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IBM Security QRadar vs IBM Watson for Cyber Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 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

IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
211
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (7th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (18th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (8th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (11th)
IBM Watson for Cyber Security
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
58th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 7.0%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Watson for Cyber Security is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Security QRadar7.0%
IBM Watson for Cyber Security0.4%
Other92.6%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Elena Stefanovska - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"The correlation and the parsing are important features, since it is very important for a SIEM to have a good scalability and performance."
"The flexibility is good in terms of pulling log files."
"Most of the features are good. It is an excellent solution."
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is very stable, easy to get going, and easy to manage. It is also easy to review all incidents."
"The tool helps with infrastructure, application, and network monitoring."
"There are many things I appreciate about IBM Security QRadar; I haven't used any other SIEM before IBM Security QRadar, so for me, it is perfect."
"The solution is easy to use, manage, and review all incidents."
"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 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."
"The customer support is very good."
"The most valuable feature of this product is innovation, where the research and upgrading of technology never ends."
"IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very stable."
 

Cons

"The interface is very old. IBM should remake it into a more modern interface."
"The user interface is a bit difficult to get used to."
"QRadar needs to be improved on the storage side, particularly when the disc exceeded the maximum threshold."
"They should speed up the incident response and also, at the same time, reduce the amount of manual effort that is required."
"IBM is going through some problems with its resources currently making its support response time slow."
"The solution does not support the integration of flat file databases."
"The dashboard is pathetic and it takes a long time to perform a search."
"The tech support is not that good."
"This is an expensive product, so making it more cost-effective would be an improvement."
"In the future, I would like to see threat intelligence included."
"The dashboard could improve in IBM Watson for Cyber Security."
"They need to continue to build the AI capabilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution comes with a high price tag, while some of the competitors provide identical functionality in their offerings at no extra cost."
"IBM Security QRadar is a very expensive tool."
"There are different types of subscriptions available. We were on an annual subscription, but our customers typically choose the two years subscription option."
"The product is expensive. We have purchased the perpetual license, but we pay for the support."
"It could be cheaper, but the value itself is far more important for us than the price. Typically, our clients have yearly subscriptions."
"There is an annual license required for this solution."
"There is a license required for this solution. There are some limitations depending on what license you purchase."
"The price of this solution is a little high."
"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."
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Comparison Review

VS
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
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business89
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise102
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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Also Known As

IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. IBM Watson for Cyber Security and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.