No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

AlienVault OSSIM vs SolarWinds Security Event Manager comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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)
24th
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)
38th
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 November 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.2%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 1.1%, up from 0.8% 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 Manager1.1%
Other97.7%
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

"You pay monthly for the solution. I think it's one of the best products. If you compare with other companies, like LogRhythm, etc., the top 8 or 10 CMs, I think Alien Vault has the best price-performance ratio."
"The solution is very stable, and compared to QRadar and Splunk, it's very stable."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the data correlation and vulnerability assessment."
"A very good feature of AlienVault OSSIM is that it has many domains that can be integrated from different solutions."
"You can customize the dashboards as well as the reporting."
"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are vulnerability assessment, network intrusion detection system, response to critical events, and awareness of the whole network."
"With AlienVault you get everything in one box."
"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."
"It will identify things in your network that you just didn't know were going on."
"We were suffering from a lack of visibility into our logs, so we implemented SolarWinds LEM."
"Some of the rules are most valuable because you can be notified about various things, such as spyware or things that are going on in the internal network."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is the analysis and the knowledge about the incidence that we trace."
"Technical support for this solution is good."
"SolarWinds is easy to configure, and it provides timely alerts."
"The solution helps me to go back in time and search for different events. For example, if you wanted to know who activated an account; you could go back in time and find out."
"SolarWinds' stability is fine. I don't think we've had any software issues."
 

Cons

"AlienVault OSSIM gives unwanted notifications."
"It's so hard to configure and explore something new on it. It is not easy to find the steps we need to follow in order to use the solution effectively."
"The biggest thing I always complain about is that the user intake is a very old version."
"AlienVault OSSIM should improve the deployment and make it unified like the USM."
"The correlation engine needs to be improved."
"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."
"AlienVault OSSIM is costly."
"We need more dashboards and we need more customization for dashboards."
"I think the product can use some improvement on the reporting side. The reporting could be easier and more robust."
"We have automated threat detection in the Alliance Security, Antoinette. However, if these features could be further enhanced, it would simplify my work, potentially allowing me to allocate more time to address complex issues."
"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."
"I think the customization area in the tool can be considered as an area of concern where improvements are required."
"One of the drawbacks of being so flexible is that it is also a fairly complicated software application to install, configure, and maintain."
"The query capability in this solution needs improvement."
"The flash-based interface can be improved because sometimes, the speed of monitoring is reduced."
"There is no correlation made between log entries, so no threat information is presented."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the community version, which can be used for 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."
"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."
"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."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"The solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"Licensing is on devices, so if you have many, then this may be high."
"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."
"It is in the appropriate mid-range. It is not as expensive as some of the other solutions. It is also not cheap."
"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."
"The pricing model would benefit from having package deals with other SolarWinds products."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions are best for your needs.
920,223 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
8%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
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.
920,223 professionals have used our research since 2012.