MISP vs. Anomali ThreatStream

Which threat intel platform should you choose?
Both MISP and Anomali ThreatStream are popular threat intelligence platforms (TIPs).You may be comparing MISP vs. Anomali ThreatStream to find out which TIP is a the best fit for your use case. Here, we’ll offer a simple breakdown of the main differences between them.

Updated 10 June, 2025.

MISP is Open Source, Whereas Anomali ThreatStream is a Commercial TIP

MISP (Malware Information Sharing Platform) and Anomali ThreatStream are both Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIPs), but they sit at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of cost, philosophy, and deployment model.

Free vs. Paid

MISP is free and open source. Anyone can download, install, and use it without cost. However, free software isn’t truly “free” in operational terms. If you're self-hosting, you'll be responsible for the time and labour involved in setup, security hardening, upgrades, backups, monitoring, and troubleshooting.
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Despite this, many security teams prefer MISP for its transparency, flexibility, and alignment with community-driven intelligence sharing.

Anomali ThreatStream is a commercial, cloud-hosted solution. Its licensing fees are substantial, particularly for smaller teams, but in return, you get an SLA-backed support model, streamlined onboarding, and a hosted infrastructure that you don’t need to maintain.
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In 2025, Anomali has expanded its licensing tiers to include more granular pricing based on feed volume, integrations, and user count, making it slightly more accessible for mid-sized organisations.

Public vs. Private Codebase

MISP is a fully open source project, maintained by a large and active community. In 2025, MISP released version 2.5, introducing improved tagging, API authentication flexibility, and major performance boosts in feed processing.
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One of MISP's core strengths is its transparency. Security practitioners can audit the code, contribute improvements, and rapidly respond to bugs. Because it's powered by an active and global volunteer base the platform improves at a rapid clip, with 12 - 24 updates per year on average.

Anomali ThreatStream is closed source, developed entirely in-house. This means customers must trust that Anomali is following secure development practices, but it also gives the vendor full control over release cycles, roadmap priorities, and enterprise feature development.

Feature and Integration Differences

Feature MISP Anomali ThreatStream
License Open source (AGPL) Commercial SaaS
Hosting Self-hosted or managed (e.g., CloudMISP) Vendor-hosted only
Support Community, or paid via managed service Commercial support included
Data model Custom MISP schema, STIX 1.x/2.1 support STIX 2.1 native
Feeds Supports public & private feeds, modular feed ingestion Access to curated commercial feeds & OSINT
Automation API integrations, ZMQ, REST, PyMISP scripting Native integrations with SOAR/SIEM tools
Collaboration Designed for decentralised sharing (e.g., ISACs, CSIRTs) Centralised feed aggregation and dissemination
Deployment effort Moderate to high if self-hosted Low (hosted by Anomali)
Cost Free (plus infra & labour) Paid (subscription)

Use Case Alignment

Choose MISP if:

  • You prioritise transparency and code control
  • You operate in a community-focused environment (e.g. ISAC, CERT, NREN)
  • You want fine-grained control over integrations and output formats
  • You're already running infrastructure for other open source tools

Choose Anomali ThreatStream if:

  • You want a hands-off, SaaS-based TIP
  • You rely on curated commercial threat feeds and premium enrichment services
  • You prefer vendor accountability and support
  • You need enterprise-ready compliance features (e.g. audit logs, RBAC, SSO out of the box)

2025 Developments to Consider

  • MISP 2.5 introduced major feed ingestion improvements, expanded enrichment module capabilities, and native support for pushing filtered data to EDR/SIEM platforms.
  • Anomali ThreatStream has doubled down on integrations with security orchestration (SOAR) platforms and introduced “auto-prioritisation” of indicators based on ML-trained relevance scores.

Conclusion

MISP and Anomali ThreatStream both play valuable roles in the CTI ecosystem, but they are designed for fundamentally different use cases.

MISP excels in environments where customisation, decentralised sharing, and transparency are valued.

Anomali, by contrast, is built for enterprises looking for a polished, vendor-supported intelligence pipeline.

If MISP seems like the best fit for your organisation, but you don’t have the internal resources to run and maintain it, we offer CloudMISP, a managed MISP platform with full support and maintenance.