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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
6.8
Number of Reviews
209
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (5th), 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)
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 August 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 7.4%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Watson for Cyber Security is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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

"It's hard for me to pinpoint any one feature that's most valuable because it is all about consuming logs and analyzing them. We started using QRadar UBA because we needed something that could analyze Linux authentication information. Other products take care of the Windows platform."
"Overall a great solution."
"QRadar has somewhat of a new structure recently from last gen. They have moved from the standard UI based infrastructure."
"IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson is a stable solution."
"IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics's most important feature is its ease of use."
"It has a powerful GUI where you can put together your use cases, and don't have to write your own scripts."
"It is very stable. We have not faced interruptions in the past four and a half years."
"Integration is very easy and the reporting is good."
"IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very stable."
"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."
 

Cons

"The user interface needs improvement."
"We need more features in order to create rules to detect or to meet some requirements for other areas, for example, catching the event from other authentication tools."
"The weak signal detection with QRadar needs improvement. You can detect what you know, but what is unknown to the rule engine can't be detected."
"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."
"Some of the cloud apps need improvement."
"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."
"IBM QRadar has a margin for development, for out-of-the-box use cases. It can be enhanced with better support and automate the use cases for that."
"In the future, I would like to see threat intelligence included."
"They need to continue to build the AI capabilities."
"The dashboard could improve in IBM Watson for Cyber Security."
"This is an expensive product, so making it more cost-effective would be an improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is priced in a competitive manner. The tool's price is dependent on the installation and the product size, but it is competitive in the marketplace."
"The price of this solution is a little high."
"The price of this product is high."
"It is costlier as compared to the other alternatives available in the market."
"IBM QRadar is a little bit expensive compared to other products."
"Our licensing costs for this solution is on a yearly basis."
"In terms of additional costs, it depends on the subscription that you choose. There are plenty of options to choose from."
"IBM's Qradar is not for small companie. Unfortunately, it would be 'overkill' to place it plainly. The pricing would be too much."
"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
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.