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AlienVault OSSIM vs SolarWinds Security Event Manager 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)
13th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Security Event M...
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
36th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.4%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AlienVault OSSIM1.4%
SolarWinds Security Event Manager1.0%
Other97.6%
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.
Yashokanth Partkunan - PeerSpot reviewer
Managed Services Engineer at Loop1 Systems
Has supported client needs efficiently but requires deeper analysis features and faster support
The log analyzing capability of SolarWinds Security Event Manager should go into more depth than the current environment. More modification and enhancements are required on the dashboard side in order to make it closer to optimal performance. From observation and feedback from users, they need more functionality related to monitoring, and in-depth analyzing needs to be improved.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 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 solution is very stable. Compared to Qradar and Splunk, it's very stable."
"The solution is free to use."
"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."
"If you compare with other companies, like LogRhythm, etc., the top 8 or 10 CMs, I think AlienVault has the best price-performance ratio."
"The product is majorly used for threat detection of the agents on servers and endpoints."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"It supports high availability, which is very helpful."
"It has in-depth monitoring capabilities and an easy way for setting up dashboards."
"SolarWinds Security Event Manager has been generally working well."
"SolarWinds is one of the products that I use, amongst many others, to fit the needs of our customers which includes their budget, size, and industry."
"The out of the box reports and dashboard. It was easy to trim down these windows to something we could quickly use."
"SolarWinds is easy to configure, and it provides timely alerts."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use for the end user."
"It performs network behavior monitoring, log monitoring, and disaster recovery monitoring."
 

Cons

"Sometimes technical issues take very long to get resolved."
"They can add more compliance templates."
"I would like the solution to be able to integrate with my firewall, my IDS and my Honeypot solutions so that it can provide real-time reporting as things occur and then have alert sent to me on my phone when suspicious activity is happening."
"The correlation engine needs to be improved."
"The price of this solution is very high and it could be cheaper."
"The solution is not scalable."
"Lacking in depth of reporting."
"There needs to be more support or some kind of training program so users can self-learn the system more effectively."
"I would like to have a more customizable dashboard."
"The log analyzing capability of SolarWinds Security Event Manager should go into more depth than the current environment."
"Not very scalable in my opinion. That's why I'm investigating new SIEM replacement."
"The only issue is the pricetag. SolarWinds is a costly solution."
"The query capability in this solution needs improvement."
"The product should improve the ease with which you can create event alerts. They are not as hard now but you need to have an easier way."
"The reporting could be more robust. It can be a lot more granular and that will make it a lot more useful in comparison to how it is incorporated at the moment."
"I would like to be able to dig deeper into the visibility of events or incidents to determine whether they are malicious, such as by doing behavior analysis."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"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."
"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."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"Licenses can only be purchased in blocks of fifty at a time."
"The pricing model would benefit from having package deals with other SolarWinds products."
"Licensing is on devices, so if you have many, then this may be high."
"We do a yearly license renewal. For a year, the solution costs roughly $500,000 USD. There are no costs beyond this yearly fee."
"It is in the appropriate mid-range. It is not as expensive as some of the other solutions. It is also not cheap."
"The tool is available at a good price for customers compared to other solutions in the market. I rate the product's price as an eight out of ten."
"The price of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
University
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 Business19
Midsize Enterprise3
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 experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
The tool is available at a good price for customers compared to other solutions in the market. I rate the product's price as an eight out of ten.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
The log analyzing capability of SolarWinds Security Event Manager should go into more depth than the current environment. More modification and enhancements are required on the dashboard side in or...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
I work with all SolarWinds products mostly, including Network Configuration Manager and NPM. I am a reseller. I usually recommend SolarWinds products for Loop1. It's for the bigger ones; we are the...
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
SolarWinds LEM, Solarwinds SIEM, TriGeo, Log and Event Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
NetSuite, EasyStreet, Legacy Texas Bank, and Energy Federal Credit Union, to name a few.
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. SolarWinds Security Event Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
889,855 professionals have used our research since 2012.