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AlienVault OSSIM vs Elastic Security 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)
8th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Elastic Security
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (7th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (15th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (6th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 3.7%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Security is 6.3%, down from 9.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Aman Aijaz - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-scale open-source solution used for monitoring events on devices
The area for improvement is a lot. When I started using it on our enterprise side, the issue we faced was, for example, if we were running at that time on AlienVault OSSIM v5.7.4. So, for some orders, we had to install some packages, and when we tried installing that package, some dependencies got upgraded to a new version. Now once that dependency got upgraded, the SQL, since you might be aware that OSSIM uses SQL database, now SQL and all the dependency in everything was not on the same version, and that caused the database to crash. The aforementioned area should be eased out by upgrading the patches and upgrading dependencies. This kind of thing is a disadvantage of OSSIM, and I would like them to work on this. But I have also raised service requests many times and gave it a push on the community section too. However, since it is a local source, they don't reply much over there. That is why I don't like to work on OSSIM because it is unpredictable. Once the storage goes above 50 percent, it starts behaving unpredictably. If you get stuck with a situation, then you need to drill a lockdown into that. Sometimes you get no luck. Then you have to just reimage the server with the new fresh OS of AlienVault. As for additional features, not much because if you move to the newer version, it is kind of getting more stable. But, to make my life easier, then I would say try to give more features. I know it's open source, so they also cannot provide me with more features. But still, if they can provide me with more features because right now it's becoming old. Right now, we are even moving from SIEM to Security Data Lake. So when we move to it, this will be literally outdated. No one can even expect anything out of it. The way security is moving, it will be outdated very soon. They have to also provide something new to keep this going for the future also.
SyedAli17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralized monitoring improves security posture through rapid data processing
The processing part of Elastic Security ( /products/elastic-security-reviews ) is very interesting for us since we handle almost 7,000 to 8,000 alerts per minute. We require rapid processing speed for alerts and event data, and Elastic Security is very efficient at handling this level of data. Additionally, Elastic Security helps improve the security posture of Pakistan through centralized visibility and real-time processing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup was straightforward. I didn't have any problems."
"The threat policies of the solution are always very advanced and the best in the market. They are very persistent in terms of keeping up with security protocols."
"AlienVault OSSIM's GUI is very user-friendly."
"You can customize the dashboards as well as the reporting."
"You pay monthly for the solution. I think it's one of the best products. If you compare with other companies, like LogRhythm, etc., the top 8 or 10 CMs, I think Alien Vault has the best price-performance ratio."
"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."
"The product is easy to use."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an enterprise solution that sells easily. It is rated highly by organizations."
"We chose the product based on the ability to scan for malware using a malware behavioral model as opposed to just a traditional hash-based antivirus. Therefore, it's not as intensive."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the prevention methods and the incident alerts."
"Elastic Security offers advanced features such as machine learning and integration with ChatGPT."
"The most valuable feature for me is Discover."
"Elastic Security is very customizable, and the dashboards are very easy to build."
"The most valuable thing is that this solution is widely used for work management and research. It's easy to jump into the security use case with the same technology."
"The visualization is very good."
"The most valuable features are the speed, detail, and visualization. It has the latest standards."
 

Cons

"I don't like to work on OSSIM because it is unpredictable."
"GUI could be improved."
"When comparing AlienVault OSSIM to other solutions it looks a bit outdated. Additionally, they need to improve their integration."
"AlienVault OSSIM gives unwanted notifications."
"We need more dashboards and we need more customization for dashboards."
"The main area where the AlienVault product was lacking around the 2018 timeframe was in its ability to scale."
"It takes some time. It does not give me a prompt response for any such [malicious] traffic. It takes time to get that alert from the AlienVault system."
"There are somewhat more false positives with the user behavior analytics, which could benefit from an additional machine learning model to detect user patterns more rapidly."
"I think because we are a cybersecurity company, the thing that can be improved is the prebuilt tools, especially quality. Compared to its competitor, they still have fewer prebuilt security rules. Elastic Security, in terms of generating alerts, cannot group the same products into one another. Even though the alerts are the same, they still generate them one by one. So, it is very noisy in our dashboard. I would like the Elastic Security admin to group all the same alarms into one alarm so that our dashboard is not noisy."
"Email notification should be done the same way as Logentries does it."
"There is an area of improvement in the Logs list. The load list may need to be paginated as there are limits."
"The price of this product could be improved, especially the additional costs. I would also like to see better-quality graphics."
"The problem with ELK is it's difficult to administer. When you have a problem, it can be very, very difficult to rebuild indexes."
"This solution cannot do predictive maintenance, so we have to build our own modules for doing it."
"The training that is offered for Elastic is in need of improvement because there is no depth to it."
"The process of designing dashboards is a little cumbersome in Kibana. Unless you are an expert, you will not be able to use it. The process should be pretty straightforward. The authentication feature is what we are looking for. We would love to have a central authentication system in the open-source edition without the need for a license or an enterprise license. If they can give at least a simple authentication system within a company. In a large organization, authentication is very essential for security because logs can contain a lot of confidential data. Therefore, an authentication feature for who accesses it should be there."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"AlienVault OSSIM is expensive compared to its competitors."
"AlienVault pricing is the best. Whatever cost you are paying, you are getting a return on every penny... It's not like your IBM, your QRadar, or Splunk, where the cost is too high."
"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."
"We are using a free version of the solution. If you purchase a license there are more features available but the price is a little high. The solution should be cheaper to allow more customers to be able to afford it."
"The licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."
"We are using the free, open-source version of this solution."
"The base product is open-source but if you need advanced security features then you need to pay for the subscription. Elastic Security's price is reasonable in some cases and in other cases it's not."
"The product offers an amazing pricing structure. Price-wise, the product is very competitive."
"Elastic Security is free to use."
"There is no charge for using the open-source version."
"When compared to other products, the price is average or on the low side."
"The licensing cost of Elastic Security is based on the daily ingestion rate. I can't recall the exact figure, but for 10GB of log action daily, it would cost around $20,000."
"This is an open-source product, so there are no costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
What do you like most about Elastic Security?
Elastic provides the capability to index quickly due to the reverse indexes it offers. This data is crucial as it contains critical information. The reverse index allows fast data indexing because ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
Since Elastic Security is community-based, it does not require significant costs. This is beneficial for SMEs as they do not need extensive budgets for security solutions.
 

Also Known As

OSSIM
Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. Elastic Security and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
852,764 professionals have used our research since 2012.
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