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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
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (3rd), 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) (25th)
Cynet
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (18th), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (17th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (8th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (16th), Threat Deception Platforms (2nd), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (9th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (11th), 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

"The biggest positive impact I see from Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a significant reduction in the number of people required to manage it."
"The initial setup isn't too bad."
"Being a cloud solution it is very flexible in serving internal and external connections and a broad range of devices."
"The protection offered by this product is good, as is the endpoint reporting."
"I generally believe that Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is probably the best in the market right now."
"Cortex XDR's most valuable feature is its intelligence-based dashboards."
"Based on my experience, I would recommend Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks to other people."
"Traps is quite a stable product. Once it was properly deployed and configured, you have nothing to be worried about."
"Better than other SIEM solutions because almost everything can be integrated."
"A very good feature of AlienVault OSSIM is that it has many domains that can be integrated from different solutions."
"The most valuable feature is the logging capability."
"I have deployed it widely because I find that it gives value for money."
"Its user-friendliness is the most valuable. It is very easy to use and explore. The dashboard is very well packaged and integrated. You don't have to spend a lot of time in configuring it and checking out the RPM etc. It is also free and very powerful."
"The initial setup was straightforward. I didn't have any problems."
"The solution is very stable, and compared to QRadar and Splunk, it's very stable."
"Inbuilt IDS, inbuilt integration with threat intelligence platform and with vulnerability assessment modules."
"We are using almost all of the features and we find it quite good overall."
"The initial setup is very fast and very easy."
"It has quite good detection and response features; they are improving continuously."
"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."
"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."
"When compared with other similar solutions, Cynet looks at the network, the host, the files, the directories, and the users, where the others are concerned, you must add them."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the network part of it because most of the endpoint products in XDS products we find Cynet has networking user behavior analysis and network analysis, for the whole team."
"The level of automation is very good because the majority of the time, it blocks the attacks without requiring anything from our side. The technicians don't have to do anything. They are just alerted about what happened. So, the user intelligence works quite well."
 

Cons

"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."
"Technology evolves every day, so it would be nice if it gets more secure. It can also have more integration with other platforms."
"I have seen lagging with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks. There was one time when we faced a threat actor trying to gain access to our system. When our team utilized the tool, we were all on the same dashboard and we faced a lag issue at that time of around five minutes, which was quite significant."
"Dashboards do not allow everyone to see what's happening."
"I would like to see them include NDR (Network Detection Response). Then it would work well with SIEM Response."
"The GUI could be improved."
"The negative aspect I see is the economic model used by Palo Alto."
"The encryption is not up to the mark."
"When comparing AlienVault OSSIM to other solutions it looks a bit outdated. Additionally, they need to improve their integration."
"The initial setup was a bit complex. You've got to do a lot of reading. It's not an intuitive implementation."
"AlienVault OSSIM could improve by having better integration with some of the newer tools."
"The price of this solution is very high and it could be cheaper."
"The documentation could be improved."
"The main area where the AlienVault product was lacking around the 2018 timeframe was in its ability to scale."
"They can add more compliance templates."
"AlienVault OSSIM failed to provide our company a full insight, while also giving out a lot of false positives."
"Cynet should include complete Single Sign-On (SSO) services."
"There is room for improvement in terms of support. The support should be faster to respond."
"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"
"Sometimes, it is necessary for me to make important changes to a hard drive of a computer, and because Cynet does not allow me to do that, I have to go to the console and remove the computer from the security group just for Cynet. After that, I have to wait for 10 or 15 minutes for that to take effect. I would like to be able to disable Cynet locally. I shouldn’t have to go to the console to find the PC and then take it out of the group and then add it again to the group. I should locally be able to disable Cynet on a computer with a password or something like that, but it is currently not possible."
"One client said that they faced an issue with Cynet's vulnerability assessment feature."
"Maybe they should add more cloud-to-cloud integrations and also focus on integrations with local, on-premises services."
"Their deployment needs some work, especially with integration with remote monitoring management systems like Datto AutoTask or ConnectWise Automate."
"After only one month of implementation, an overall rating is premature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't have any issues with the pricing. We are satisfied with the price."
"Its pricing is kind of in line with its competitors and everybody else out there."
"It has a higher cost than other solutions, like CrowdStrike or Microsoft’s EDR tools, but it reduces the cost of our operations because it’s a new generation antivirus tool."
"This is an expensive solution."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
"Cortex XDR’s pricing is very reasonable."
"It's way too expensive, but security is expensive. You pay for your licensing, and then you pay for someone to monitor the stuff."
"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."
"OSSIM is free."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"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."
"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."
"Our billing is on a quarterly basis, but they have monthly or annual billing availability."
"Pricing wise, Cynet seems to be very competitive. The cost is probably lower than that offered by many of its competitors for all the functions and features it offers."
"Cynet is cheap."
"There is an extra cost if you want the support of Cynet."
"The price should not be less than $100 which is quite reasonable for this solution because you are getting multiple components."
"Its licensing is on a monthly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise55
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
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. SentinelOne SentinelOne offers very detailed specifics with regard to risks or attacks. ...
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 ...
What is your primary use case for AlienVault OSSIM?
This solution is very similar to most of the other MSSPs that you would find out there. When I look at use cases, Ali...
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: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.