AlienVault OSSIM vs. SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AlienVault OSSIM
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
OSSIM leverages the power of the AlienVault Open Threat Exchange by allowing users to both contribute and receive real-time information about malicious hosts. AlienVault OSSIM is an open source Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) product. It is a unified platform providing: Asset discovery Vulnerability assessment Intrusion detection Behavioral monitoring SIEM OSSIM provides the basis for AlienVault's proprietary Unified Security…N/A
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds LEM is security information and event management (SIEM) software.N/A
Pricing
AlienVault OSSIMSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AlienVault OSSIMSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AlienVault OSSIMSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Considered Both Products
AlienVault OSSIM

No answer on this topic

SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Chose SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
I inherited SolarWinds and did my best with it. Once I felt like I pushed it to it's limits and my expectations of what a SIEM should do over time changed, I started looking at other products.

SolarWinds: Has great support, a good amount of online documentation, the best native …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
AlienVault OSSIMSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
Comparison of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) features of Product A and Product B
AlienVault OSSIM
7.5
10 Ratings
4% below category average
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
8.9
18 Ratings
14% above category average
Centralized event and log data collection9.49 Ratings9.018 Ratings
Correlation6.910 Ratings8.015 Ratings
Event and log normalization/management8.110 Ratings8.018 Ratings
Deployment flexibility8.210 Ratings10.018 Ratings
Integration with Identity and Access Management Tools9.36 Ratings8.013 Ratings
Custom dashboards and workspaces9.49 Ratings9.017 Ratings
Host and network-based intrusion detection9.29 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Data integration/API management5.32 Ratings00 Ratings
Behavioral analytics and baselining5.42 Ratings00 Ratings
Rules-based and algorithmic detection thresholds5.33 Ratings00 Ratings
Response orchestration and automation6.32 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting and compliance management8.44 Ratings00 Ratings
Incident indexing/searching6.43 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AlienVault OSSIMSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Small Businesses
AlienVault USM
AlienVault USM
Score 7.2 out of 10
AlienVault USM
AlienVault USM
Score 7.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
InsightIDR
InsightIDR
Score 9.2 out of 10
InsightIDR
InsightIDR
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
InsightIDR
InsightIDR
Score 9.2 out of 10
InsightIDR
InsightIDR
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AlienVault OSSIMSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(10 ratings)
8.0
(46 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(6 ratings)
Support Rating
7.9
(3 ratings)
7.5
(17 ratings)
User Testimonials
AlienVault OSSIMSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Likelihood to Recommend
AT&T Cybersecurity
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.
Read full review
SolarWinds
Optimal for SolarWinds Security Event Manager needs for smaller companies - it is a very cool product but has some limitations around EPS (which gets chewed up quickly if you're doing it the right way & adding servers/storage/FW & other network devices)... Also pricing model is GREAT (not consumption-based, which is the greatest grift the SIEM industry has created).
Read full review
Pros
AT&T Cybersecurity
  • 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.
Read full review
SolarWinds
  • It does a great job of notifying us when accounts have been locked out. We can then find out the device on the network where the login attempt occurred.
  • Searching for incidents is now a lot faster with the implementation of the HTML 5 interface.
Read full review
Cons
AT&T Cybersecurity
  • Creating custom rules is a bit complicated
  • Reporting could be improved
  • Agent has caused conflicts with a couple of our other applications
Read full review
SolarWinds
  • All SolarWinds product suffer from slow response times in management portals. SolarWinds SEM is no exception. While it is much preferred over a "thick client" there is much room for improvement in speed.
  • If you use the email alert features with SolarWinds make sure to prepare you staff and team for the large amount of emails they could receive. Make sure to reduce the number of alerts so your team does not ignore the alerts.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
AT&T Cybersecurity
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
It is pretty likely that we will renew SEM when the time comes up. It is easy to use and maintain so there isn't much of a need to replace this product. It is also a pretty fair price for the capabilities provided by the SEM
Read full review
Usability
AT&T Cybersecurity
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.
Read full review
SolarWinds
If you are familiar with SolarWinds then you can use this product it's as easy as that. If you have never used a SolarWinds product then it will take a minute to get how they do reports and make dashboards but that being said the tool is great and can make things very easy once you get a feel for how it works and get everything setup how you like it.
Read full review
Support Rating
AT&T Cybersecurity
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.
Read full review
SolarWinds
The quality of support can vary depending on whom you end up speaking with. I was fortunate enough to work with a support representative who was very familiar with the product. He had even authored some of the support documentation on the website. On the flip side, I had two other experiences where I was simply directed to online training material.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
AT&T Cybersecurity
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.
Read full review
SolarWinds
Fortianalzyer can only do logs from FortiGate so usefulness is limited. Elasticsearch was a lot slower than Solarwinds and the filters were a lot harder to set up and use. The connectors for SEM were far more stable.
Read full review
Return on Investment
AT&T Cybersecurity
  • It satisfied a requirement of our audit team (internal and external).
  • Custom written alerts allow us to be proactive for some events.
  • Stable product means we don't spend a lot of time keeping it up and running.
Read full review
SolarWinds
  • For the price, it produced a decent value. It did a lot of the easy stuff well. I can't give any specific data given the objective of the product was to monitor very basic events in the environment.
  • There are free options that can do a better job.
Read full review
ScreenShots

SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of