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AlienVault OSSIM (discontinued) vs. Snort vs. Security Onion

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    AlienVault OSSIM (discontinued)

    Score4.2 out of 10
    N/AAlienVault OSSIM was an open source Security Information and Event Management (SIEM). AlienVault was acquired by AT&T Cybersecurity, now LevelBlue, and OSSIM is no longer available for sale.N/A

    Snort

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ASourcefire developed Snort, an open source intrusion prevention system capable of real-time traffic analysis and packet logging. Snort was acquired (and is now supported) by Cisco in 2013.N/A

    Security Onion

    Score10 out of 10
    N/ASecurity Onion is a free and open source Linux distribution for threat hunting, enterprise security monitoring, and log management, developed by the company of the same name in Evans. Their products include both the Security Onion software and specialized hardware appliances that are built and tested to run Security Onion. The company also offers paid support and training services.N/A
    Pricing
    AlienVault OSSIM (discontinued)SnortSecurity Onion
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    AlienVault OSSIM (discontinued)SnortSecurity Onion
    Free Trial
    NoNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details———
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    AlienVault OSSIM (discontinued)SnortSecurity Onion
    Considered Multiple Products
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    Security Onion Solutions, LLC
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    71%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    83%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    86%
    Happy with the feature set
    6 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    83%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    5 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    7 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    AlienVault OSSIM (discontinued)SnortSecurity Onion
    Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
    Comparison of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) features of AlienVault OSSIM (discontinued) and Snort and Security Onion
    Feature
    AlienVault OSSIM (discontinued)
    7.5
    10 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Snort
    -
    Ratings
    Security Onion
    -
    Ratings
    Centralized event and log data collection9.49 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Correlation6.910 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Event and log normalization/management8.110 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Deployment flexibility8.210 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integration with Identity and Access Management Tools9.36 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Custom dashboards and workspaces9.49 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Host and network-based intrusion detection9.29 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data integration/API management5.32 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Behavioral analytics and baselining5.42 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Rules-based and algorithmic detection thresholds5.33 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Response orchestration and automation6.32 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Reporting and compliance management8.44 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Incident indexing/searching6.43 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    AlienVault OSSIM (discontinued)SnortSecurity Onion
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Security QRadar SIEM
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Snort
    Score9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Score8 out of 10
    Proofpoint Advanced Threat Protection
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Proofpoint Advanced Threat Protection
    Score8.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    AlienVault OSSIM (discontinued)SnortSecurity Onion
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.3
    (10 ratings)
    8.1
    (5 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.9
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    AlienVault OSSIM (discontinued)SnortSecurity Onion
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Discontinued Products
    If this is your first experience with a SIEM, this one can get you started. Take the time to learn the ins and outs of the product and you'll most likely be satisfied with it if your company is an SMB. If you need compliance reports, OSSIM is too small for you, you'll need to go with USM or USM Anywhere.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    If a colleague was looking to tighten down their network I can easily recommend Snort to them. It gives you some more peace of mind knowing that its always scanning traffic for malicious looking code. Even things your major firewalls and security hardware might miss, Snort has picked up. Its an easy recommendation for me.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Security Onion Solutions, LLC
    Security Onion works well for setting up within a Linux environment. This brings a new platform to run and maintain though. The application its self has helped to keep track of logs and vulnerabilities in the environment. Alert triage and case creation is simple to start and follow through to the end.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Discontinued Products
    • Asset discovery. Once installed in a centric, network-accessible server, OSSIM can poll all your endpoints with common protocols (SSH, SNMP, WMI) to detect and discover site-wide assets to monitor. You only need to group them by your own criteria once added to the product.
    • SIEM Event Correlation. You can define quite complex correlation rules to detect possible suspicious or malicious actions or attempts in your network, in order to categorize them as real threats or as false positives, thus streamlining your risk assessment and management.
    • Ease of installation. The entire AlienVault OSSIM is self-contained in an ISO file, which can be burned into a DVD or just mounted in your server of choice (physical or virtual) for deployment. The installation process is automated and quote verbosed, with options for static IP, email messaging and others.
    • Ease of access. Being AlienVault OSSIM a self-contained appliance, it can be accessed via web by any device that supports a web browser, being that desktops, workstation, mobile devices, etc. The OSSIM dashboard and other features are automatically rearranged to adapt to the particular device being in use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • IPS detection.
    • DoS detection.
    • Packet logging.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Security Onion Solutions, LLC
    • GUI
    • Support
    • Easy of use
    Read full review
    Cons
    Discontinued Products
    • Creating custom rules is a bit complicated
    • Reporting could be improved
    • Agent has caused conflicts with a couple of our other applications
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • At times can be unstable with Cisco bugs, require frequent upgrading.
    • FTD images that are being pushed for ASAs are less efficient from an administration standpoint, no CLI.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Security Onion Solutions, LLC
    • Requires Linux
    • Training
    Read full review
    Usability
    Discontinued Products
    AlienVault OSSIM is far easy to use and manage - provided you know what you're doing. As any SIEM application, there is some background knowledge required in order to take advantage of the product's functionalities, such as the log correlation and analysis. Other than that, the application is quite usable and robust.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Security Onion Solutions, LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Discontinued Products
    Everything is done through MSSP and installation pro services. Once those hours are burned up, then you're on your own without a lot of help. Typically the pro services hours aren't enough to get past 60 days and MSSP are hit and miss. We had a miss for installation helpers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Security Onion Solutions, LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Discontinued Products
    Originally my organization leveraged alien value due to the lower cost of entry and ability to manage it as a service provider. Unfortunately, after several years of working with this tool, it became unwieldy to use as it felt that almost every useful report had to be created by hand. As other tools have come out with the ability to do automated responses such as Stellar Data processor, we have begun to evaluate alternatives.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    For our organization, the Cisco defense in depth concept works the best. While Cisco can be made to work with other vendors, we have found the best in depth protection by integrating Cisco products for maximum visibility. We had a Barracuda Web Filter, but it was difficult to maintain when you had limited scope on what you could block, so we created a whitelist only setup which required a lot of additional manpower. This wouldn't have covered new threats with DNS spoofing and the like. Sourcefire also integrated with our anti-malware platform (Cisco AMP) for even better visibility on what may be happening on the end users workstation. We are planning on adding in Cisco ISE to complete the approach and possibly stealthwatch to cover our bases in the future. The Palo Alto gear was interesting, but it was priced far out of our range.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Security Onion Solutions, LLC
    Other vendors may have a more robust solution but for our needs, Security Onion was the one to move forward with. We have tested some of the others but the cost of those platforms makes the ROI not as desirable. There is a learning curve with Security Onion but it is worth it for the value provided.
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Discontinued Products
    • It's difficult to put a monetary value on security, but with proper monitoring and alerting, incidents will be easier to avoid.
    • Helps with your compliancy, as it automatically alerts you for critical events.
    • Collects logs in the cloud, so protected from local issues, like SAN failures.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • Being open source, ROI on free is hard to beat for something that works.
    • I believe it greatly enhances the security of my network.
    Read full review
    Security Onion Solutions, LLC
    • Makes Alert Triage easier to handle
    • Analysis of threats simple
    Read full review
    ScreenShots