Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM Security QRadar vs NetWitness Platform 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 Log Management
5th
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
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)
NetWitness Platform
Ranking in Log Management
35th
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
31st
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 3.6%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

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.
MOTASHIM Al Razi - PeerSpot reviewer
It is a stable solution, but they should make the user interface easier to understand
The solution's initial setup takes work. We have to organize multiple paths and many features. The deployment process takes less than a week. But it takes a month to complete if we want to make the solution smarter by integrating it with various devices. I rate the process as a six out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The flexibility is good in terms of pulling log files."
"Customer service is very good and very helpful."
"I think it's a very stable product that provides much more visibility than the other product."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with the GRD, for banking."
"There are other third-party plugins that we can use."
"QRadar, Splunk, and ArcSight are SIEM solutions with built-in AI/ML features. They can do the complete investigation and alert the admin about what is happening. They can also do the root cause analysis. There are many other features that come with QRadar. It has a more granular log, so you can integrate with various non-IT as well as IT-based components. You can get unstructured data to the SIEM data, and you can identify more what is happening in the network or what is happening in the central head office. You can also identify what is happening between your remote offices. You can also use it to identify what the users in the field are doing on their devices and how things are moving. From the integration point of view, it is very centric. It gives complete control centrally. If a user is not connected to the system, whenever he comes online, we can see the policy updates over the Internet, and we can ensure that the data that is supposed to be protected is protected."
"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 dashboard is easy to use and easy to understand what's going on and what the alerts mean."
"It gives the ability to investigate into network traffic in the Net and the organization what we couldn't do before."
"In my opinion, the solution's most valuable feature is its capacity to monitor network traffic, logs from devices within the network, and network captures. This capability extends beyond logs to include full network capturing."
"Setting up NetWitness is straightforward. There are multiple connectors, including standard and specialized connectors. One purpose of the connectors is the enhanced capability integrate the custom applications. NetWitness comes with E6 appliances and application images that we use for the initial configurations and for the OS stack information. From there, you can consider the correlation rules, integrate the different log sources, and easily create correlation rules and backlog reports."
"What we are mainly using are the RSA concentrator, RSA Decoder, Archiver, Broker, and Log Decoder."
"The newer 11.5 version that my team is using has found it to have good mapping."
"The development of use cases on the SSA console is quite user friendly. This means that the security analyst or the researcher does not have to learn another language."
"Offers a good wireless feature."
"The most valuable feature is the correlation. It can report in real-time and monitor the management."
 

Cons

"The product needs to improve its GUI."
"The API integration for AD is a problem when it comes to vulnerability management. If you want to incorporate multiple factor authentication it becomes a problem with the AD. It doesn't integrate well. That needs to be improved."
"Each module requires a separate license and a separate cost."
"The Indian tech support is not helpful."
"The usability of interfaces could be improved."
"The solution is clunky."
"Technical support really needs to be improved. Right now, they aren't where they need to be at all."
"The product does not have a team for investigating malware."
"The system architecture is complex and sometimes it’s hard to troubleshoot potential problems."
"There are instances where you try to run the reports and then it does not give you the desired outcome."
"Log aggregation is an issue with this solution because there are a huge number of alerts in a single instance."
"The product's licensing models are complex to understand. This particular area needs improvement."
"The multi-tenant capabilities are lagging compared to IBM QRadar."
"We have encountered issues with unresolved crashes."
"Technical support could be improved."
"The documentation is not as structured as I would like, personally, and I think that it can be improved and made much more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM QRadar is a little bit expensive compared to other products."
"There is a license required for this solution."
"Licensing is very expensive, IBM QRadar is a very expensive solution. If you want to minimize costs then IBM QRadar is not for you."
"We use QRadar as a managed service and we pay licensing fees to the partner."
"They can give us some scalability and flexibility on pricing. If its pricing can be reduced, it would help a lot of customers in bringing in a new SIEM environment and grow business in the market. If I start a license today and take around 10,000 EPS, and after a month, there is an increase in the number of clients on my platform, I can increase the number of licenses. I can add 5,000 EPS on a yearly basis."
"There are different types of subscriptions available. We were on an annual subscription, but our customers typically choose the two years subscription option."
"The price of this product is high."
"Go through a vulnerability assessment review for price breaks. A virtualized solution will also cut down on cost."
"Compared to the competition, the is price is not that high."
"Our license is for one year."
"In comparison to other SIEM solutions such as Splunk, NetWitness is less costly."
"This is a pricey solution; it's not cheap."
"The licenses are good but the cost is very expensive."
"We have a perpetual license, so the total cost of ownership is not very expensive. It's a good investment."
"It’s cheaper to run virtual machines in a VMware environment."
"The product is expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

VS
Feb 26, 2015
HP ArcSight vs. IBM QRadar vs. ​McAfee Nitro vs. Splunk vs. RSA Security vs. LogRhythm
We at Infosecnirvana.com have done several posts on SIEM. After the Dummies Guide on SIEM, we are following it up with a SIEM Product Comparison – 101 deck. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Let me know what you think by posting your comments below. The key products compared here are…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
What do you like most about NetWitness Platform?
The product's initial setup phase was not at all difficult.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetWitness Platform?
The pricing is comparable to others, and I consider the cost to be intermediate. Specific cost details are unknown to me.
What needs improvement with NetWitness Platform?
There is currently no need for improvement in the SIEM ( /categories/security-information-and-event-management-siem ), though there could be potential enhancements by integrating with AI.
 

Also Known As

IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
RSA Security Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. NetWitness Platform and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.