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IBM X-Force Exchange vs USM Anywhere comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

IBM X-Force Exchange
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) (14th)
USM Anywhere
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (37th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (30th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (45th), Compliance Management (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM X-Force Exchange is designed for Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) and holds a mindshare of 1.5%, down 1.7% compared to last year.
USM Anywhere, on the other hand, focuses on Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), holds 1.0% mindshare, down 1.1% since last year.
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM X-Force Exchange1.5%
Recorded Future7.7%
CrowdStrike Falcon4.6%
Other86.2%
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP)
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
USM Anywhere1.0%
Splunk Enterprise Security7.1%
Wazuh6.4%
Other85.5%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

IM
IT Infrastructure Security Lead at South Consult
Speed threat assessment ,security investigations leveraging on real time actionable threat intel integrated to your Security Intelligence Platform
The most valuable features I found include : The ability to add a vulnerability report Support for STIX and TAXII Threat Feed Manager- While viewing X-Force reports, users can enrich IP, URL and malware reports using threat intelligence So suppose you're investigating an a possible threat and you just found that there is an offense that is saying, one of your users had access to some honey port defined address You can quickly leverage X-Force to help you by doing an X-Force exchange look-up quickly. If you have an aspect of interest, such as an email, file , vulnerability data for, you can leverage X-Force to understand this in-depth.
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 product has helped to increase staff productivity."
"It's quite integratable so you can actually integrate and get IP malware and URL information. It also gives you some form of intelligence into what you're trying to investigate or what you're trying to understand."
"The most valuable feature is you have the expertise of human experience directly involved. There is a team of experts."
"As we have to service several servers, we can manage them in a economical way, which is beneficial to our team and business."
"The asset management functionality (active and passive scans) is also really important. You can't protect what you do not know about, so having an inventory of all your devices and software is critical to a security management program."
"It has powerful threat detection, incident response, and compliance management."
"We are able to get alerts perfectly with FIM and VA features."
"Any unusual behaviour, we can monitor. We have alerts set up to be sent when we receive signs of any unusual behaviour."
"On any given day I could give you a different answer regarding the most valuable features of the product. The feature that is most important is the fact that it has a lot of features, that it's not just a log collection and correlation system, that it has a lot of other components built in. The bundle of features is really the killer feature."
"The setup is very easy and straightforward."
"The AlienVault solution has enabled us to create a SOC on a budget with smaller than usual staff requirements, offering a wider range of solutions for our customers."
 

Cons

"We would like to have more AI capabilities to detect threats and improve its productivity from a cybersecurity standpoint."
"I would like to see better integration with other systems, solutions, and vendors."
"You have to look for the new information from X-Force. X-Force will provide it but you have to look for it. We need clearer visibility."
"The AT&T AlienVault USM is okay, but the relational database is not very good for large amounts of data. For example, many logs cannot be processed. It has been very slow for the queries and some data which are large, it is not very good in this case."
"Sometimes the log is unclear, and the report is a bit ambiguous."
"Maybe logs are the problem, as the database query is too slow. If you want to search something, you need time to find it."
"One area that has room for improvement is storage. AllienVault is a good place to put logs, but sometimes it's a tough place to go get logs... The logger can only hold so much data. If they improved that, that would help."
"The solution already has quite good tools, however, they need better integration tools for linking with Office 365, Google Suite, and so on."
"Plugins could be better utilized, as some of them do not recognize all logs."
"We develop additional rules and scripts to make it more usable."
"In the future, I would like to see all these features of the solution working properly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"One of the fastest ways to cut costs is reducing staff, and this product can reduce staff by 70 percent."
"Cost is clearly a consideration, but the important thing is what we do with the data and how we protect it."
"The price of this solution is reasonable, which is one of the reasons why we selected it over other solutions."
"I don't know exactly, but I know it is based on the number of logs and the retention duration, such as 30 days or something like that. So, the smallest package is about 500 a month for 30 days of logs. There is a virtual machine. You need resources for it. It is a log collecting VM. They provide the software, and you just have to load a virtual machine. So, you're going to incur some CPU RAM and storage for wherever this log collecting appliance is running, which typically is in our cloud and on our platform for the customer."
"AlienVault is flexible on their pricing for unlimited licenses."
"We ran a few PoCs. The price and feature set were the best with AlienVault."
"It allows you to do a lot with a small price tag... The pricing is the best on the market."
"AlienVault is certainly not nearly as expensive as Splunk or QRadar. It's decently priced, but I don't have the exact figure."
"They are a little more expensive than Microsoft."
"It has good pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Performing Arts
7%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise29
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for IBM X-Force?
It's a threat intelligence platform, and we aim to enhance its intelligence by integrating additional security solutions.
What advice do you have for others considering IBM X-Force?
It falls under the category of AI-embedded threat intelligence, which makes detection more efficient by reducing the rate of false positives and improving the overall detection rate. When the threa...
What do you like most about AT&T AlienVault USM?
The most valuable feature of the solution is the ease of deployment that it provides to users. The integrations that the product has with third-party applications are useful.
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.
 

Also Known As

X-Force Exchange, X-Force
AT&T AlienVault USM, AlienVault, AlienVault USM, Alienvault Cybersecurity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 CrowdStrike, Recorded Future, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP). Updated: January 2026.
881,515 professionals have used our research since 2012.