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Graylog vs IBM Security QRadar comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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

Graylog
Ranking in Log Management
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 Graylog is 6.4%, up from 6.0% 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

Ivan Kokalovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates backend service monitoring with efficient log retrieval and API flexibility
Graylog is valuable because it bridges technical knowledge to non-technical teams, presenting complex backend processes in a simple timeline. It boosts the knowledge of sales and customer support teams by allowing them to see the backend operations without needing to read the code. Its API is flexible for visualization, and its powerful search engine efficiently handles large volumes of log data. Moreover, its stability, fast search capabilities, and compatibility with languages like ANSI SQL enhance its utility in IT infrastructure.
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

"I like the correlation and the alerting."
"Storing logs in Elasticsearch means log retrieval is extremely fast, and full text search is available by default."
"We have scaled from a single machine installation (a VM with a Graylog + ES + MongoDB) to (2 Graylog + 2 ES + 3 MongoDB). This was done smoothly with a minimal impact on logging."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its new interface."
"Everything stands out as valuable, including the fact that I can quantify and qualify the logs, create pipelines and process the logs in any way I like, and create charts or data maps."
"Real-time UDP/GELF logging and full text-based searching."
"The build is stable and requires little maintenance, even compared to some extremely expensive products."
"The best feature of Graylog is the Elasticsearch integration. We can integrate and we can run filters, such as an event of interest, and those logs we can send to any SIEM tool or as an analytic. Additionally, there are clear and well-documented implementation instructions on their website to follow if needed."
"My overall rating for this solution is nine out of ten."
"The scalability is awesome, because QRadar includes other solutions in the same console."
"Regarding the tool's ability to maintain high-security standards, I rate it ten out of ten."
"think QRadar is great overall. We’ve had a positive experience with it and recommend it for deployment. However, there are areas for improvement. The technical support is good, and the documentation is valuable, but it could be enhanced, especially regarding integration with other systems. In terms of support and updates, QRadar’s capabilities are crucial for maintaining high security standards. Network and software administrators can monitor all traffic effectively, which reassures clients and drives further adoption."
"It has a logical, user-friendly GUI."
"Senses, tracks, and links significant incidents and threats."
"IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics's most important feature is its ease of use."
"No doubt about it, the solution is extremely stable."
 

Cons

"Graylog can improve the index rotation as it's quite a complex solution."
"The infrastructure cost is the main issue. I like the rest. If the infrastructure costs could be lower, it would be fantastic."
"It would be great if Graylog could provide a better Python package in order to make it easier to use for the Python community."
"The area in Graylog that needs to be improved or enhanced would be the integrations."
"I would like to see a default dashboard widget that shows the topology of the clusters defined for the graylog install."
"More complex visualizations and the ability to execute custom Elasticsearch queries would be great."
"With technical support, you are on your own without an enterprise license."
"Graylog needs to improve their authentication. Also, the fact that Graylog displays logs from the top down is just ridiculous."
"You can scale IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics, but it has room for improvement."
"QRadar's performance has room for improvement because it cannot handle the volume. I need massive amounts of logs from various devices in our existing network architecture. IBM needs to improve QRadar's capacity to handle more logs."
"I think QRadar is very complex. It's a distributed system and IBM QRadar has an all-in-one solution which is not like that distributed solution but it's a good product. IBM needs to consider the user interface because if we compare it with AlienVault, the AlienVault user interface is fantastic but the IBM QRadar user interface is very complex. They should focus on how to make it easier for the client."
"The pricing of the solution is a bit high. If they could lower it, that would be ideal."
"Before we didn't have any security issues but recently a few of the user emails were hacked. We had to actually recreate their emails for them."
"Solution has too many menus that require going to two or three sub-monitors to enter the QRadar."
"IBM Qradar could improve the reporting. The tool is not designed to report. It's a great operational monitoring tool. You put it on a screen and you watch it. If you want to have analytics out of it, that's a whole different story. You're going to need more people and tools. What should be added is reporting and integration into Power BI, into some capability that produces analytical reports from the source data. IBM does not seem to care to add these features."
"The user interface is a bit difficult to get used to."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the free version of the product. However, the paid version is expensive."
"​You get a lot out-of-the-box with the non-enterprise version, so give it a try first."
"It's open source and free. They have a paid version, but we never looked into that because we never needed the features of the paid version."
"If you want something that works and do not have the money for Splunk or QRadar, take Graylog.​​"
"I use the free version of Graylog."
"I am using a community edition. I have not looked at the enterprise offering from Graylog."
"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."
"Graylog is a free open-source solution. The free version has a capacity limitation of 2 GB daily, if you want to go above this you have to purchase a license."
"The pricing is always fine."
"As for licensing costs, I haven't seen the exact figures, but it is considered somewhat costly. On a scale from one to ten, where one is very expensive and ten is very cheap, I would rate it a six—it’s costly but worth the money."
"The licensing is also overly complex, as there is a need to buy the work load performance monitoring separately."
"The solution is costly and the price differs depending on the vendor you use."
"There is a license required for this solution and it is an annual payment. I have found all solutions in the category to be expensive, including Splunk."
"found other solutions, with more features at the same cost or less. You don’t have to leave the Gartner Magic Quadrant to beat their price."
"The maintenance costs are high."
"IBM's Qradar is not for small companie. Unfortunately, it would be 'overkill' to place it plainly. The pricing would be too much."
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Comparison Review

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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
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
8%
University
7%
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 Graylog?
The product is scalable. The solution is stable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Graylog?
I am not familiar with the pricing details of Graylog, as I was not responsible for that aspect. It was determined that we didn't need an enterprise plan, which is more suited for clients with less...
What needs improvement with Graylog?
An improvement I would suggest is in Graylog's user interface, such as allowing for font size adjustments. A potential enhancement could be the integration with Ollama to run large language models ...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Graylog2
IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Find out what your peers are saying about Graylog vs. IBM Security QRadar and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.