way too expensive, but security is expensive. You pay for your licensing, and then you pay for someone to monitor the stuff."
"The pricing is okay, although direct support can be expensive."
"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"Our customers have expressed that the price is high."
"It is "expensive" and flexible."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"AlienVault OSSIM is free."
"OSSIM is free."
"This solution is expensive. I would rate the price as a three out of five when compared to similar products."
"The price is very competitive."
"It costs 18,000 per year, but we have the whole package with not only Cynet but also the Perception Point for emails. There are also some small security courses for our users."
"We purchase the product’s yearly license."
"Our billing is on a quarterly basis, but they have monthly or annual billing availability."
"It is extremely affordable. I'll give it a five out of five in terms of price. It was half the cost of the next closest competitor, and the competitor didn't provide SOC services."
"I don't have specific information about integration capabilities or licensing costs."
"Everything is included in this one solution and the pricing is pretty competitive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise49
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. Sentinel One
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Comparing CrowdStrike Falcon to Cortex XDR (Palo Alto)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Both Cortex XDR and Crowd Strike Falcon offer cloud-based solutions th...
How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface,...
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 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 ...
When evaluating User Activity Monitoring, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?
The support team that stands behind the detection and response. Is there adequate expertise and are they behind you ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cynet?
Cynet is not very costly. We can refer it to other customers because Cynet does not ask for additional costs for add-...
What needs improvement with Cynet?
One area where Cynet needs improvement is tamper protection for Mac and Linux agents. It currently has tamper protect...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
OSSIM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Council Rock School District
Meuhedet, East Boston Neighborhood Health Center
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. Cynet and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.