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IBM Security QRadar vs Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Security QRadar is praised for efficiency, affordability, and high ROI, acting as essential protection against security threats.
Sentiment score
7.4
Cortex XSOAR enhances ROI by automating SOC tasks, optimizing operations, and requiring mature processes for effective integration.
With SOAR, the workflow takes one minute or less to complete the analysis.
Investing this amount was very much worth it for my organization.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
IBM Security QRadar's customer service is excellent but has inconsistent support quality and response times varying by region.
Sentiment score
6.4
Cortex XSOAR customer service is praised for knowledge and responsiveness, though some report delays and unhelpfulness in support interactions.
This process can result in outages lasting three to four hours.
They assist with advanced issues, such as hardware or other problems, that are not part of standard operations.
The problem escalates through level one to level three, and then the process starts over with Novo again.
Their support has been better than Anomali's and they are more responsive.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Security QRadar is renowned for its scalability, smoothly managing large loads with hardware integration and license upgrades.
Sentiment score
7.5
Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR excels in scalability, integrating well with APIs and scaling across diverse organizational environments.
For EPS license, if you increase or exceed the EPS license, you cannot receive events.
The scalability of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR supports our growth and security needs because we can integrate various tools and continuously add more capability.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
IBM Security QRadar is stable with proper deployment, though some users face issues from misconfigurations or high log volumes.
Sentiment score
7.7
Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is stable and reliable, with minor bugs mostly related to updates and proper configuration.
I think QRadar is stable and currently satisfies my needs.
The product has been stable so far.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Security QRadar requires enhanced UI, integration, and AI, as it's complex, costly, and has suboptimal support and dashboard features.
Cortex XSOAR requires improvement in pricing, user interface, integrations, customization, stability, automation, support, and licensing costs.
If AI-related support can suggest rules and integrate with existing security devices like MD, IPS, this SIM can create more relevant rules.
IBM Security QRadar does not support Canvas, so we had to create custom scripts and workarounds to pull logs from Canvas.
This would help identify critical or high-priority alarms in QRadar.
The deployment requires integration and the development of integration modules.
One of the significant issues we encounter is system slowdown when we receive an influx of alerts, which inhibits how quickly we can access the information needed for investigation.
 

Setup Cost

IBM Security QRadar is a high-cost SIEM solution ideal for large enterprises, offering strong features and negotiable pricing.
Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is costly but valued for features and support, though potentially unsuitable for small businesses.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Security QRadar excels in scalability, integration, real-time threat detection, and supports diverse environments with customizable dashboards and analytics.
Cortex XSOAR excels in automation, integration, and customization, enhancing security management with AI-driven threat intelligence and incident response.
Recently, I faced an incident, a cyber incident, and it was detected in real time.
We have FortiSOAR and IBM Resilient for IBM Security QRadar orchestration.
IBM is seeking information about IBM QRadar because a part of QRadar, especially in the cloud, has been sold to Palo Alto.
Execution of automatic tasks for collecting, enriching, and correlating security events from hundreds of different technologies.
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.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
209
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (6th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (17th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (9th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (10th)
Palo Alto Networks Cortex X...
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
SOC as a Service (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 7.8%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is 10.9%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
 

Featured Reviews

Md. Shahriar Hussain - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time incident detection and user-friendly dashboard benefit daily operations
There are many types of AI, and this AI is very limited in SQL and features. There may be potential for improvement. So far, it seems very limited. It shows some good features in the correlation part, but I think there is room for improvement. For instance, when creating rules, it can suggest more rules, reducing the effort needed. If AI-related support can suggest rules and integrate with existing security devices like MD, IPS, this SIM can create more relevant rules. Sometimes logs I receive don't mean anything, and I need technical stakeholders to share or forward logs, but these are sometimes inadequate. Keywords can help identify insufficient logs. I often lack time to verify logs. Sharing false positive results could be reduced to help my team.
NikhilSharma2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Ability to multiple playbooks to fetch data from multiple firewalls and utomated several tasks, including vulnerability scans and SOCL (Security Orchestration, Automation
Recently, they started implementing microservices in XSOAR, which has improved quality and addressed previous issues. However, they should focus more on licensing costs. The user licensing fees are quite high. For example, I received a quote for XSOAR, and it was $12,000 per user per year. If you have a SOC team of 30 members/analysts, you're looking at a substantial expense. They should consider reducing these costs since this high pricing seems to be more about profit. So, there is room for improvement in the pricing. Moreover, the reporting and dashboard features are decent but could be improved. The user interface (UI) is quite heavy and takes time to load, which is a major drawback.
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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
Educational Organization
23%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

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 Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR?
Even though customers often comment on the price, the potential savings come from managing a large number of security events with a limited number of analysts. This leads to economic advantages des...
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR?
The complexity of Cortex XSOAR has a trade-off with its versatility. The product can be tailored for each deployment to respond to specific customer needs, and this complexity may be seen as a down...
 

Also Known As

IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
Demisto Enterprise, Cortex XSOAR, Demisto
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.