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

AlienVault OSSIM vs OpenText Enterprise Security Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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
OpenText Enterprise Securit...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
26th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.6%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Enterprise Security Manager is 1.5%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AlienVault OSSIM1.6%
OpenText Enterprise Security Manager1.5%
Other96.9%
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.
DayaramGoyal - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President, Technology at Cache Digitech Pvt Ltd.
Integration shines but threat detection and technical support need attention
Regarding threat detection capabilities, I think OpenText Enterprise Security Manager covers the MITRE ATT&CK framework at an average level, and on a scale of one to ten, I would rate it only five. They have to improve in those areas in terms of threat detection capabilities. For ArcSight, they need to give the complete package, with UBA being part of that. They have added it, but I question what capabilities are there, especially on the SOAR side where they have to improve because the SIEM was very strong. For the SOAR side, because SIEM was very strong when they were earlier launched, but for SOAR, they were integrating with third-party solutions initially, and then they built the capability. They have acquired some company, but it is not up to that potential. They slowly and gradually lost that ground to Splunk, QRadar, and other companies, so when anybody talks about the full capabilities, they are not thinking about Micro Focus as of now. I would desire additional features in OpenText Enterprise Security Manager, especially on the SOAR side, and maybe on the UBA side, as threats intel and all, which are part of bundled solutions. Those are the areas they have to improve so that customers can trust and enhance those things, and maybe the customers will feel they should go for this product. As of now, if we are evaluating our own scenario, we are not even thinking about it. Earlier, that was not the scenario when they were selling this SIEM solution in the market; everybody was thinking OpenText was the default option, but now, if you're looking for a complete solution stack, nobody is even considering it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"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 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.""
"AlienVault OSSIM's GUI is very user-friendly."
"The product is easy to use."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution is very stable, and compared to QRadar and Splunk, it's very stable."
"What I found most valuable in ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is its good integration with third-party products. The solution also has good core capabilities."
"Some of the benefits of using this solution are rapid correlation and near-time response on alerts."
"The feature that I have found the most useful is that it can be deployed to the cloud."
"It has absolutely improved the efficiency of our security team. We use it internally as well. It is such a powerful tool that our internal security team became a customer of our ArcSight managed service."
"The reports that we are from getting from ArcSight are very valuable. The reporting in ArcSight is good. Our regulators ask us for the reports on a regular basis, and we have been able to provide the required data. Its overall functionality in terms of log analysis and the speed at which it does that is also valuable. It is very quick. Whatever alerts we had configured were extremely fast. We immediately get alerts when there is unauthorized access or unknown access, or even positive access. This is where we found the difference between ArcSight and other solutions."
"It has improved our organization because we had many investigations that it helped us with."
"The solution is pretty stable."
"Feature-rich solution which provides better network visibility for improved security"
 

Cons

"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 solution needs more integration with cyber intelligence systems."
"I don't like to work on OSSIM because it is unpredictable."
"AlienVault OSSIM gives unwanted notifications."
"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."
"The solution needs more integration with cyber intelligence systems. Our customers want to use a single tool for managing cybersecurity."
"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."
"The price of this solution is very high and it could be cheaper."
"ArcSight ESM could improve by adding more features and documentation. There needs to be more documentation."
"We would like the ability to easily identify either unused resources or those that are being used sub-optimally."
"I tried to learn the syntax in order to customize the software (connectors and agents) for a particular device, and it was a nightmare."
"The weakness in this system comes about because, with so many different logs, it is possible that the security analyst will lose information."
"It can be overloaded when rules and data monitoring are not optimized and the system receives too many events."
"There are several improvements that we would like to see, including: Building a system based on a log collection (SOC), a scenario for external encroachment, and Operator training."
"The solution could be more stable."
"Although we're able to customize it, it requires some level of subject-matter expertise for all the special adapters for collection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"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."
"The solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"Price-wise, ArcSight ESM was a bit high compared to competitors, which factored into our decision to switch to Splunk. It couldn't cover all our business needs for what we wanted to implement."
"Thanks to Micro Focus's licensing model, as an MSSP, we are able to see a complete return on our investment almost immediately."
"Aggregation can help a lot in pushing down licensing costs."
"​It is best to be an institutional buyer and directly contact the sales team, as they can provide over-the-top discounts for bulk orders.​"
"There is a license required for this solution."
"It's a good price, it's one of the cheaper solutions."
"We're paying a fee for an MSSP, and the cost of the total cost of ArcSight ESM was approximately three to four million dollars a year. The price was less than similar solutions. We did not have additional fees."
"The pricing is great compared to others."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions are best for your needs.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

VS
Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Jun 28, 2015
Qradar vs. ArcSight
Continuing with the SIEM posts we have done at Infosecnirvana, this post is a Head to head comparison of the two Industry leading SIEM products in the market – HP ArcSight and IBM QRadar Both the products have consistently been in the Gartner Leaders Quadrant. Both HP and IBM took over niche SIEM…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
8%
Marketing Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Performing Arts
8%
 

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 Business37
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise57
 

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...
Which is the best SIEM tool for a mid-sized financial services firm: Arcsight or Securonix?
In my market, a lot of financial companies had or have an ArcSight installation. Just because in former times it was pretty good. Now a lot of them are looking for a more effective solution due to ...
What do you like most about ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM)?
We utilize ArcSight ESM for real-time threat detection in our organization. We have custom rules that we've developed on top of the WAN services, along with scheduled licensing activities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM)?
ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is very cheap compared to other tools. It is worth the investment if you are considering the cost.
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
Micro Focus ArcSight, HPE ArcSight, ArcSight
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Lake Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bank AlJazira, Banca Intesa, and Obrela.
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. OpenText Enterprise Security Manager and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.