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Amazon OpenSearch Service vs IBM Security QRadar comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon OpenSearch Service
Ranking in Log Management
20th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (25th), Search as a Service (2nd)
IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Log Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
209
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (18th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (9th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Amazon OpenSearch Service is 2.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 3.6%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Johnny Suleiman - PeerSpot reviewer
Scalability is a key feature as it allows easy scaling of the platform without downtime
OpenSearch is used as a search engine for specific logs, mainly in e-commerce and monitoring the logs themselves. It is very valuable for e-commerce, enabling data analysis on application logs and customer behavior, and can be integrated with other services, including AI and machine learning…
Mahmoud Younes - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable installation and diverse use cases provide strong value
IBM Security QRadar has some areas for improvement. We have missed some DSM components. We need to customize logs where there is no DSM or connector for certain products. We can integrate but we have missed the DSM, which is the connector to pass logs coming from different applications. For example, with a university customer, we tried onboarding Canvas service. IBM Security QRadar does not support Canvas, so we had to create custom scripts and workarounds to pull logs from Canvas.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The stability of the product is good."
"Regarding valuable features of the solution, we found with the process, which we have used in both cases where we used the solution that while you're seeing the streaming of data, you can analyze in the initial phase what sort of data you are streaming and whether it is valuable."
"I would definitely recommend Amazon OpenSearch Service to other professionals due to its fast and reliable search capabilities."
"The most valuable features of Amazon Elasticsearch are ease of use, native JSON, and efficiency. Additionally, handles many use cases and search grammar was useful."
"The customer service is excellent, rated nine out of ten."
"This service already sorts data like vectors. They have classified the storage pre-defined."
"The initial set up is very easy...We really appreciate Amazon!"
"Amazon OpenSearch Service provides a managed database solution, so we don't need to manage everything ourselves."
"It comes with many rules disabled. You can tune them and modify them according to your enterprise needs and avoid false positives."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to rectify a situation involving any anomalies expeditiously."
"IBM QRadar is easy to scale, it doesn't affect the environment. In our office, we have around 40 - 50 users, but our clients have more users on their networks. Our organization has staff in the software department that manages IBM QRadar for us."
"We are using the platform version, which I like."
"One of the most valuable features is its ability to integrate with other solutions. IBM has a lot of solutions and we have managed to make it work with IBM BigFix and MaaS360, and even Microsoft."
"It is a bit easier to use than other products, such as Splunk or ELK Elasticsearch."
"The correlation and the parsing are important features, since it is very important for a SIEM to have a good scalability and performance."
"It allows us to search data both on-premises and on the cloud."
 

Cons

"One glaring issue was with our mapping configuration as the system accepted the data we posted, but after a few months, when we attempted complex queries, we realized the date formatting had become problematic."
"We faced documentation challenges during integration after migrating from Elasticsearch to Amazon OpenSearch Service. Better documentation on integration, query handling, and a more user-friendly UI could enhance the product."
"Amazon Elasticsearch can improve the bullion in the near search and the ease of integration with Kibana. Additionally, there could be more flexibility in the configuration and documentation."
"The configuration should be more straightforward because we had to select a lot of things."
"One improvement I would like to see is support for auto-scaling."
"They can enhance data visualization."
"One improvement I would like to see is support for auto-scaling."
"There is a problem with the database. Amazon only provides the hosting to run our applications bias, but there is no option to manage the database within the Elasticsearch product."
"QRadar needs to be more specialized, along the lines of what other SIEM solutions are."
"The solution is not as flexible as Splunk."
"The AQL queries could be better."
"The user interface needs improvement."
"There is one problem with QRadar in regards to the add-on apps. The apps can be frustrating. For example, when I add a big app like one of the add-ons for resiliency, add-on applications for QRadar, these applications require different hardware to implement and to deploy. The resiliency connector because there's a considerable amount of data scanning, operates for these apps correctly."
"IBM Security QRadar does not support Canvas, so we had to create custom scripts and workarounds to pull logs from Canvas."
"They should introduce some automation into the product."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say the script which we have to create for custom actions. QRadar needs to improve that feature. Additionally, QRadar has to provide the playbooks designing features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a community edition available and the price of the commercial offering is reasonable."
"You only pay for what you use."
"The solution is not expensive, but priced averagely, I will say."
"Compared to other cloud platforms, it is manageable and not very expensive."
"The tool's price is high."
"QRadar is quite expensive. It wouldn't be worth it for a small business..."
"The pricing is higher but cheaper than others and there are no additional costs."
"Pricing and licensing are competitive. Their new licensing options allow logs to bypass the correlation engine for a flat rate, which is also appealing for log data that is compliance-driven for a small amount of money."
"Most of the time, it is easier and cheaper to buy a new product or the QRadar box."
"It's too expensive."
"The licensing is also overly complex, as there is a need to buy the work load performance monitoring separately."
"It is overly expensive and overly complex in terms of licensing. They have many different appliances, which makes it extremely difficult to choose the technology. It is very difficult to choose the technology or QRadar components that you should be deploying. They have improved some of it in the last few years. They have made it slightly easy with the fact that you can now buy virtual versions of all the appliances, which is good, but it is still very fragmented. For instance, on some of the smaller appliances, there is no upgrade path. So, if you exceed the capacity of the appliance, you have to buy a bigger appliance, which is not helpful because it is quite a major cost. If you want to add more disks to the system, they'll say that you can't."
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Comparison Review

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Jun 28, 2015
Qradar vs. ArcSight
Continuing with the SIEM posts we have done at Infosecnirvana, this post is a Head to head comparison of the two Industry leading SIEM products in the market – HP ArcSight and IBM QRadar Both the products have consistently been in the Gartner Leaders Quadrant. Both HP and IBM took over niche SIEM…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon OpenSearch Service?
We retrieve historical data with just a click of a button to move it from cold to hot or warm because it's already stored in the backend storage
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon OpenSearch Service?
I would consider the pricing as a six based on how much data we are handling; if we handle minimal data, it's cheap, but for large data, it becomes costly. Our clients usually pay between $1,000 to...
What needs improvement with Amazon OpenSearch Service?
In terms of data handling capabilities with Amazon OpenSearch Service, they can be complex and managing data in comparison to other SIM solutions is a major drawback, as it is very hard to handle t...
What are the biggest differences between Securonix UEBA, Exabeam, and IBM QRadar?
It mostly depends on your use-cases and environment. Exabeam and Securonix have a stronger UEBA feature set, friendlier GUI and are not licensed based on capacity (amount of logs and information in...
What SOC product do you recommend?
For tools I’d recommend: -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is asking to miss details that are critical, and ending up a statistic. Also, rememb...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Security QRadar?
When comparing with Splunk, IBM Security QRadar's cost is reasonable. Splunk is more expensive than IBM Security QRadar.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Elasticsearch Service
IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

VIDCOIN, Wyng, Yellow New Zealand, zipMoney, Cimri, Siemens, Unbabel
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon OpenSearch Service vs. IBM Security QRadar and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.