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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    LevelBlue USM Anywhere

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AThe LevelBlue USM Anywhere XDR platform (replacing the former AlienVault USM) delivers threat detection, incident response, and compliance management.

    $1,075

    per month

    Sophos Intercept X

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/ASophos Endpoint Protection (Sophos EPP) with Intercept X is an endpoint security product providing an antivirus / antimalware solution that when upgraded with Intercept X or Intercept X Advanced provides advanced threat detection and EDR capabilities.

    $28

    per year per user

    Pricing
    LevelBlue USM AnywhereSophos Intercept X
    Editions & Modules
    Essentials
    $1,075
    per month
    Standard
    $1,695
    per month
    Premium
    $2,595
    per month
    Intercept X Advanced
    $28
    per year per user
    Intercept X Advanced with XDR
    $48
    per year per user
    Sophos Managed Threat Response
    $79
    per year per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    LevelBlue USM AnywhereSophos Intercept X
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details—Pricing is for a 3-year commitment. Government and Education pricing available.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    LevelBlue USM AnywhereSophos Intercept X
    Considered Both Products
    LevelBlue
    Chose LevelBlue USM Anywhere
    With Alienvault having an easy sensor deployment in our VMware environment and Alien Apps for things like O365 we have come to really like the product because it can see traffic a lot of others can't. The problem area is if a host is not statically assigned an IP address you …
    Incentivized
    Sophos
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    86%
    Would buy again
    6 Answers
    91%
    Would buy again
    20 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    6 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    22 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    7 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    22 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    20 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    86%
    Implementation went as expected
    6 Answers
    90%
    Implementation went as expected
    19 Answers
    Features
    LevelBlue USM AnywhereSophos Intercept X
    Endpoint Security
    Comparison of Endpoint Security features of LevelBlue USM Anywhere and Sophos Intercept X
    Feature
    LevelBlue USM Anywhere
    -
    Ratings
    Sophos Intercept X
    8.1
    24 Ratings
    5% below category average
    Anti-Exploit Technology00 Ratings8.623 Ratings
    Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)00 Ratings8.024 Ratings
    Centralized Management00 Ratings8.024 Ratings
    Hybrid Deployment Support00 Ratings8.03 Ratings
    Infection Remediation00 Ratings7.924 Ratings
    Vulnerability Management00 Ratings8.44 Ratings
    Malware Detection00 Ratings8.024 Ratings
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    LevelBlue USM AnywhereSophos Intercept X
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    Score8.6 out of 10
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    Score8.7 out of 10
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    Score8.8 out of 10
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    User Ratings
    LevelBlue USM AnywhereSophos Intercept X
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.8
    (390 ratings)
    8.2
    (41 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.2
    (18 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    6.7
    (34 ratings)
    8.1
    (8 ratings)
    Availability
    6.4
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    7.3
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.3
    (25 ratings)
    8.1
    (12 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
    LevelBlue USM AnywhereSophos Intercept X
    Likelihood to Recommend
    LevelBlue
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Sophos
    To be frank, this product is fairly expensive. So I would recommend this to companies that are mid-sized or larger to condone the cost of the purchase. It does save me a significant amount of time in my day - being able to glance at the dashboard and see if there are any outstanding issues that require my attention, as not much digging must be done to accomplish this. So for our company, with a short-staffed IT department, it's incredibly helpful to us. We also qualify for Educational pricing which brings the cost down - which helps tremendously
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    LevelBlue
    • 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.
    Incentivized
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    Sophos
    • Sophos Intercept X is great at preventing malware infections and rolling back their effects. I have seen this happen hundreds of times since we installed it
    • When combined with Sophos Central, you have an easy to use dashboard where you can manage all installations from a single pane of glass.
    • It's easy to deploy on machines and stays updated.
    • Good reporting features including alerts sent to the admin if there's ever something wrong with it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    LevelBlue
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    • Sophos OOTB policies are very strict and they don't offer anything less strict without you creating new custom policies. I'm sure this is deliberate because the product starts you out in the safest way possible but it means that you will have lots of calls to your tech support desk when you first deploy it unless you do somewhat extensive testing beforehand.
    • Sophos Intercept X is currently broken (at least the DLP component) by having secure boot turned on in the UEFI/BIOS. If any user wants to be able to write data to a USB drive or floppy from their PC (yes we still have a couple users who need to use floppies) we have to turn off secure boot on their PC, even if the DLP policy for that user/PC combination specifies that the user and PC are allowed to write to USB/floppy. This would be a very serious problem if it weren't for the fact that we have very few users who need to write files to USB. For us it's OK but I bet it would be a deal-breaker for others.
    • I don't see a whole lot of evidence that Intercept X is any different than any other anti-virus, so maybe their admin alerts just don't clearly identify when they have identified a zero-day threat or maybe we just haven't had any zero-day threats.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    LevelBlue
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Sophos
    We have gotten a great product for the price. Easy to maintain and set up on new devices. Support is great and easy to work with and understand.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    LevelBlue
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Sophos
    The usability has never been a problem. Sophos Intercept X is a program you can install and let protect your company without much intervention. Apart from a few policies, Sophos will keep you protected better than most any product on the market. Sophos Intercept X works quite well when you are looking to "tighten your grip" on user's access to websites, programs, and add-ons.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    LevelBlue
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Sophos
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    LevelBlue
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Sophos
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    LevelBlue
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Sophos
    Most of the support reps are fantastic. There have been a few though that have had to be escalated via Account Manager when they haven't followed up but this is a rare instance, and often followed up by the Support Manager for APAC.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    LevelBlue
    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
    Incentivized
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    Sophos
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    LevelBlue
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Sophos
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    LevelBlue
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Sophos
    Best thing was the help pushing out via group policy and was able to get instructions for that on sophos site
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    LevelBlue
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Sophos
    Webroot Endpoint Protection is not even in the same league as Sophos Intercept-X. I have tested and compared both sides by side, run simulations and it's not even close. Plus the Sophos central management is so much better. Easier to view user activities and apply policies and remediate threats. Sophos is the clear winner between these two products.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    LevelBlue
    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?
    Incentivized
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    Sophos
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    LevelBlue
    • 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.
    Incentivized
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    Sophos
    • Once our technical and commercial areas got certified, the ROI over the time spent, is great. Actual customers, and/or new ones with other tools, feel safe and advised, once they get in touch with us.
    • When Sophos EndPoint is being compared against Web Management Tools (competitors), we have failed to deliver, nevertheless, there is a version of Sophos Central (Cloud) which achieves this requirement at 100% and more, since is Cloud Based (on AWS).
    • We are grateful to be on Sophos "Radar" as a Platinum Partner, and "The Americas" valued partner, we have seen our business grow, thanks to this kind of technology, throughout the years.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    Sophos Intercept X Screenshots

    Product screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshot