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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)
12th
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 January 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.9%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
AlienVault OSSIM1.9%
SolarWinds Security Event Manager0.8%
Other97.3%
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

"There are a lot of people you will find using OSSIM since they are also offering OTX as a service"
"The threat policies of the solution are always very advanced and the best in the market. They are very persistent in terms of keeping up with security protocols."
"You can customize the dashboards as well as the reporting."
"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.""
"The paid version of the solution has reporting and better scalability options."
"Inbuilt IDS, inbuilt integration with threat intelligence platform and with vulnerability assessment modules."
"Network traffic analysis is highly efficient."
"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are case management, ease of configuration, and investigation."
"SolarWinds is easy to configure, and it provides timely alerts."
"It's extremely easy to deploy."
"User-friendly configuration is key, and the configurations are simple, not complex."
"The out of the box reports and dashboard. It was easy to trim down these windows to something we could quickly use."
"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 is effective for server, network, and log monitoring. It's also good for IP address management. We also have a patch manager, but we're still working on getting that operational."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Security Event Manager is the analysis and the knowledge about the incidence that we trace."
"We had to integrate with other teams, and the infrastructure deployment didn't take long. The integration involves learning with different teams, networking, and configuring various network devices and servers. Infrastructure deployment only took one or two days."
 

Cons

"The correlation engine needs to be improved."
"The initial setup was a bit complex. You've got to do a lot of reading. It's not an intuitive implementation."
"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 main area where the AlienVault product was lacking around the 2018 timeframe was in its ability to scale."
"There needs to be more support or some kind of training program so users can self-learn the system more effectively."
"AlienVault OSSIM should improve the deployment and make it unified like the USM."
"They can add more compliance templates."
"It takes some time. 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's technical support is okay, but we don't have an SLA, and sometimes the response times are very slow."
"It won't tell you when your backups are failing, but it will give you hints when your database is running on full recovery."
"I imagine we will have to develop our own reports soon, this seems to be more cumbersome."
"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."
"Training for this solution needs to be improved, as new employees are sometimes unfamiliar with the product."
"It is a very technical program. They can simplify it so that it isn't so hard to deal with."
"I think the customization area in the tool can be considered as an area of concern where improvements are required."
"We'd like more customization capabilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AlienVault OSSIM is free."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"OSSIM is free."
"The licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"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 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."
"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing model would benefit from having package deals with other SolarWinds products."
"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
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
University
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Performing Arts
6%
 

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 do you like most about SolarWinds Security Event Manager ?
The solution helps you monitor database instances, application instances, other customer application things, Linux servers, IBM servers, and Oracle servers.
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...
 

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: December 2025.
880,315 professionals have used our research since 2012.