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AlienVault OSSIM vs USM Anywhere 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)
24th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
USM Anywhere
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
29th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (32nd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (41st), Compliance Management (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.2%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of USM Anywhere is 1.3%, up from 0.9% 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%
USM Anywhere1.3%
Other97.5%
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.
Kris Nawani - PeerSpot reviewer
Co-Founder/Director at Bangkok MSP Company Limited
Offers complete coverage without the need to install additional software
USM Anywhere is used for threat detection and investigation. It provides a solution with built-in threat intelligence and various other investigation tools The solution offers complete coverage without the need to install additional software, as it is maintained by the vendor. It helps in saving…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution is very stable; it runs on a Linux box, you only interface with it through the GUI, it works behind the scenes, and it has never crashed in the time that I have used it."
"Better than other SIEM solutions because almost everything can be integrated."
"Its user-friendliness is the most valuable. It is very easy to use and explore. The dashboard is very well packaged and integrated. You don't have to spend a lot of time in configuring it and checking out the RPM etc. It is also free and very powerful."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an enterprise solution that sells easily. It is rated highly by organizations."
"The solution is free to use."
"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," and the solution works well and allows me to have visibility into anomalous events."
"I have deployed it widely because I find that it gives value for money."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Customer support is excellent."
"The price of this solution is reasonable, which is one of the reasons why we selected it over other solutions."
"The best thing about AlienVault USM is it being a Jack-of-All Trades solution, providing SIEM, HIDS/NIDS, FIM, NetFlow, Asset Management, Vulnerability Management, and more under one USM platform, which none of the commercial SIEM vendors like ArcSight or McAfee can boast of with such a diverse feature set."
"Vulnerability scanning helped out shortcomings of what was not patched in the past and what needed to be patched. This assisted with fine tuning the environment for compliance."
"It brought our logs into one place for review and set up alarms based on changes we were missing due to lack of having one place for everything to go."
"All companies should buy an AlienVault SIEM, as it is well worth the investment."
"The low cost of entry SIEM functionality has increased due to network views and network traffic."
"We are very happy, the training was excellent, and the interaction with AlienVault is first rate - a real leader in customer service, and the OTX pulse feature is very useful."
 

Cons

"ArcSight works better than AlienVault right now."
"The user interface could be improved."
"I would advise others to not implement it for any enterprise-level organization."
"The solution needs more integration with cyber intelligence systems. Our customers want to use a single tool for managing cybersecurity."
"Sometimes it takes very long for your issue to get resolved."
"GUI could be improved."
"AlienVault OSSIM should improve the deployment and make it unified like the USM."
"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."
"AT&T AlienVault USM can improve searchable data. It should be available for more than 90 days. If you need more than 90 days of data, you have to put a request and they give you raw data, which is not easy to search. A good addition would be to allow users to search data older than 90 days."
"The search capabilities are not optimal and are going to be optimized in the next versions."
"I'd like to see built in support to detect more security incidents."
"We develop additional rules and scripts to make it more usable."
"It can still be difficult to feed products that are not supported out-of-the-box."
"As it includes multiple security softwares, the installation and configuration takes a lot of time."
"USM Anywhere relies a lot on the community putting the data in. Often, you'll right-click on the attack, but nothing will be found. That's a weakness of it."
"We would like more plugins. This being the main point of improvement which would benefit the users."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AlienVault 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."
"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 tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"We are using the community version, which can be used for 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."
"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."
"​The vulnerability management solution is worse than buying a Nessus Professional license.​"
"Negotiate the best package for your environment."
"​The price point is good.​"
"The licensing fees are dependent on usage."
"It has good pricing."
"Its price is much lower than McAfee ESM."
"We checked out several competitors. For what it can do and the cost, it was the best option!"
"Use the AlienVault team. They are helpful and the documentation that they provide is second to none."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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 Business65
Midsize Enterprise29
Large Enterprise25
 

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 AT&T AlienVault USM?
There are scalability issues due to a 60 TB limit, which restricts its use for large customers like banks. It is also limited when used with bigger products and has complex password requirements.
What is your primary use case for AT&T AlienVault USM?
USM Anywhere is used for threat detection and investigation. It provides a solution with built-in threat intelligence and various other investigation tools.
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
AT&T AlienVault USM, AlienVault, AlienVault USM, Alienvault Cybersecurity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Abel & Cole, Bank of Ireland, Bluegrass Cellular, CareerBuilder, Claire's, Hays Medical Center, Hope International, McCurrach, McKinsey & Company, Party Delights, Pepco Holdings, Richland School District, Ricoh, SaveMart, Shake Shack, Steelcase, TaxAct, Taylor Morrison, Vonage and Zoom
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. USM Anywhere and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,417 professionals have used our research since 2012.