- Real-time rules for threat detection
- Event correlations that are automated and prioritized according to level of security risk and compliance violation
Senior ICT Security Officer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
It provides us with event correlations that are automated and prioritized according to level of security risk and compliance violation.
What is most valuable?
How has it helped my organization?
It allows us to be in better compliance with security protocols. It also gives us a better global vision of what is happening in the organization in terms of security threats and how best to analyze and mitigate them.
What needs improvement?
I would like to have native cluster for connectors as a software version and not as an appliance. It also needs a better disaster recovery procedure.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using ArcSight since 2007.
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What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
We've deployed it without any issues.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We haven't had any issues with instability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's scaled fine for our needs.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We chose ArcSight when they had no real competitor and we stayed with them.
What other advice do I have?
I'm pleased with the current capabilities.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

Information Security Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Its flexibility is achieved by being easy to use, and at the same time having very sophisticated FlexConnectors.
What is most valuable?
The best feature of ArcSight is its flexibility. Almost no other vendor provides such a good framework to collect, parse, and analyze data. Its flexibility is achieved by being easy to use, and at the same time having very sophisticated FlexConnectors. Also, I've found ArcSight's correlation engine to be the most advanced on the market.
How has it helped my organization?
My customers who use ArcSight report that it becomes very useful in incident detection and forensics. It's really sped up disclosure of inappropriate activity in information systems and on the network. Flexible event collection allows getting crucial events from almost every possible source. And correlation abilities are incredible if you know how to cook it.
What needs improvement?
Many competitors are going down the road of combining their products with other security products, such as vulnerability scanning, configuration control etc. HP's position doesn't change in that area as they offer to use their standalone solutions and integrate them in ArcSight. There are no embedded scanners or network forensics. Maybe it's time for HP to rethink that position.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been working with HP ArcSight since 2008. All that time, the product has been growing and evolving, trying to give us more profit and a better experience to old and new customers.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
We have had no issues with the deployment.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
If you encounter serious performance problems, you didn't size correctly prior to deployment.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability options are pretty good although costly.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
Every product has its stability bugs, and ArcSight is not an exception, though I haven't found anything critical.
Technical Support:I must say that tech support is getting worse and worse every year. Hard cases may "hang" for months. In simple cases, support often demonstrates a lack of deep knowledge. When ArcSight was not HP, its product support was much much better. Even first-line support could help with anything.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
As a systems integrator, we constantly evaluate different solutions and deploy not one but many of them. My personal opinion is that a crucial feature for a SIEM system is flexibility. The more you can tune, adjust, and develop the system, you will get more profit from it. If we're talking about SIEM solutions, then no one can offer such flexibility as ArcSight. Splunk maybe, but Splunk is not SIEM, and to get SIEM-like features from it you spend more time and money.
What about the implementation team?
As a system integrator, I always say that implementation must be done by an experienced team. SIEM solutions are not easy, so if time is important, do not rely on doing it haphazardly.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We would like it to be cheaper, but the licensing model is pretty simple.
What other advice do I have?
You need to read the documentation - you can then get it fast and working. If you do not read the documentation, you get pain and tears. Look for an experienced team to deploy the solution, or get experience yourself as HP has some good learning courses.
Deep knowledge of the product will come later, but for the correct implementation you need to be prepared. ArcSight has wonderful community, and you can always ask a question or find an interesting use case there. It's a very useful resource indeed, do not hesitate to visit it.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We integrate ArcSight for our customers.
Buyer's Guide
OpenText Enterprise Security Manager
April 2025

Learn what your peers think about OpenText Enterprise Security Manager. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.
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Senior IT Security Consultant, Cybersecurity Technology Services at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
It has flexible and rich correlation capabilities. It has the capability to manipulate every parameter - sub-strings, indexes, and custom functions.
Valuable Features
- It has flexible and rich correlation capabilities. This is the most mature product in this area.
- It has the capability to manipulate every parameter - sub-strings, indexes, and custom functions.
- Active Lists - This is the most powerful feature which supports correlation. It also has multi-column active lists, parameters manipulation, and correlation capabilities that provide great flexibility.
- Full control of correlation flow - There are no black-box closed rules, unlike with McAfee Nitro, and no default aggregation which is hard to analyze, unlike Offenses in QRadar.
Improvements to My Organization
This is the best product to build and supports SOC operations and SOC use cases.
Room for Improvement
The layout of the analyst's console need improvement. It has had no significant changes in at least nine years. Also, the advanced statistics in visualizations simply don't work, and I've performed an analysis of these functions.
Use of Solution
We've been using it for nine years.
Deployment Issues
We have had no issues with the deployment.
Stability Issues
We have had no issues with the stability.
Scalability Issues
We have had no issues scaling it for our needs.
Customer Service and Technical Support
I have not had to use tech support for at least two years now. From what I recall, they were good.
Initial Setup
The initial setup was simple and the implementation was straightforward as the supporting documentation is pretty good. Help for setup, which is available from the analyst console, is really great and complex with diagrams and screens.
Implementation Team
ArcSight makes it easy to achieve ROI because of its great flexibility.
Other Solutions Considered
This is the best SIEM solution on the market comparing to its competitors. I'm also familiar with IBM QRadar, RSA Security Analytics, McAfee Nitro, and Splunk.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
System Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
When I am facing a problem such as transaction fraud, we can investigate using ArcSight by tracing the log through its correlation. They need to fix some bugs and increase the search speed.
Valuable Features
The dashboard is the most valuable feature for us as it can show a lot of information about real-time incidents.
Improvements to My Organization
When I am facing a problem such as transaction fraud, we can investigate using ArcSight by tracing the log through its correlation.
Room for Improvement
They need to fix some bugs and increase the search performance speed. Sometimes there are issues when I perform log correlations.
Deployment Issues
We have had no issues with the deployment.
Stability Issues
There have been no stability issues.
Scalability Issues
We have had no issues scaling it for our needs.
Customer Service and Technical Support
Customer Service:
5/10
Technical Support:5/10
Initial Setup
The initial setup was quite easy and straightforward.
Implementation Team
I work for a reseller, and we set up ArcSight for our customers, and I am learning a lot about its architecture.
Other Solutions Considered
For SIEM, I think HP ArcSight is a leading competitor alongside Splunk.
Other Advice
You need to learn about architecture and practice more before implementation since this product is not easy to learn and takes time to master.


Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior Cyber Security Analyst at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
It allows for easy log analysis as well as correlation and alerting.
What is most valuable?
- Logger
- Command Center
How has it helped my organization?
The ArcSight ESM allows for easy log analysis as well as correlation and alerting. Logger is an indexed database which allows for faster, historical searching. The versatility to use SQL queries is helpful.
What needs improvement?
There are some limitations on the functionality of Rules that I would like to see expanded. I would like to see some better support options in the ArcSight community for HP Protect. Unless someone in your organization is an ArcSight SME, you are going to have a difficult time getting answers.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used it for two years.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
There were no issues with the deployment.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We've not had any issues with the stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We've had no issues scaling it for our needs.
How are customer service and technical support?
I would give it 3/10. A lot of the support is community based. That strategy can work, but the answers are sometimes incomplete, incorrect, and can take a long time to get.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used QRadar and Splunk. Both have great functionality that make them easy to use, but ArcSight has a very consistent layout and their logic is easy to figure out.
How was the initial setup?
I was not involved in the setup.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm not involved in pricing or licensing.
What other advice do I have?
It's a well rounded product especially with the addition of Logger and Command Center. I felt it was easy to understand and use right from the start. There are some companies that do not take advantage of everything ArcSight can offer. A problem I think ArcSight can fix with better support alternatives.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Cyber Security HP Arcsight Dev Ops Lead Developer with 10,001+ employees
The CORR engine and ability to build complex correlations from simple 'building blocks' are the most valuable features for us.
What is most valuable?
The real-time correlation (CORR) engine and ability to build complex correlations from simple 'building blocks', provided the base 'building blocks' are well throughout in the first place, are the most valuable features for us.
How has it helped my organization?
The ways in which it's improved our organization are too numerous to mention. But you have to have good, steady resources and well worked-out use cases. ArcSight can report on many things and save on repetitious daliy monitoring.
What needs improvement?
There's a lot of improvements that need to be made, too many to mention all of them, but some improvements with the Con App would be a good start.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've used it for over eight years.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
We did have issues at the start, but this comes down to having good HP ArcSight architects to start with, which we didn't when the project started.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We did have issues at the start, but this comes down to having good HP ArcSight architects to start with, which we didn't when the project started.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We did have issues at the start, but this comes down to having good HP ArcSight architects to start with, which we didn't when the project started.
How are customer service and technical support?
With HP themselves, they need a lot of pushing to get them to get seriously involved with issues, given that they are paid a lot of money to provide support and deliver top SLAs.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We mainly use HP ArcSight, but also Splunk. I didn't have a say in making the choices.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was fairly straightforward, but the overall architecture planning needs seasoned professionals who understand what ArcSight is and how it needs to be deployed.
What about the implementation team?
The installation had already been implemented by an HP subsidiary who were fairly good when performing the installation. Despite that, they did a poor job of implementing the hardware.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The HP products are expensive.
What other advice do I have?
It's a fantastic product and highly configurable, but it needs nothing less than a seasoned cyber security professional with serious engineering expertise and a real desire to provide meaningful use cases. Anyone that says ArcSight is 'fire and forget' should not be allowed to work in cyber security!
If you want Arcsight implemented correctly, start by sizing your organization, and looking at data flows and the available data streams. Be mindful of regulatory and compliance reporting, Risk and Legal as well, as you may need to factor in any and all of these when working with enterprise solutions.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We have a business relationship in place with HP.
Security Business Analyst at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
It has good options for shaping data and using them in very complex rules. Performance is the product's Achilles' heel.
What is most valuable?
I think the ability to create rules more flexible than in other products (i.e. IBM QRadar) is its most valuable feature. It has good options for shaping data and using them in very complex rules.
How has it helped my organization?
It has increased our detective capabilities in the cybersecurity landscape. We're able to build SOC around it, and make it a central tool for detecting network compromises.
What needs improvement?
Performance is the product's Achilles' heel. The aggregation can't be done for a long period of time, i.e. one week. On top of that, in comparison to the competition, ArcSight works very slowly and the WebUI is not very user-friendly.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using it for 10 months and the program is still in the development phase.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
There were no issues with the deployment.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There have been no stability issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have had no issues scaling it to our needs.
How are customer service and technical support?
The level of technical support is low. I think HP should invest money to train support people. Furthermore, sometimes I feel they are overworked because they used to sending notifications about cases without closing them.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, I worked with IBM QRadar.
How was the initial setup?
SIEM in general is not straightforward. I think the initial setup was simple, but to get value from this product, you have to do something more than the initial setup.
What about the implementation team?
We did it in-house with help from the vendor's professional services. My advice is to think first where you would like to put your collectors. Assess if your network will be able to lift extra loads, assess what logging level will be required, and if log sources are capable of delivering it.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
ArcSight was chosen by my new company management without asking me for my opinion.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
IT Security Assistant Manager at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
It allows us to traceback security threats, to generate usage trends and discover anomalies.
Valuable Features:
For us, there are several valuable features.
- The ability to correctly parse the most number of products comparing to its competitors;
- The ability to create very complex scenarios to detect security risks and anomalies;
- Very stable system components (connectors, logger and correlation engine) combined with satisfactory vendor support; and
- The ability to create parsers for all kinds of applications and systems is an important differentiator.
Improvements to My Organization:
It greatly changed our work habits in the organization allowing us to not only trace back security threats, but also to generate usage trends, discover anomalies and so many other usages. It quickly became an indispensable tool.
Room for Improvement:
They can definitely provide faster search response and offer larger on-the-box storage support. The predefined correlation ruleset can be improved to cover more security alerts and more products.
There is also still room for improvement for processing speed. An easily accessible documentation such as reference architectures does not exist, more guidance can be provided to customer for such a complex product.
Deployment Issues:
We've had no issues with deployment.
Stability Issues:
We've had no issues with stability.
Scalability Issues:
We've had no issues with scalability.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

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Updated: April 2025
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