AlienVault USM vs. Sophos UTM

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AlienVault USM
Score 8.0 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
Sophos UTM
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Sophos UTM provides core firewall features, plus sandboxing and AI threat detection for advanced network security. It has customizable deployment options.N/A
Pricing
AlienVault USMSophos UTM
Editions & Modules
Essentials
$1,075
per month
Standard
$1,695
per month
Premium
$2,595
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AlienVault USMSophos UTM
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Detailst2.small - $0.123 - Total / hr m3.medium - $0.417 - Total / hr m3.large - $0.883 - Total / hr m3.xlarge - $1.366 - Total / hr m3.2xlarge- $1.982 - Total / hr c3.large - $0.555 - Total / hr c3.xlarge - $1.11 - Total / hr c3.2xlarge - $1.72 - Total / hr c3.4xlarge - $2.59 - Total / hr c3.8xlarge - $3.68 - Total / hr c4.large - $0.55 - Total / hr c4.xlarge - $1.099 - Total / hr c4.2xlarge - $1.698 - Total / hr c4.4xlarge - $2.546 - Total / hr c4.8xlarge - $3.841 - Total / hr m4.large - $0.868 - Total / hr m4.xlarge - $1.365 - Total / hr m4.2xlarge- $1.931 - Total / hr
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AlienVault USMSophos UTM
Considered Both Products
AlienVault USM
Chose AlienVault USM
It is not an effective tool for preventing malicious attacks or for preventing data loss. It is only for identifying if something bad has already happened. If you're tight on IT staff, it will be more of a hassle than a help. Better to prevent the attack with a proactive IPS …
Sophos UTM

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
AlienVault USMSophos UTM
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
Sophos UTM
-
Ratings
Centralized event and log data collection8.58 Ratings00 Ratings
Correlation8.58 Ratings00 Ratings
Event and log normalization/management8.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Deployment flexibility8.67 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Identity and Access Management Tools7.35 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom dashboards and workspaces7.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Host and network-based intrusion detection8.05 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AlienVault USMSophos UTM
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Splunk Enterprise
Splunk Enterprise
Score 8.3 out of 10
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Splunk Enterprise
Splunk Enterprise
Score 8.3 out of 10
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AlienVault USMSophos UTM
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(391 ratings)
9.0
(11 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.2
(18 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
6.7
(34 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
6.4
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.3
(25 ratings)
7.9
(3 ratings)
In-Person Training
4.5
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.3
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.4
(38 ratings)
-
(0 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 USMSophos UTM
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.
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Sophos
UTM works great if you want a solid, obvious firewall. There's not a lot of second-guessing as to what you are about to do with every change you make. If you incorporate their wireless access points and RED (remote ethernet device) for remote users or small offices, it's considerably much easier to set up than other comparable solutions. If you are looking to manage your firewalls via the cloud, you are out of luck.
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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.
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Sophos
  • Firewall Protection. The protection is unmatched, setup it a little daunting, but once set up it pretty much runs itself.
  • Site-to-site VPN. Super easy to deploy so we are able to network all our sites together.
  • The DHCP server function is actually really nice, I prefer using it over the traditional way of using a DC for DHCP.
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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.
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Sophos
  • Better standard support, it used to be great, now, not so much (for paying customers, that only aquired the Hardware)
  • Better wireless solution, there is always room for that, now that everybody needs robust wifi, even at home!
  • Faster and more robust wireless Access Points, or different vendor-like compatibility.
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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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Sophos
No answers on this topic
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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Sophos
The interface is no non-sense and easy to understand. No need for any consultants to help implement this solution. The performance is consistent and solid. Paired with a good amount of firmware and definitions, it's hard to find any fault in this product. It's interoperability with other Sophos products make a compelling argument to invest in more Sophos products.
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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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Sophos
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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Sophos
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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Sophos
I find the support fair. The wait can be frustrating when dealing with fire. The pandemic has not helped with this. Although the wait can be long, the support reps are knowledgeable and was able to resolve the issues I was facing.
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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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Sophos
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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Sophos
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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Sophos
No answers on this topic
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.
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Sophos
I would rate Sophos second on this list right below Webroot. Webroot has an easier user interface and policy builder. However, Sophos would be on top of its UI would be improved. I would rank CrowStrike third and McAfee last. Sophos is great for complex environments that have multiple needs.
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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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Sophos
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.
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Sophos
  • Sophos has provided a secure Firewall for us.
  • Integration with Sophos Central makes it easier to manage both.
  • Site to site VPN Failover groups has caused more trouble than it's worth.
  • High availability doesn't recognize when you are restarting for an update.
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ScreenShots

AlienVault USM Screenshots

Screenshot of USM Anywhere NIDS Dashboard