AlienVault USM vs. PRTG Network Monitor

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AlienVault USM
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
AlienVault® Unified Security Management® (USM) delivers threat detection, incident response, and compliance management in one unified platform. It is designed to combine all the essential security capabilities needed for effective security monitoring across cloud and on-premises environments, including SIEM, intrusion detection, vulnerability management, as well as continuous threat intelligence updates. The vendor states that even for resource-limited IT security teams, AlienVault…
$1,075
per month
PRTG
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
PRTG Network Monitor is the flagship offering from German software company Paessler, for monitoring local and wide area networks (LANs & WANs), servers, websites, apps, and more.
$1,750
perpetual license
Pricing
AlienVault USMPRTG Network Monitor
Editions & Modules
Essentials
$1,075
per month
Standard
$1,695
per month
Premium
$2,595
per month
PRTG 500
1,750
perpetual license
PRTG 1,000
3,200
perpetual license
PRTG 2,500
6,500
perpetual license
PRTG 5,000
11,500
perpetual license
PRTG XL 1
15,500
perpetual license
PRTG Enterprise
Custom Pricing
subscription license
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AlienVault USMPRTG
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AlienVault USMPRTG Network Monitor
Considered Both Products
AlienVault USM
Chose AlienVault USM
AlienVault, unfortunately, was not a replacement for any of our current solutions.
We use other products like PRTG for network status monitoring, Uptime SLAs, drive space, device performance, etc. AlienVault has none of these features. We use Network Auditor to collect a lot of …
Chose AlienVault USM
We are looking at IBM Qradar and PRTG by Paessler since we are academic partners with both IBM and Paessler. Since AlienVault is a bundle of multiple tools which is used in the forensic track it is nice to see them in a bundled product where the tools are used in the background …
PRTG
Chose PRTG Network Monitor
Both PRTG and Solarwinds work great, and they are great systems. But for the specific task of monitoring and alerting if there is a VPN connection failure, PRTG works great at monitoring and sending out a status report when a failure does occur. I like both products, but I find …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
AlienVault USMPRTG Network Monitor
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
Comparison of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) features of Product A and Product B
AlienVault USM
8.0
8 Ratings
3% above category average
PRTG Network Monitor
-
Ratings
Centralized event and log data collection8.48 Ratings00 Ratings
Correlation8.38 Ratings00 Ratings
Event and log normalization/management8.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Deployment flexibility8.57 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Identity and Access Management Tools7.15 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom dashboards and workspaces7.18 Ratings00 Ratings
Host and network-based intrusion detection8.25 Ratings00 Ratings
Network Performance Monitoring
Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of Product A and Product B
AlienVault USM
-
Ratings
PRTG Network Monitor
8.1
64 Ratings
3% below category average
Automated network device discovery00 Ratings8.257 Ratings
Network monitoring00 Ratings9.563 Ratings
Baseline threshold calculation00 Ratings7.954 Ratings
Alerts00 Ratings9.064 Ratings
Network capacity planning00 Ratings7.345 Ratings
Packet capture analysis00 Ratings6.733 Ratings
Network mapping00 Ratings7.945 Ratings
Customizable reports00 Ratings7.954 Ratings
Wireless infrastructure monitoring00 Ratings8.146 Ratings
Hardware health monitoring00 Ratings8.961 Ratings
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AlienVault USMPRTG Network Monitor
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Score 9.1 out of 10
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Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
InsightIDR
InsightIDR
Score 9.1 out of 10
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Score 9.5 out of 10
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User Ratings
AlienVault USMPRTG Network Monitor
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(390 ratings)
9.1
(64 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.2
(18 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
6.7
(34 ratings)
9.3
(4 ratings)
Availability
6.4
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.3
(25 ratings)
8.0
(18 ratings)
In-Person Training
4.5
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.3
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.4
(38 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.3
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
6.3
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.6
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
AlienVault USMPRTG Network Monitor
Likelihood to Recommend
AT&T Cybersecurity
At this point I'm saying a 4. While the marketing material make it appear to be easy to use and it was relatively easy to set up, as previously mentioned, each event description is based upon the individual asset making it nearly impossible for the administrator to be a SME for each asset. For example, if one of the assets reporting is a router, the administrator monitoring alerts would need to know what the various events are that can be triggered as an event for the particular router; however, if the asset is a workstation, the administrator would need to know the various events that are triggered for workstations.
Read full review
Paessler
It is well suited for an environment that deploys networking equipment and is needing monitoring 24/7. It works well to deliver real time data and alerts that are suited for taking action and notifying groups of members. It is less appropriate for use cases that involve only a few devices that don’t have dedicated teams looking for problems or uptime.
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Pros
AT&T Cybersecurity
  • 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.
Read full review
Paessler
  • Very, very configurable. You can create all kinds of monitors for all kinds of things. Plus it has loads of suggestions out of the box. It can get complicated but monitoring is complicated. Pretty decent interface and good support - active community.
  • I really liked how easy it was to add alerts by SMS. So easy to setup.
  • I like their sizing models (for purchase). We're actually small enough that we are free. But it's not free as in stripped down - it's free because we don't use many "sensors" and don't honestly have the need.
Read full review
Cons
AT&T Cybersecurity
  • 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.
Read full review
Paessler
  • Licensing on a per entity basis can be cumbersome for devices which have a ton of monitoring points like network switches\routers. Each sensor may count against a license, which could be a lot of you were monitoring every TX\RX of an SFP for example
  • A better method to easily template\copy monitors across devices
  • The navigation in the web GUI could be a little more straightforward in terms of the hierarchy
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Likelihood to Renew
AT&T Cybersecurity
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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Paessler
I would renew it because the platform has brought us many technical and economic benefits that make the cost-benefit ratio very good. Additionally, to do so does not require large investments in training, licensing or infrastructure, and at the administration level, extensive knowledge is not required to be able to bear it.
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Usability
AT&T Cybersecurity
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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Paessler
The tool is very intuitive to use and it is Windows-based (everybody knows how to use Windows) so it's easy to get into. Every time is setup in a hierarchy so if you have a good initial hierarchy design, it will really reduce administrative effort down the road.
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Reliability and Availability
AT&T Cybersecurity
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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Paessler
No answers on this topic
Performance
AT&T Cybersecurity
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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Paessler
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
AT&T Cybersecurity
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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Paessler
PRTG does everything we need it to do and more. Ease of use, ease of management and maintenance and clarity of monitoring of hundreds of different types of device and service gives this a large advantage over other products on the market that I have tried. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who needs a network monitoring product in their environment and even to people who don't know they need a solution yet!
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In-Person Training
AT&T Cybersecurity
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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Paessler
No answers on this topic
Online Training
AT&T Cybersecurity
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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Paessler
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
AT&T Cybersecurity
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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Paessler
It's very important that de project's teams have different member of the TI. We have learned too late the importa of Security Analyst at the design architecture moment. We have to rebuild part of the implementation for made this big mistake.
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Alternatives Considered
AT&T Cybersecurity
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.
Read full review
Paessler
PRTG offers more versatility in monitoring when compared to the other solutions we tested. The other solutions were also limited as far as customization options, which made them less adaptable to our networks. When compared to Auvik, for instance, we prefer PRTG as it offers immediate notifications through the desktop client - not limited to email notifications as with Auvik. We also appreciate the fact that PRTG can be self/on-prem hosted vs Auvik's cloud model. This makes for an easier deployment and less firewall adjustments to allow traffic to cloud-hosted solutions.
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Scalability
AT&T Cybersecurity
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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Paessler
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
AT&T Cybersecurity
  • 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.
Read full review
Paessler
  • The ability to analyze multiple pieces of information in one place, especially with historical data, has saved our IT department time and headaches. It would be so much more difficult to trace an issue without PRTG, just relying on event logs and an open task manager window.
  • The cost is not cheap, so it's an expense that hits the bottom line like everything else. Figure in hardware costs as well, ideally a server outside of your main environment.
  • I keep saying this, but the historical data piece is worth so much. There's really no good way to collect all of that information in one place without something like PRTG. And that definitely saves time and money in the long run.
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ScreenShots

AlienVault USM Screenshots

Screenshot of USM Anywhere NIDS Dashboard