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AlienVault OSSIM vs Sentinel 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)
10th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sentinel
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
16th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 3.7%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sentinel is 3.5%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Aman Aijaz - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-scale open-source solution used for monitoring events on devices
The area for improvement is a lot. When I started using it on our enterprise side, the issue we faced was, for example, if we were running at that time on AlienVault OSSIM v5.7.4. So, for some orders, we had to install some packages, and when we tried installing that package, some dependencies got upgraded to a new version. Now once that dependency got upgraded, the SQL, since you might be aware that OSSIM uses SQL database, now SQL and all the dependency in everything was not on the same version, and that caused the database to crash. The aforementioned area should be eased out by upgrading the patches and upgrading dependencies. This kind of thing is a disadvantage of OSSIM, and I would like them to work on this. But I have also raised service requests many times and gave it a push on the community section too. However, since it is a local source, they don't reply much over there. That is why I don't like to work on OSSIM because it is unpredictable. Once the storage goes above 50 percent, it starts behaving unpredictably. If you get stuck with a situation, then you need to drill a lockdown into that. Sometimes you get no luck. Then you have to just reimage the server with the new fresh OS of AlienVault. As for additional features, not much because if you move to the newer version, it is kind of getting more stable. But, to make my life easier, then I would say try to give more features. I know it's open source, so they also cannot provide me with more features. But still, if they can provide me with more features because right now it's becoming old. Right now, we are even moving from SIEM to Security Data Lake. So when we move to it, this will be literally outdated. No one can even expect anything out of it. The way security is moving, it will be outdated very soon. They have to also provide something new to keep this going for the future also.
JaideepSingh - PeerSpot reviewer
An automated solution that helped me detect threats in less than half the time it used to take
Sentinel gave us logs to tell us what's going right and wrong in your environment so we could secure the network. We also got multiple kinds of logs. By running some queries from the logs, we could find and fix the anomalies in the environment. Sentinel's threat visibility was great at telling us if we had something going on in our environment. We had to set up alerts in our environment based on the logs. If we had the right alerts set up, we got notified about threats and where security was lacking, so we could also take care of that. Sentinel's threat intelligence helped us prepare and take proactive steps for potential threats before they hit. Having preparation before a threat has helped our security operations. When I was using it, I used to keep going into my dashboards and looking for any threats on a weekly basis, or maybe two or three times a week. Based on that, we would recommend certain changes to the server and infrastructure teams to block or allow some ports. Sentinel's threat intelligence helped plan security against risks.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There are a lot of people you will find using OSSIM since they are also offering OTX as a service"
"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."
"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."
"Inbuilt IDS, inbuilt integration with threat intelligence platform and with vulnerability assessment modules."
"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are vulnerability assessment, network intrusion detection system, response to critical events, and awareness of the whole network."
"You can customize the dashboards as well as the reporting."
"Asset discovery is good."
"The paid version of the solution has reporting and better scalability options."
"The solution lets us get all the logs properly and regularly monitor customer infrastructure."
"The stability is phenomenal and we never had any issues with downtime or even had to restart."
"We can do advanced hunting queries and modify SQL queries to get desired results based on the rules triggering over the console."
"It makes everything easier by automating some tasks and growing with our needs."
"Sentinel gave us logs to tell us what's going right and wrong in your environment so we could secure the network."
"The solution's Kusto Query Language (KQL) execution time is pretty good."
"One of the most valuable features is the business intelligence engine. It's very important because it keeps track of everything that's happening and alerts us if something is different than expected. The first time I used it, I was shocked at how well it performed. Another valuable feature that I think makes this product worth the price you pay for it is that it connects to basically every system that provides some form of logging, and it's very easy to set up what triggers this."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it provides a central locking system for many event sources."
 

Cons

"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."
"We need more dashboards and we need more customization for dashboards."
"The correlation engine needs to be improved."
"GUI could be improved."
"AlienVault OSSIM failed to provide our company a full insight, while also giving out a lot of false positives."
"They can add more compliance templates."
"The initial setup was a bit complex. You've got to do a lot of reading. It's not an intuitive implementation."
"AlienVault OSSIM gives unwanted notifications."
"There is a need for more flexibility in customization, especially when working with different vendors and platforms."
"I rate Sentinel a six out of ten for scalability."
"It is an ancient product."
"There is no integration in the web-side of the tool."
"This product's connection to certain types of cloud systems could be improved. We can do Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, but there are a lot of other things happening in the cloud that we do not connect well enough to. This product could be improved with better connection to cloud-based solutions."
"The dashboard and customer view should be improved"
"I would like to see a better reporting work structure on the dashboard."
"You need a lot of Unix scripting knowledge in order to manage the tool, which is one of the main issues that we faced."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"OSSIM is free."
"AlienVault OSSIM is free."
"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."
"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."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."
"The licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"Sentinel is a subscription-based solution."
"We receive a pricing discount because of our ongoing partnership with Micro Focus."
"The solution’s pricing is aligned with its competitors."
"Sentinel's slightly on the expensive side."
"We inquired about getting support from the vendor, Micro Focus, but the cost was very high."
"Sentinel is moderately priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about NetIQ Sentinel?
The solution lets us get all the logs properly and regularly monitor customer infrastructure.
What needs improvement with NetIQ Sentinel?
There are still a few vendor-specific devices for which Sentinel needs to work on integration, such as Netskope devices. Also, we often face region-wise outages during operation due to product team...
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
NetIQ Sentinel, Novell SIEM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Faysal Bank, GaVI, Handelsbanken, ISC Mªnster, Lambeth Council, Swisscard, The Municipality of Siena, Tukes, University of Dayton, University of the Sunshine Coast
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. Sentinel and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.