No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Elastic Security vs IBM Watson for Cyber Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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

Elastic Security
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (12th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (20th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (10th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (12th)
IBM Watson for Cyber Security
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
55th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 3.5%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Watson for Cyber Security is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Elastic Security3.5%
IBM Watson for Cyber Security0.8%
Other95.7%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Laurentiu Popescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Product Officer at ClusterPower
Has improved threat detection with deep log analysis and streamlined investigation workflows
The most useful features I find in Elastic Security are the forensic ones that allow us to carry deeper analysis into the logs for in-depth investigations, and the dashboards, with the reporting dashboard being quite user-friendly. Elastic Security is quite good at identifying threats, as it is part of the deep investigation tool that I mentioned before. Unless we need to look further into a certain log, we can carry out a deeper analysis and forensics on those particular logs. I can assess the impact of Elastic Security's real-time data analysis on our threat response efficiency as working pretty good. We are looking for real-time analysis because we have a continuous inflow of logs from different sources: from our cloud, from Active Directory, from our network. So it works pretty well.
Elena Stefanovska - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Account Manager at InTec System
Knowledgeable support, reliable, and useful compliance policies
IBM Watson for Cyber Security can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud and it is used as a SIEM solution The most valuable features of IBM Watson for Cyber Security are ease of use and out-of-the-box reports and compliance policies. Additionally, if there are aspects that are missing IBM add…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is very quick to react. I can set it to check anomalies or suspicious behavior every 30 seconds. It is very fast."
"Enables monitoring of application performance and the ability to predict behaviors."
"Elastic Security helps improve the security posture of Pakistan through centralized visibility and real-time processing."
"The cost is reasonable. It's not overly pricey."
"The solution has a good community surrounding it for lots of helpful documentation for troubleshooting purposes."
"It's simple and easy to use."
"The intelligence of the system has been very impressive. It's not quite AI, but the technical bit where it correlates information, based on the seen attacks within an organization is good."
"The solution is compatible with the cloud-native environment and they can adapt to it faster."
"The most valuable feature of this product is innovation, where the research and upgrading of technology never ends."
"The most valuable features of IBM Watson for Cyber Security are ease of use and out-of-the-box reports and compliance policies, and if there are aspects that are missing IBM add them in the next release."
"The customer support is very good."
"The most valuable features of IBM Watson for Cyber Security are ease of use and out-of-the-box reports and compliance policies. Additionally, if there are aspects that are missing IBM add them in the next release."
"IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very stable."
"The customer support is very good."
"The most valuable feature of this product is innovation, where the research and upgrading of technology never ends."
"From what I have seen so far, this is an excellent product."
 

Cons

"Elastic doesn't have the features like other competitors in SIEM. For example, Dynatrace as a solution for SIEM has features that Elastic actually doesn't have."
"Elastic Security has a steep learning curve, so it takes some time to tune it and set it up for your environment. There are some costs associated with logging things that don't have value. So you need to be cautious to only log things that make sense and keep them around for as long as you need. You shouldn't hold onto things just because you think you might need them."
"It is difficult to anticipate and understand the space utilization, so more clarity there would be great."
"The solution's query building is not that intuitive compared to other solutions."
"An area for improvement in Elastic Security is the pricing. It could be better. Right now, when you increase the volume of logs to be collected, the price also increases a lot."
"The documentation for this solution is very important, and more needs to be developed."
"This solution cannot do predictive maintenance, so we have to build our own modules for doing it."
"The price of this product could be improved, especially the additional costs."
"They need to continue to build the AI capabilities."
"The dashboard could improve in IBM Watson for Cyber Security."
"The dashboard could improve in IBM Watson for Cyber Security."
"In the future, I would like to see threat intelligence included."
"In the future, I would like to see threat intelligence included."
"This is an expensive product, so making it more cost-effective would be an improvement."
"This is an expensive product, so making it more cost-effective would be an improvement."
"They need to continue to build the AI capabilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is fine. Its licensing works on a yearly basis. We have to renew the license every year. I also have a good experience with Darktrace. When we buy Darktrace, we get training free of cost, which is not there in Elastic. We have to pay extra for training. There is certainly room for improvement."
"Elastic Security is free to use."
"We use the open-source version, so there is no charge for this solution."
"Affordable but with additional costs"
"The solution is free."
"The solution is not expensive and costs around ten dollars a month."
"The base product is open-source but if you need advanced security features then you need to pay for the subscription. Elastic Security's price is reasonable in some cases and in other cases it's not."
"The licensing cost of Elastic Security is based on the daily ingestion rate. I can't recall the exact figure, but for 10GB of log action daily, it would cost around $20,000."
"The price of this solution should be lower, although I understand why IBM charges a premium price."
"IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very simple to license and is priced well."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions are best for your needs.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise15
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
What do you like most about Elastic Security?
Elastic provides the capability to index quickly due to the reverse indexes it offers. This data is crucial as it contains critical information. The reverse index allows fast data indexing because ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
I am satisfied with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing cost. It is a pure 10.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Security vs. IBM Watson for Cyber Security and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.