MISP: The Leading OpenCTI Alternative in 2025

Updated June 10, 2025.

Gathering, analysing, and sharing cyber threat intelligence (CTI) is essential for modern security teams. Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIPs) are designed to make this process easier by helping teams structure, analyse, and distribute threat data.

The good news: there are excellent open-source TIPs that won’t blow your budget.

Two of the most widely adopted are OpenCTI and MISP. While both are capable, MISP has emerged as the strongest alternative to OpenCTI, especially for teams focused on sharing and collaboration.

Full disclosure: we believe in MISP so strongly that we offer a managed MISP deployment for enterprise teams, called CloudMISP.

What is OpenCTI?

OpenCTI (Open Cyber Threat Intelligence) is an open-source platform focused on structuring and analysing cyber threat intelligence. It enables users to model relationships between threat actors, indicators, incidents, and TTPs using a graph-based approach. OpenCTI is particularly suited for environments that demand custom data models, flexible integrations, and deep threat context.

What is MISP?

MISP (Malware Information Sharing Platform) is an open-source threat intelligence platform built for operational sharing. It makes it easy to store, tag, and distribute indicators of compromise (IOCs), threat actor information, TTPs, and more. MISP supports common data formats like STIX and TAXII and is widely used by governments, ISACs, and private-sector teams.

OpenCTI vs MISP: Key Similarities

• Free and open-source: Both tools are community-developed and freely available.
• Support for threat intelligence formats: STIX, TAXII, JSON, and CSV are supported across both platforms. MISP also has its own standardised format and XML support.
• Integrations: Both can connect to SIEMs, IDS/IPS tools, and threat feeds.
• Collaboration support: Each supports sharing data within and between teams.

When MISP is the Better Choice

1. Collaboration is your priority

MISP is purpose-built for sharing. Whether it’s sharing with an ISAC, a government CERT, or peer organisations, MISP makes it simple and fast. The ability to tag, filter, and synchronise events across trusted communities is core to its design. As a result, MISP has emerged as the "lingua franca" for many threat sharing communities.

OpenCTI supports sharing, but it’s more focused on internal threat intel management. Setting up external data sharing in OpenCTI requires more manual configuration.

2. You want fast onboarding and usability

MISP is easier for analysts to learn and use. The UI is straightforward, and the workflow is designed for quick IOC entry, tagging, and distribution. Teams can often go from deployment to active sharing in a matter of days.

In contrast, OpenCTI has a steeper learning curve and requires more time to understand its data model, design effective schemas, and implement integrations.

3. You value a strong sharing ecosystem

MISP’s community is large, active, and focused on practical intelligence sharing. The platform is used across industries and borders, supported by a well-maintained set of taxonomies, galaxies, and correlation tools.

OpenCTI has a growing community, but it’s not as focused on real-time, cross-organisational sharing.

4. You work with standardised data formats

MISP natively supports STIX, TAXII, OpenDXL, and more. It was built with standardised sharing in mind, making it a strong fit if your organisation needs to interface with partners using these formats.

OpenCTI's flexible graph model allows for rich context, but it can complicate integrations with tools that expect standard formats.

5. You want value quickly

MISP is more usable out of the box. You can stand it up, load feeds, and begin sharing with minimal overhead. It’s well-suited to teams that want practical, fast results.

OpenCTI is more suited to custom-built intelligence environments, where resources are available to tune and extend the platform over time.

Our Recommendation

If your CTI program is focused on structured sharing, collaboration with external partners, or supporting an ISAC/CERT, MISP is the clear choice.

• Faster to deploy
• Easier to use for analysts
• Purpose-built for sharing
• Supported by a strong global community

Need Help Getting Started?

We offer CloudMISP, a fully hosted and supported MISP deployment for teams that want to hit the ground running without worrying about infrastructure.

We also provide:

• MISP training and onboarding
• Custom integrations
• Advisory services to help you get the most out of your threat intelligence workflows

Get in touch to learn more about how we can support your CTI operations with MISP.

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