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IBM Security QRadar vs Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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

Torq
Sponsored
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
AI-SOC (13th), AI-Powered Security Automation (2nd)
IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
219
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (7th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (3rd), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (17th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (7th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (11th)
Palo Alto Networks Cortex X...
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
SOC as a Service (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category, the mindshare of Torq is 4.9%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 6.3%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is 8.9%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR8.9%
IBM Security QRadar6.3%
Torq4.9%
Other79.9%
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
 

Featured Reviews

Nimrod Vardi - PeerSpot reviewer
Global IT Director at OpenWeb
Automation workflows have transformed our IT, enabling secure just-in-time access control
We work with them quite often, so we have a direct line regarding areas in Torq that have room for improvement. If we have a feature request, we can request it. I do not have anything in mind at the moment. We were a design partner for a short while, so we feel that they listen and that users of the system have an impact on the way the system is designed for the better. They have a new community, which is something that I personally suggested years ago. There are many people like me in different places and they might have already built the workflow that I need. Having the option to share workflows or to jump on a thread and say I have this need, did anyone ever build a workflow for it, is amazing. Someone would jump in and say yes, sure, here, take this workflow. I think this is an amazing thing and I really hope that the community will come alive because I think this is really powerful. This is something that I already suggested and it did happen eventually, and I am quite happy with it. I do not have any specific feature in mind that I have a need for at the moment.
HarshBhardiya - PeerSpot reviewer
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Have managed daily asset and alert monitoring effectively but have encountered limitations with manual processes and interface usability
It's still very manual and doesn't work on its own. It's still in an early stage and not on par where we can consider it a really successful detection system. The accuracy is not there. The UI could be better when compared to Sentinels where we can use flags and tagging. It could be much more user-friendly. IBM Security QRadar has all features and is fully competitive with other SIEM tools, but when it comes to user-friendliness, a new user takes time to get used to it. More intuitive, user-friendly interfaces and more helpful documentation would be beneficial. The query searching and data fetching could be faster. In large to very large organizations with around 5,000 or 6,000 assets or beyond, even with proper configurations and RAM and hardware backing up, the query is fairly slow.
CC
Enterprise Security Architect V at FirstEnergy
Customization supports seamless workflow while data influx challenges response time
What I appreciate most about Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is that it is very open, even more so than Anomali. I can create various custom automations and custom fields. There is significant customization ability in this platform. If I already have an established process, I do not have to change my process to fit into the tool. I can modify the tool to fit into my process, which makes things considerably easier. All of our alerts from different tools come into this central place as we have multiple SIEMs. We have items coming from Anomali and other platforms that are not SIEM tools. This serves as our central location where our SOC analysts can work and determine if incident response is needed. The platform provides data enrichment capabilities, offering information upfront so analysts do not have to search for it. They can access details such as username, phone number, email address, and workplace information. For malware files, they can retrieve details from VirusTotal, including file names and environment presence. We have built substantial automation around these features, which also helps us track case metrics, investigation time, and threat mitigation duration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"As an analyst, it has demonstrated potential to reduce workforce requirements and time needed for related activities."
"What I appreciate most about Torq is that it is an essential part of our system."
"Once I started to use the system and I saw the potential, it changed all of our work in IT."
"Using that one piece of AI, we auto-closed 511 cases in quarter four alone."
"The initial setup is not complex or difficult."
"The solution is flexible and easy to use."
"The query search and log fetching are really helpful in IBM Security QRadar when compared to other tools."
"We are using the platform version, which I like."
"The monitoring and dashboards are great."
"QRadar UBA's most valuable feature is the risk rating of users depending on their behavior."
"What I like about IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics is that it uses machine learning algorithms to generate risk scoring for the user activity. I also like that it syncs with our Active Directory users, so it really has full coverage for all users in our environment."
"We get events and make the correlation, or rules. In IBM, we can implement our customer's rules. We can have very clear status threats and severity of antigens."
"This change is very useful for my SOC team as it reduces time and provides a fast response to the incident."
"I have found the solution very useful, it integrates well with other platforms."
"The orchestration in XSOAR is significantly easier compared to other SOAR tools I've used."
"It has an extensive list of integrations that are available out of the box which makes it easy to start."
"The product can automate security tasks."
"The most valuable features are the orchestration because of the way in which it coordinates the loss from all the devices and it provides us with a high-level overview of the critical log information."
"What I appreciate most about Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is that it is very open, even more so than Anomali."
"Its agility and scalability are valuable."
 

Cons

"Regarding stability, I have noticed some lagging, crashing, and downtime, which is one of my largest gripes."
"It was able to capture data but was unable to differentiate between the agent hostname we are using and the hostname that resides on the back end of the Internet."
"The initial deployment of Torq was not easy."
"For the common needs of clients to fulfill requirements, a real integration with Blueworks Live (BPA modeling tool also from IBM) and a more suitable BPM on cloud solution for midsize customers."
"Some of the cloud apps need improvement."
"Needs better visualization options beyond the time series charts and a few other options that they have."
"The solution could improve by having more out-of-the-box use cases."
"In a future release, the solution could provide malware analysis."
"It needs more resilience and functionality."
"It doesn't have a SOAR system by default. You need to purchase it additionally, which is the main problem with QRadar."
"The technical support is poor. Mostly because when I open a PMR for IBM, I am stuck with Level 1 staff. As an engineer, nothing that I am bringing them does not require Level 2 or Level 3 support."
"The solution is complicated to learn."
"I would love to see more flexibility on what we can display and design on the dashboards."
"In terms of improvement, it needs to be more modular. It's not. When you're working in layouts and you create specific apps within layouts, there's no portability right now in order to reuse that code across multiple layouts. I can't take a tab and say I want to use this tab on these other layouts. I have to physically go in there and recreate it from scratch, which is maddening."
"It is not a very scalable solution."
"The platform’s setup procedures could be streamlined compared to one of its competitors."
"I think Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR can be improved as it has a little bit higher cost than any other SOAR."
"It was expensive, making it essential for the customer to evaluate whether ROI is coming from the business model, as they are also acting as a SOC provider."
"I think they should increase their collaboration base."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It is cheaper than ArcSight."
"Customers have to purchase a license based on the number of users, devices, and applications they want to protect. It allows you to take a license on a subscription basis for three years or five years."
"It is expensive. It is not a product that I can provide for SMBs. It is a program that I can only provide for really large enterprises."
"QRadar UBA's price is a little more than street price and could be reduced."
"A good approach would be to begin with an On Cloud subscription, then later on do a more exact sizing."
"The pricing is higher but cheaper than others and there are no additional costs."
"Only enterprise businesses can afford the tool."
"It's too expensive."
"The price of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR could be reduced. We are always looking for a discount. There is an annual license needed to use this solution."
"The solution is a bit on the expensive side."
"It's cheaper compared to its competitors."
"The price of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is expensive."
"Palo Alto offers significant discounts to customers who purchase the products repeatedly."
"The solution is based on an annual licensing model that is expensive."
"It is approx $10,000 or $20,000 per year for two user licenses."
"There is a perception that it is priced very high compared to other solutions."
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Comparison Review

VS
Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
No data available
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business91
Midsize Enterprise39
Large Enterprise105
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Torq?
From our research and testing with the tool, we determined there need to be modifications and changes to train the LL...
What is your primary use case for Torq?
I used Torq for conducting one of the proof of evaluations for a vendor we are connected with. I am currently working...
What advice do you have for others considering Torq?
One of our members uses AWS, and we receive their feed. This involves triaging AWS-related logs. While I do not have ...
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, friendli...
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 a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Security QRadar?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is great compared to the other vendor.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR?
Comparing pricing to Micro Focus, they were offering bundles, making it free with their SIEM. For customers, it is ze...
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR?
To improve the solution, it needs to have complete features that are low-code, no-code, and should be plug-and-play. ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
Demisto Enterprise, Cortex XSOAR, Demisto
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Cellcom Israel, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, esri, Cylance, Flatiron Health, Veeva, ADT Cybersecurity
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.