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AlienVault OSSIM vs Netsurion comparison

 

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

AlienVault OSSIM
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
27th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Netsurion
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
48th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) (19th), SOC as a Service (7th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (31st), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (43rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.1%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Netsurion is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AlienVault OSSIM1.1%
Netsurion0.8%
Other98.1%
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.
John-Berry - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Manager at ProfitSolv
The SOC center monitors, hunts, and notifies us of threats around the clock
I know they are working to resolve this issue, but Netsurion is currently unable to retrieve logs from S3 buckets. We use WP Engine for a lot of web hosting as well as AWS, and both of these platforms use S3 buckets. I would like Netsurion to be able to pull logs from Linux devices. We have some of that capability, and I believe they can do it. However, the way it works with Amazon is strange and glitchy. Therefore, working something out with Amazon would be great. Netsurion's SOC can be a bit too aggressive at times. We have asked them to adjust their playbook because I am tired of being notified about the same issue multiple times a day. I am aware of the issue, and it is not a cause for concern. Let's only take action on this issue if we see an actual problem.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is easy to use."
"The initial setup was straightforward. I didn't have any problems."
"I have worked with LogRhythm in the past, since 2015, and I find that AlienVault is a better product."
"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 solution is very stable, and compared to QRadar and Splunk, it's very stable."
"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 open vault component and the checking of vulnerabilities are the most valuable features, and the page management helps with this, because if you know how your device is vulnerable at least you can do something about it."
"The most important feature is keeping track of when accounts are created and deleted, when permission groups are changed, and memberships are changed in groups; and overall, how many errors are occurring on the various systems that we're monitoring."
"What I like most about Netsurion is the level of visibility and reporting."
"Netsurion has its own security operations center, where it tracks information that comes across our telemetry."
"I like the UI, overall. I like the main page and there are aspects of the search page that I like. When you bring it up on the left-hand side of the page, as you look at the events, the ability to simply hit and click the plus/minus to pull events in and out of the overall view is well done and is very effective from a threat-hunting and an analysis perspective. I like the detail it shows."
"The 24/7 monitoring and alerting have positively affected our security maturity because now we have people with eyes on our security events 24/7."
"The most valuable feature is definitely real-time alerting, especially in situations where someone might attempt to exploit or hack into our network."
"The network alert is the most valuable feature. That way, we in the IT department are aware of user lockout and invalid password attempts way before a user ever even calls in."
"We use those standard reports every day and monitor them, and it probably saves us three hours a day because the solution is doing the consolidation of the log files for us."
 

Cons

"The user interface could be improved."
"The solution needs more integration with cyber intelligence systems. Our customers want to use a single tool for managing cybersecurity."
"GUI could be improved."
"We need more dashboards and we need more customization for dashboards."
"AlienVault OSSIM on-premise version is more difficult to implement than the cloud version. Additionally, they should add integration between several different environments at once and improve their online knowledge base."
"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 biggest thing I always complain about is that the user intake is a very old version."
"I suggest more in-built rules based on modern threats and environments to make it a more competitive solution."
"The onboarding process was complex, there was quite a learning curve, and few of our technical staff knew what they were talking about on the Netsurion side, but we were expected to do all the work."
"With version 8, there are quite a few things. The query tool was one of the big ones, and the query speed was one of the big ones, but they've made some great strides between versions 8 and 9. There were also issues in version 8 around the ability to get the data back out. It's one thing to collect data, but it's a whole other thing to be able to present it or run it in a timely manner. The old tool, depending on how far back I was looking, might even time out and I would have to run it again."
"The weekly reporting could use some improvement. For example, when we handed them our landscape document, it took longer than I would have liked for those details to become noticeable within the reports."
"With version 8, there are quite a few things; the query tool was one of the big ones, and the query speed was one of the big ones, but they've made some great strides between versions 8 and 9."
"The threat detection and response is passive. We have asked if there were options for taking action, and we have not gotten any feedback on that, which would be useful to know. Depending on the situation and threat, some actions may not be possible, but we haven't gotten any feedback on what options could be directed and actionable with the understanding that it may have an extra cost. It would be nice to know or find out if it is actually possible to take actions by a SIEM service or a SIEM agent."
"I would like to see a faster response when we see things like 15,000 lockouts."
"The biggest problem is that we have too many domain controllers. So, we have to keep all the clients and main system updated with the latest versions along with making sure all the firewalls are open."
"Their SOC team can't understand our network because they haven't worked in the actual company. This does negatively affect security posture, e.g., if you don't have knowledge about the network, then you will miss things."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"AlienVault OSSIM is expensive compared to its competitors."
"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."
"The licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"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."
"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 price of AlienVault OSSIM is too high sometimes for us to present to our customers. The price should be lower. We are on a three-year license to use the solution. We had to pay extra for the support."
"AlienVault OSSIM is free."
"Licensing is very easy. Our CIO takes care of the billing, but in terms of price point, he hasn't complained, so it must be good."
"Netsurion's pricing is competitive. At the same time, they're the only ones who do what we want to do the way we want it. I can't say we would've paid more, but we would've had to have come up with our own solution if they weren't providing that."
"The solution is fairly expensive, but in my experience, all of the SIEM applications that I've evaluated or looked at cost about the same."
"In the security space, it's hard to quantify your return on investment. So, I don't. We spend about $40,000 a year and so. It's hard to say if the SIEM saved that much money."
"I don't know if the pricing is by the seat but we're paying about $20,000 to 25,000 a year. On top of that, we pay for the managed support services. That runs us about another $35,000 or $40,000 a year."
"Our pricing for Netsurion last year was US $52,000 per year."
"The upfront costs have increased, and we have been locked into this contract. The cost of changing over from it is way too high."
"Our budget follows the calendar year. We just started a new budget year at the beginning of the month. We did budget for an increase in our threat management system selection. Therefore, we have the budget to implement and accommodate a threat management system change, including an increase for the quoted actions that we received to improve EventTracker. We are just waiting on our council to approve that budget, which might not be for a little while. Hopefully, when they do, we will be able to jump on doing something."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
7%
Construction Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Construction Company
13%
Performing Arts
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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 Business10
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise7
 

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 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, AlienVault was initially aimed at small to medium businesses. It grew, and that was...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
Netsurion Managed Threat Protection, Netsurion EventTracker
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
The Salvation Army, The FRESH Market, Pacific Western Bank, NASA, American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), and Talbot’s Stores
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. Netsurion and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,948 professionals have used our research since 2012.