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Elastic Stack vs USM Anywhere comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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

Elastic Stack
Ranking in Log Management
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
USM Anywhere
Ranking in Log Management
44th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (30th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (51st), Compliance Management (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Elastic Stack is 5.2%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of USM Anywhere is 0.4%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Balamurali P - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced query capabilities enhance monitoring effectiveness
Elastic Stack should be more simplified with ready-to-use widgets. Also, incorporating AI capabilities is essential as monitoring and observability tools are now adding AI features. Ideally, it should evolve into a full-stack observability tool, similar to AppDynamics or DynaTrace, which offers a solution that includes ISP provider, API monitoring, and infrastructure monitoring.
Kris Nawani - PeerSpot reviewer
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 scripting model in Elastic Stack allows me to query logs and then put the data into Grafana."
"Elastic Stack is mainly used to monitor servers and APIs. It helps ensure the software's availability and sends notifications at the right time so the system is not down for a long time. The tool's stability and advanced features, such as anomaly detection, are the most valuable features. The benefit of using it is real-time monitoring."
"It supports various integrations. It's open source and has excellent community support."
"The biggest strength of Elastic Stack is its brilliant archiving capabilities."
"The solution's technical support is good...Elastic Stack offers good value for value for money based on the product's features and what they offer."
"The detection rules in Elastic Stack are the most valuable feature. The search capabilities are excellent and fast. As we collect logs from workstations and devices, the detection rules run on top of the logs and detect any suspicious activity, raising alerts accordingly. Integration with Elastic Stack depends on the specific integration. Elastic provides some bridging integrations that make it easy, but require custom integration. Most integrations are simple, but customization can be challenging because we need to do some parsing. There's something called Elastic Common Schema, and we need to parse the source logs to match this schema, which can be a bit challenging."
"The only beneficial aspect of Elastic Stack is that it's open source."
"The tool's most powerful aspect is its search engine capability. It's a highly effective and powerful solution for searching. We use it in professional and student projects at universities, and it delivers promising results."
"In terms of monitoring, my best feature would be the monitoring of components across the network. It monitors the respective nodes and any new node that comes onto the network and provides reports. The reporting dashboards are really helpful for management in terms of making decisions around patch management."
"SIEM log collection is great, and all of the rules that support updates with maintenance."
"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 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."
"It has allowed us to see what is happening on our servers."
"The vulnerability manager and the file integration are very good."
"It provides a single pane of glass view, coupled with a whole security ecosystem. The ability to manage everything from a central point, including vulnerability assessments, asset management - including the services provided by the various hosts, NIDS, HIDS, etc. - provides a very efficient way of dealing with things."
"The setup is very easy and straightforward."
 

Cons

"The solution is expensive, particularly the training and certification. If customers want to increase their use of Elastic Stack, they should consider reducing the cost of certification and training."
"The stability of the solution is rated as three or four out of ten as we frequently encounter issues."
"When people try to move the data from another source to Elastic Stack for visualization, they face challenges when connecting to Elastic Stack from such different sources."
"Agent deployment is a little tough in the on-premise version."
"There could be better documentation."
"It should facilitate easier manual integration."
"Improvements are needed in the solution in areas like SOAR and TIP, where there are certain shortcomings."
"Improving integration capabilities, especially with authentication systems, firewalls, and security controls, is a crucial area for improvement in Elastic Stack. Additionally, enhancing functionality to handle large Yara queries more efficiently would be beneficial, as many EDR solutions can run such queries faster than Elastic Stack's current limitations."
"Sometimes the log is unclear, and the report is a bit ambiguous."
"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."
"they seem to have bugs from time to time that go unfixed for a while and that is frustrating. I'm not saying the product needs to be bug-free, but they need to be responsive to bugs."
"The other thing is the agent is OSSEC. They needed to create its own agent to help to find threats on the devices that it happens to be installed."
"This solution could be easier to use."
"The reporting module could be a little easier to handle, as it requires quite some trial and error until you get the reports you want. Also, it would be great to have a graphical interface for the Network Intrusion Detection System's rule management."
"There are scalability issues due to a 60 TB limit, which restricts its use for large customers like banks."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Ultimately, the pricing depends upon the capacity planning that the enterprise architect does."
"If I compare Elastic Stack to the other products in the market, I would say that the tool is available at a competitive price."
"I used the open-source version of Elastic Stack, because of which I did not have to pay anything."
"The product is expensive."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"It depends on the specifics, but generally, Elastic is economical for certain use cases."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"We are using the open-source community version of the product."
"Use the AlienVault team. They are helpful and the documentation that they provide is second to none."
"AlienVault is certainly not nearly as expensive as Splunk or QRadar. It's decently priced, but I don't have the exact figure."
"Use an MSSP instead. It is much cheaper."
"​The vulnerability management solution is worse than buying a Nessus Professional license.​"
"Do the one month trial and try to work out the kinks during it, as it has free support and service hours."
"QRadar, ArcSight and Splunk are some of the most expensive SIEM products out there in the market and not everyone has the budget to buy them. In such cases, AV USM is a very cost effective alternative."
"We checked out several competitors. For what it can do and the cost, it was the best option!"
"Its price is much lower than McAfee ESM."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Elastic Stack?
The tool is huge, and it performs brilliantly. I tested it for malware, and within two weeks of launching, the product alerted me about a network intrusion. This was a tough test for it, but it per...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Stack?
I may not be able to answer as this is customer-paid Elastic Stack, and I didn't handle the payment.
What needs improvement with Elastic Stack?
Elastic Stack should be more simplified with ready-to-use widgets. Also, incorporating AI capabilities is essential as monitoring and observability tools are now adding AI features. Ideally, it sho...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
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 Elastic Stack vs. USM Anywhere and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.