AlienVault OSSIM vs Elastic Security comparison

AT&T and Elastic are both solutions in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category. AT&T is ranked #12 with an average rating of 7.2, while Elastic is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.5. AT&T holds a 2.2% mindshare in SIEM, compared to Elastic’s 4.3% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of AT&T users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Elastic users who would recommend it.

AlienVault OSSIM

Read 31 AlienVault OSSIM reviews

4,342 Views
4,255 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Elastic Security

Read 66 Elastic Security reviews

10,801 Views
6,913 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

AlienVault OSSIM

Elastic Security

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Elastic Security and AlienVault OSSIM compete in the security analytics and management category. Elastic Security has the upper hand owing to its integration and analytics depth, offering greater customization and scalability.

Features: Elastic Security users highlight advanced analytics and integration capabilities, providing deep, customizable insights. AlienVault OSSIM is praised for its comprehensive out-of-the-box security features, appealing to those needing immediate utility. Elastic Security offers flexibility and depth, while AlienVault OSSIM focuses on ease of use and immediate functionality.

Room for Improvement: Elastic Security users mention the complexity of configurations and a steep learning curve. AlienVault OSSIM users highlight limitations in scalability and the need for more advanced analytics. Elastic Security could benefit from usability enhancements, whereas AlienVault OSSIM needs better scalability and analytics.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Elastic Security users find its deployment complex but appreciate its robust customer support. AlienVault OSSIM users report simpler deployment but mixed customer service experiences. Elastic Security demands more technical expertise for setup but offers superior support, while AlienVault OSSIM provides a smoother initial deployment with variable support quality.

Pricing and ROI: Elastic Security is seen as costly but delivers high ROI through extensive features and integration. AlienVault OSSIM is recognized for its lower upfront costs and reasonable ROI, particularly for smaller organizations. Despite the higher price, Elastic Security's comprehensive capabilities justify its cost, whereas AlienVault OSSIM offers a cost-effective solution with decent returns.

To learn more, read our detailed AlienVault OSSIM vs. Elastic Security Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AlienVault OSSIM vs. Elastic Security

December 2025

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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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Elastic Security

Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

5th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (8th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (16th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 2.2%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Security is 4.3%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Elastic Security	4.3%
AlienVault OSSIM	2.2%
Other	93.5%

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

Featured Reviews

Brandon Pearce

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.

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Laurentiu Popescu

Chief Product Officer at ClusterPower

Has improved threat detection with deep log analysis and streamlined investigation workflows

The most useful features I find in Elastic Security are the forensic ones that allow us to carry deeper analysis into the logs for in-depth investigations, and the dashboards, with the reporting dashboard being quite user-friendly. Elastic Security is quite good at identifying threats, as it is part of the deep investigation tool that I mentioned before. Unless we need to look further into a certain log, we can carry out a deeper analysis and forensics on those particular logs. I can assess the impact of Elastic Security's real-time data analysis on our threat response efficiency as working pretty good. We are looking for real-time analysis because we have a continuous inflow of logs from different sources: from our cloud, from Active Directory, from our network. So it works pretty well.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You pay monthly for the solution. I think it's one of the best products. If you compare with other companies, like LogRhythm, etc., the top 8 or 10 CMs, I think Alien Vault has the best price-performance ratio."

"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 product is easy to use."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"There are a lot of people you will find using OSSIM since they are also offering OTX as a service"

"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."

"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are case management, ease of configuration, and investigation."

"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are vulnerability assessment, network intrusion detection system, response to critical events, and awareness of the whole network."

More AlienVault OSSIM pros

"The indexes allow you to get your results quickly. The filtering and log passing is the advantage of Logstash."

"ELK documentation is very good, so never needed to contact technical support."

"The most valuable features of Elastic Security are it is open-source and provides a high level of security."

"We like Elastic Security because it's a REST API-based solution. That's the primary reason we use it."

"The solution is quite stable. The performance has been good."

"Just the ability to do a lot more than just up-down is nice, which a lot of people take for granted."

"Its flexibility is most valuable. We can have a number of scenarios, and we can get logs from anything. If we know how to use Logstash, we can tweak it in many ways. This makes the logging search on Elastic very easy."

"It can handle millions of loads at a time, and you can always use the filters to find exactly what you are looking for and detect errors in every log message you are searching for, basically."

More Elastic Security pros

Cons

"They can add more compliance templates."

"AlienVault OSSIM should improve the deployment and make it unified like the USM."

"The solution needs more integration with cyber intelligence systems."

"The user interface could be improved."

"When comparing AlienVault OSSIM to other solutions it looks a bit outdated. Additionally, they need to improve their integration."

"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."

"The incidence reporting could be better."

"GUI could be improved."

More AlienVault OSSIM cons

"The problem with ELK is it's difficult to administer. When you have a problem, it can be very, very difficult to rebuild indexes."

"In terms of what could be improved with Elastic, in some use cases, especially on the advanced level, they are not ready made, so you'll have to write some scripts."

"Elastic Security can be a bit difficult to use if a person only has experience in SMBs with tools like Zoho. The product can also be difficult for those who have never dealt with query language."

"The solution needs to be more reactive to investigations. We need to be able to detect and prevent any attacks before it can damage our infrastructure. Currently, this solution doesn't offer that."

"If you compare this with CrowdStrike or Carbon Black, they can improve."

"They don't provide user authentication and authorisation features (Shield) as a part of their open-source version."

"Elastic sometimes does not correctly identify threats or anomalies. It might not classify an issue as malicious or critical accurately."

"The price of this product could be improved, especially the additional costs. I would also like to see better-quality graphics."

More Elastic Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AlienVault OSSIM is free."

"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."

"AlienVault OSSIM is expensive compared to its competitors."

"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."

"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."

"OSSIM is free."

More AlienVault OSSIM pricing and cost advice

"This is an open-source product, so there are no costs."

"Compared to other tools, Elastic Security is a cheaper solution."

"We use the open-source version, so there is no charge for this solution."

"Elastic Stack is an open-source tool. You don't have to pay anything for the components."

"The pricing is in the middle. I think it is not an expensive experience if we compare it with big names, for example, QRadar, and also Oxide. I think Elastic Security is quite cheap. I would rate the pricing of this solution a five out of ten."

"The tool's pricing is flexible and comes at unit cost. You don't have to pay for everything."

"Compared to other products such as Dynatrace, this is one of the cheaper options."

"The product offers an amazing pricing structure. Price-wise, the product is very competitive."

More Elastic Security pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

13%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	18
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	40
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	15

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AlienVault OSSIM?

Asset discovery is good.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with AlienVault OSSIM?

See all answers

Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?

With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...

See all answers

What do you like most about Elastic Security?

Elastic provides the capability to index quickly due to the reverse indexes it offers. This data is crucial as it contains critical information. The reverse index allows fast data indexing because ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?

I am satisfied with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing cost. It is a pure 10.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 58% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

USM Anywhere vs AlienVault OSSIM

Compared 8% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs AlienVault OSSIM

Compared 7% of the time

Rapid7 InsightIDR vs AlienVault OSSIM

Compared 2% of the time

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Wazuh vs Elastic Security

Compared 12% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Elastic Security

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Security QRadar vs Elastic Security

Compared 6% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Elastic Security

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Elastic Security

Compared 5% of the time

More Elastic Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AlienVault OSSIM

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Elastic Security

December 2025

Download Elastic Security product report

Also Known As

OSSIM

Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash

Overview

AlienVault OSSIM, Open Source Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), provides you with a feature-rich open source SIEM complete with event collection, normalization and correlation. Launched by security engineers because of the lack of available open source products, AlienVault OSSIM was created specifically to address the reality many security professionals face: A SIEM, whether it is open source or commercial, is virtually useless without the basic security controls necessary for security visibility.

AT&T

Elastic Security is a robust, open-source security solution designed to offer integrated threat prevention, detection, and response capabilities across an organization's entire digital estate. Part of the Elastic Stack (which includes Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana), Elastic Security leverages the power of search, analytics, and data aggregation to provide real-time insight into threats and vulnerabilities. It is a comprehensive platform that supports a wide range of security needs, from endpoint protection to cloud and network security, making it a versatile choice for organizations looking to enhance their cybersecurity posture.

Elastic Security combines the features of a security information and event management (SIEM) system with endpoint protection, allowing organizations to detect, investigate, and respond to threats in real time. This unified approach helps reduce complexity and improve the efficiency of security operations.

Additional offerings and benefits:

The platform utilizes advanced analytics, machine learning algorithms, and anomaly detection to identify threats and suspicious activities.
It offers extensive integration options with other tools and platforms, facilitating a more cohesive and comprehensive security ecosystem.
With Kibana, users gain access to powerful visualization tools and dashboards that provide real-time insight into security data.

Finally, Elastic Security benefits from a global community of users who contribute to its threat intelligence, helping to enhance its detection capabilities. This collaborative approach ensures that the solution remains on the cutting edge of cybersecurity, with up-to-date information on the latest threats and vulnerabilities.

Elastic

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District

Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care

Buyer's Guide

AlienVault OSSIM vs. Elastic Security

December 2025

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