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AlienVault OSSIM vs SolarWinds Security Event Manager comparison

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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)
25th
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)
37th
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 September 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.2%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AlienVault OSSIM1.2%
SolarWinds Security Event Manager1.0%
Other97.8%
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

"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are case management, ease of configuration, and investigation."
"What I like about this product, is that it is a fully-fledged solution."
"The most valuable feature is the logging capability."
"A very good feature of AlienVault OSSIM is that it has many domains that can be integrated from different solutions."
"The product is majorly used for threat detection of the agents on servers and endpoints."
"I recommend it due to the experience of the people running it."
"AlienVault OSSIM's GUI is very user-friendly."
"The threat policies of the solution are always very advanced and the best in the market, and they are very persistent in terms of keeping up with security protocols."
"This tool is simple to use."
"The solution helps you monitor database instances, application instances, other customer application things, Linux servers, IBM servers, and Oracle servers."
"The File Integrity Monitoring is great, giving you visibility into who has changed a file, when that file was changed, and more, with easy out-of-the-box reporting and customization for reports and alerts that help maintain compliance and security."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the visibility into both attempted and failed logins."
"SolarWinds' stability is fine. I don't think we've had any software issues."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use for the end user."
"SolarWinds has provided greater visibility into incidents and activities on the network."
"The product's most effective part in improving security stems from the fact that the solution is deployed for event management, log viewing, and information management."
 

Cons

"AlienVault OSSIM could improve by having better integration with some of the newer tools."
"The initial setup was a bit complex. You've got to do a lot of reading. It's not an intuitive implementation."
"AlienVault OSSIM’s configuration and integration could be a little easier."
"When comparing AlienVault OSSIM to other solutions it looks a bit outdated. Additionally, they need to improve their integration."
"GUI could be improved."
"The initial setup was not so easy, partly because the documentation was not up to date."
"There needs to be more focus on the NOC and IIS in terms of developing applications for behavior detection."
"Lacking in depth of reporting."
"Not very scalable in my opinion. That's why I'm investigating new SIEM replacement."
"It can be difficult for users who are inexperienced with the solution."
"I would like to have a more customizable dashboard."
"It takes a long time to perform a root cause analysis."
"We used the support from SolarWinds Security Event Manager and they are knowledgeable but challenging to get in contact with them."
"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."
"We need to post events on the end of the devices. Sometimes, the event does not respond."
"I don't think SolarWinds is scalable enough. It is somewhat limited when I need to deploy it across multiple environments in a distributed architecture."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AlienVault OSSIM is expensive compared to its competitors."
"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."
"AlienVault OSSIM is free."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"OSSIM is free."
"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 pricing model would benefit from having package deals with other SolarWinds products."
"It is in the appropriate mid-range. It is not as expensive as some of the other solutions. It is also not cheap."
"Licensing is on devices, so if you have many, then this may be high."
"Licenses can only be purchased in blocks of fifty at a time."
"We do a yearly license renewal. For a year, the solution costs roughly $500,000 USD. There are no costs beyond this yearly fee."
"The price of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
8%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

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 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...
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...
What advice do you have for others considering SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
I am still dealing with SolarWinds products and use most of their solutions. User-friendly configuration is key, and the configurations are simple, not complex. The only important part is what we d...
 

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: September 2026.
914,394 professionals have used our research since 2012.