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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

"The most valuable feature is you have the expertise of human experience directly involved. There is a team of experts."
"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."
"This product has helped to increase staff productivity."
"The USM is a work horse, no matter what devices or the number of logs we throw at it, the system processes them in real time, correlates the events, and alerts on only events that need human review."
"The asset management of nodes has been a large help in terms of being able to track applications with more detail and have changes made being monitored into one source."
"AlienVault provides a checklist answer when using SIEM."
"It allows for a lot of out-of-the-box features: vuln scanning, HIDS/HIPS, and IDS."
"This solution can completely detect and prevent incidents on your network."
"Allowed us to help our customers satisfy compliance needs around logging and monitoring."
"The feature that I liked the most is that they have a vulnerability assessment package that comes along with the SIEM solution. So, whenever I find any threat or alert for any of the devices or servers, I could immediately initiate a vulnerability assessment scan on that machine. That is one of a kind. The price at which AlienVault operates is also valuable."
"OTX is a great module that lets staff maintain and monitor updates regarding events in the infrastructure and takes decision to improve the security perimeter."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"In the future, I would like to see all these features of the solution working properly."
"The reporting tools are a bit lacking for building reports to give directly to customers, but support has been helpful in giving our requests for new features to the development team and following up with us."
"Windows log collection works with HIDS, but documentation is sparse and confusing."
"Their threat intelligence platform needs to be broadened. They should integrate it with more threat intelligence platforms. For the threat feed that they get from open intelligence, I would like them to add a few premium threat intelligence platforms. They can provide a bundle in which AlienVault has the threat intelligence background of other premium products."
"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."
"The dashboard could be improved as well as the level of customization."
"Different functions to customize reports should be added."
"There are scalability issues due to a 60 TB limit, which restricts its use for large customers like banks."
 

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."
"AlienVault is certainly not nearly as expensive as Splunk or QRadar. It's decently priced, but I don't have the exact figure."
"​The price point is good.​"
"So far, I feel the product's pricing is a good value. The technology is decent. You get what you pay for. I think it's fair."
"The ROI is quite good."
"It's affordable for most customers."
"Do the one month trial and try to work out the kinks during it, as it has free support and service hours."
"​The vulnerability management solution is worse than buying a Nessus Professional license.​"
"I don't think the product's pricing is a good value because they try to raise the price 50 percent every year... AlienVault needs to understand that not all customers are huge enterprises... Their sales team is way too aggressive. The price they advertise is not always the price you get."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Performing Arts
7%
Financial Services Firm
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 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

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.
882,479 professionals have used our research since 2012.