

IBM Security QRadar and Cisco XDR are leading solutions in threat detection and analysis. QRadar appears to have an edge in scalability and third-party integration, while Cisco XDR offers superior centralized visibility and endpoint integration.
Features: IBM Security QRadar boasts robust log management, scalability, and effective automation, enhancing threat detection capabilities. Its seamless integration with third-party applications and comprehensive reporting are standout features. Cisco XDR offers detailed analytics with endpoint security integration, allowing for unified threat management. It excels in delivering centralized visibility and efficient automation tools, contributing to streamlined workflows.
Room for Improvement: IBM Security QRadar users suggest enhancements to its dashboard and more AI features for behavioral analytics. Improving upgrade processes and interface clarity is also recommended. Cisco XDR could reduce upfront costs and simplify its licensing model. Increasing observables' character limits for ease in domain management is another suggested improvement.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Security QRadar supports diverse deployment options across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, though response times in technical support could be improved. Cisco XDR benefits from tight integration within the Cisco ecosystem, but consistency in customer service remains a challenge. Both provide strong global support but could enhance responsiveness.
Pricing and ROI: IBM Security QRadar is perceived as more expensive, with pricing determined by events per second, but its comprehensive features justify the investment for many users. Cisco XDR's pricing is high but offers discounts through product bundling, which can reduce overall security costs. Its subscription model adds flexibility, although further simplification could enhance cost-effectiveness.
Two customers faced a network breach and a bad configuration incident, but unlike in the past where recovery took days, they managed to shut down access points quickly.
The biggest return on investment when using Cisco XDR is the downtime aspect, specifically not having to roll out to sites and not having customers experience downtime.
The biggest return on investment when using Cisco XDR is that, being a small company where everybody has multiple roles, the quicker I can mitigate something, the faster I can return to my scheduled tasks for that day.
With SOAR, the workflow takes one minute or less to complete the analysis.
AWS gives the chance to implement a solution out of the box with use cases that are already in IBM Security QRadar.
I have seen a return on investment; I can share that it includes time saved, money saved, and fewer employees needed.
They responded quickly, they were always willing to meet, and they were always willing to work as per my schedule.
the tech support is excellent
I would rate Cisco customer service a ten out of ten.
They assist with advanced issues, such as hardware or other problems, that are not part of standard operations.
Support needs to understand the issue first, then escalate it to the engineering team.
The support is really good; for instance, if a critical ticket is submitted, you will get paged right away as it gets logged, and their analyst will look into it, letting you know as soon as possible so you can work on it.
Cisco XDR is designed to handle significant scaling of endpoints, allowing management of a large scale of environments with thousands of sessions.
In terms of scalability, I rate it as the best.
For EPS license, if you increase or exceed the EPS license, you cannot receive events.
IBM Security QRadar's scalability is great; you can have a new collector to deploy if you have increased EPS per second.
Customers have mentioned that the stability and scalability are good compared to competitors.
Once they got it fixed and figured out the issue with the observables and with the character limit, it's been flawless.
The stability and reliability of Cisco XDR, similar to most Cisco products, are bulletproof.
On cloud, you don't see any disconnections or instability.
I think QRadar is stable and currently satisfies my needs.
The product has been stable so far.
Competitors offer more visibility without any additional licensing, which is a significant drawback for Cisco.
If it can capture threats from worldwide new threats and publish them into a particular database linked with an AI-driven system that can immediately alert people, that would be very good for zero-day threats.
Offering some free XDR licenses for testing features, similar to VPN licenses, could have a significant impact on costs.
We receive logs from different types of devices and need a way to correlate them effectively.
If AI-related support can suggest rules and integrate with existing security devices like MD, IPS, this SIM can create more relevant rules.
IBM Security QRadar does not support Canvas, so we had to create custom scripts and workarounds to pull logs from Canvas.
This integration and discounting are something we cannot get from competitors, leading to reduced security costs.
Users can customize their use of Cisco XDR significantly from the onset, which has resulted in a lower total cost of ownership.
Overall, the price is a bit expensive compared to local competitors.
Splunk is more expensive than IBM Security QRadar.
It was costly mainly because of the value you can get right now compared to other solutions.
It depends on how much you want to spend.
Between the clarity, the granularity, and the dashboard, it just works.
The feature I appreciate the most about Cisco XDR is the flexibility for a user to be able to create their own reporting and dashboards.
Cisco XDR helps prevent data loss during ransomware attacks by integrating with multiple levels of security, tying to identity management systems, and allowing placement of blocks at the endpoint level.
Recently, I faced an incident, a cyber incident, and it was detected in real time.
IBM Security QRadar gives the opportunity to improve the time to market of the releases with a great evaluation of cybersecurity breaches.
Compared to ArcSight, Splunk, or any other SIEM tools where you need their processing language such as structured query language, SPL, and in Sentinel there is KQL query languages, IBM Security QRadar doesn't require reliance on query languages.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| IBM Security QRadar | 3.2% |
| Cisco XDR | 1.8% |
| Other | 95.0% |


| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 4 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 4 |
| Large Enterprise | 2 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 91 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 39 |
| Large Enterprise | 105 |
Cisco XDR delivers an advanced threat detection and response experience through integration with Cisco's security suite, offering enhanced visibility, intelligence, and automation for network protection and system evaluations.
Cisco XDR integrates with Cisco Meraki and Splunk, excelling in threat intelligence and zero-day attack detection. Its automated response features provide crucial support in managing extensive networks, while the comprehensive log management facilitates detailed troubleshooting. Dashboards assist in system evaluation for effective gap mitigation. Despite its licensing complexity and upfront costs, it remains a key tool for Security Operations Center analysts and internet service providers, helping isolate threats and ensuring consistent security monitoring.
What features make Cisco XDR stand out?Cisco XDR is widely implemented in sectors requiring robust network management and monitoring. Organizations use it alongside Cisco Firepower Threat Defense and Meraki for comprehensive security measures, benefiting global customers and internet service providers for traffic and routing insights across devices and data centers.
IBM Security QRadar (recently acquired by Palo Alto Networks) is a security and analytics platform designed to defend against threats and scale security operations. This is done through integrated visibility, investigation, detection, and response. QRadar empowers security groups with actionable insights into high-priority threats by providing visibility into enterprise security data. Through centralized visibility, security teams and analysts can determine their security stance, which areas pose a potential threat, and which areas are critical. This will help streamline workflows by eliminating the need to pivot between tools.
IBM Security QRadar is built to address a wide range of security issues and can be easily scaled with minimal customization effort required. As data is ingested, QRadar administers automated, real-time security intelligence to swiftly and precisely discover and prioritize threats. The platform will issue alerts with actionable, rich context into developing threats. Security teams and analysts can then rapidly respond to minimize the attackers' strike. The solution will provide a complete view of activity in both cloud-based and on-premise environments as a large amount of data is ingested throughout the enterprise. Additionally, QRadar’s anomaly detection intelligence enables security teams to identify any user behavior changes that could be indicators of potential threats.
IBM QRadar Log Manager
To better help organizations protect themselves against potential security threats, attacks, and breaches, IBM QRadar Log Manager gathers, analyzes, preserves, and reports on security log events using QRadar Sense Analytics. All operating systems and applications, servers, devices, and applications are converted into searchable and actionable intelligent data. QRadar Log Manager then helps organizations meet compliance reporting and monitoring requirements, which can be further upgraded to QRadar SIEM for a more superior level of threat protection.
Some of QRadar Log Manager’s key features include:
Reviews from Real Users
IBM Security QRadar is a solution of choice among users because it provides a complete solution for security teams by integrating network analysis, log management, user behavior analytics, threat intelligence, and AI-powered investigations into a single solution. Users particularly like having a single window into their network and its ability to be used for larger enterprises.
Simon T., a cyber security services operations manager at an aerospace/defense firm, notes, "The most valuable thing about QRadar is that you have a single window into your network, SIEM, network flows, and risk management of your assets. If you use Splunk, for instance, then you still need a full packet capture solution, whereas the full packet capture solution is integrated within QRadar. Its application ecosystem makes it very powerful in terms of doing analysis."
A management executive at a security firm says, "What we like about QRadar and the models that IBM has, is it can go from a small-to-medium enterprise to a larger organization, and it gives you the same value."
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