AlienVault USM vs Amazon CloudWatch | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 7.5 out of 10

Based on 679 reviews and ratings

Score 8.5 out of 10

Based on 108 reviews and ratings

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Feature Rating Comparison

AlienVault USM

Amazon CloudWatch

Centralized event and log data collection

Correlation

Event and log normalization

Deployment flexibility

Integration with Identity and Access Management Tools

Custom dashboards and views

Host and network-based intrusion detection

Pros

AlienVault USM is simple and easy to deploy. Sensors can be deployed in as little as 15 minutes through the setup wizard.
The USM UI is easy to understand. I've trained multiple analysts who are able to perform their duties on their first day, in part because of USM Anywhere's ease of use.
Top-notch built-in compliance templates and reporting features.

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Tier II SOC Analyst

Rendition Infosec LLCInformation Technology & Services, 11-50 employees

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Managing log retention periods is very simple with CloudWatch, and can be configured on a per-group basis.
Monitoring host performance is very easy when coupled with the CloudWatch Agent on an EC2 instance. A simple installation and configuration replaces an entire 3rd-party host monitoring stack.
CloudWatch is flexible enough for not just host monitoring, but application monitoring as well. It's easy to pipe local logs up to CloudWatch and extract structured data in order to monitor and set alerts on custom app metrics.

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Founder

finbox.ioInternet, 1-10 employees

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Cons

Personally, I've wished I could purchase a service that would configure AV for my environment. I get a lot of traffic on a daily basis and I almost need to hire an analyst that just works on AV.
Some of the filters when looking for a specific alert aren't that easy to use.

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Christian Holton

System Administrator

Enthought, Inc.Computer Software, 51-200 employees

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CloudWatch doesn't monitor things outside of the cloud, it's not what it is intended for.
Billing is confusing as it bills on Dashboard, metrics called, custom metrics, etc. Hard to forecast the charge.
Paradigm is confusing sometimes and difficult to learn.

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Verified User

C-Level Executive in Information Technology

Retail Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

AlienVault USM 6.5

Based on 19 answers

The centralized logging and retention for PCI compliance was our main driver, and it is meeting that need. Otherwise there has been enough frustration with the lack of documentation and the need to customize through the CLI that I would be open to alternatives.

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Aaron Rothstein

IT Systems Architect

ROTHSTEIN.ioRestaurants, 5001-10,000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Usability

AlienVault USM 6.9

Based on 35 answers

Once you are able to navigate the different panels, finding what you need is quite easily. Before getting used it it can be a bit of challenge .Each panel is quite well laid out and the filtering search capabilities are quite strong.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 201-500 employees

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Amazon CloudWatch 7.0

Based on 2 answers

The tool collects a great deal of data, and data that's not available many other places. But the data is hidden in obscure places, and the logs are hard to read and follow. The user interface could use a heavy rework, and several companies have made a business out of scraping the data and presenting it better.

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Human Resources Company, 51-200 employees

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Reliability and Availability

AlienVault USM 6.4

Based on 3 answers

We do have issues with maintenance on the AlienVault USM as the disk fills up from time to time with other data sources. Sources for scanning logs and net flow data isn't calculated in regular disk maintenance and can easily fill up our disk if we do not keep an eye on it with some custom Nagios plugins. The system does properly trim logging data from logging sources properly.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 201-500 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Performance

AlienVault USM 7.3

Based on 3 answers

With the latest release of AlienVault USM overall performance has not been an issue. We have noticed single source events per second does not scale well with the overall system. 2,000eps on a vmware system with a single source produces delays of up to an hour for us. Pages, reporting and even raw log searches are rather quick though.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 201-500 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Support Rating

AlienVault USM 7.3

Based on 28 answers

The support we received from alienvault was excellent. They went above and beyond in making sure everything was working as it needed to be. They REALLY want their product implementation to be a success and our security goals be achieved. They are like a member of our security team.

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Verified User

Project Manager in Information Technology

Higher Education Company, 201-500 employees

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Amazon CloudWatch 7.6

Based on 16 answers

Support is effective, and we were able to get any problems that we couldn't get solved through community discussion forums solved for us by the AWS support team. For example, we were assisted in one instance where we were not sure about the best metrics to use in order to optimize an auto-scaling group on EC2. The support team was able to look at our metrics and give a useful recommendation on which metrics to use.

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Ramindu Deshapriya

Lead Consultant - Technology

VirtusaComputer Software, 10,001+ employees

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In-Person Training

AlienVault USM 4.5

Based on 1 answer

I did not have any experience with "in person" training directly. The free online classes offered for a half a day are based on the actual training offered. These little teasers are very good and well worth your time to learn a few quick and dirty ways of getting more information from your SIEM

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 201-500 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Online Training

AlienVault USM 8.5

Based on 6 answers

It was very well organized and helpful in using the product to the fullest extent. The instructor allowed time for folks who were involved with managed services to receive tuning tips in order to better support their customers. In addition, the course materials were automatically updated when the new version came out.

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Verified User

Director in Information Technology

Higher Education Company, 501-1000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Implementation Rating

AlienVault USM 6.4

Based on 39 answers

AlienVault USM was a very simple to implement and get up and running. We started with a trial version and had that up and going within an hour of receiving email instructions from the sales engineer. We never had to contact support to get the system up and going. It was extremely easy to convert over to a full license once we started with a paid version.

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Verified User

Supervisor in Information Technology

Utilities Company, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

Splunk's ES is a paid add-on on top of an already pricey product. Finding a MSSP that supports Splunk and isn't a 6 figure annual commitment seems unlikely. LogRhythm did not have a cloud-based solution when we were considering SIEMs. Fantastic product though and have a good MSSP base.Devo did not have a MSSP partner base when we looked. Their product is fantastic too.AlienVault USM has good partners to choose from as well as an affordable cloud model, that's why we chose it.

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Verified User

Director in Information Technology

Staffing and Recruiting Company, 51-200 employees

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I can only speak to how it's positively benefited my organization. The problem was that hosting in-house servers is no longer a cost-effective solution vs. containerization in the cloud. But once you rely on hosting servers in the cloud you need a tool to manage every aspect of that including log monitoring, resource utilization, and application performance. Amazon CloudWatch is exactly the tool you need.

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Verified User

Employee in Engineering

Information Services Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Scalability

AlienVault USM 6.3

Based on 3 answers

The AlienVault USM is not very scalable. Some scalability can be achieved by installing additional sensors, but this only offers 500eps per sensor and is still overall limited by the installation type of VM or physical. We have also noticed the EPS (events per second) is rated overall and not towards a single source. A single source on a very healthy VMware partition tops out at 2,000eps for us, no matter how we configure it. Maybe this is a problem of the 5.2 release?

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 201-500 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Return on Investment

Once you hit the 150 asset mark, you have to jump to their unlimited license. There is no middle ground. We were only 10 or so assets above the 150 so we had to chose to either not monitor those assets or pay the price of the upgrade.
AlienVault brings all the information to one place which makes it much quicker to track down problems.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Financial Services Company, 51-200 employees

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Scalability. Saving us cost when we can downgrade underperforming instances.
Great monitoring and peace of mine without always having to check logs to any services failure.
Support cost is high. It would be nicer if documentation would be easier to follow.

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Computer Software Company, 51-200 employees

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Screenshots

See All (5) Amazon CloudWatch Screenshots

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

Yes

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

Optional

AlienVault USM Editions & Modules

Edition

Essentials	$1,075¹
Standard	$1,695¹
Premium	$2,595¹

per month

Additional Pricing Details

—

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

Yes

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Amazon CloudWatch Editions & Modules

Edition

First 10,000 Metrics	$0.30¹
Next 240,000 Metrics	$0.10¹
Next 750,000 Metrics	$0.05¹
Over 1,000,000 Metrics	$0.02¹

Per Metric

Additional Pricing Details

With Amazon CloudWatch, there is no up-front commitment or minimum fee; you simply pay for what you use. You will be charged at the end of the month for your usage.

Rating Summary

AlienVault USM

Amazon CloudWatch

AlienVault USM

Amazon CloudWatch

AlienVault USM

Amazon CloudWatch

AlienVault USM

Amazon CloudWatch

AlienVault USM

Amazon CloudWatch

AlienVault USM

Amazon CloudWatch

AlienVault USM

Amazon CloudWatch

AlienVault USM

Amazon CloudWatch

AlienVault USM

Amazon CloudWatch

AlienVault USM

Amazon CloudWatch

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