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IBM Security QRadar vs Varonis Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 7, 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 User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
211
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (7th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), 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)
Varonis Platform
Ranking in User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA)
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (20th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (9th), Data Governance (4th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (7th), Ransomware Protection (10th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (7th), Insider Risk Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 9.0%, down from 12.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Varonis Platform is 4.9%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Security QRadar9.0%
Varonis Platform4.9%
Other86.1%
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA)
 

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.
Frederic  Delos - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers the ability to identify sensitive areas, allowing you to drill down into the sensitive data
The most effective feature for me is its ability to identify sensitive areas, allowing you to drill down into the sensitive data, provided you have access, to determine whether it's a false positive or a true positive. That's the best thing for me, out of all of it. It's got everything, like other ones, but I like to be able to look at something if I'm doing forensics on the alert and say, "Okay, do I really need to do something with this?" For example, we don't want sensitive data in our OneDrive. So it identifies the sensitive data that's possibly in the OneDrive. And what I can do is look at it and identify whether it's actually sensitive data in Datalert or whether it looks like sensitive data, but I know it's a false positive. If it is a false positive, I can basically say ignore this pattern based on X, Y, and Z, you know, whether it's Redjax or keyword proximity. So I like that. With other tools, I gotta go through a whole process because it's a little bit more complex. Here, I can tag it and bag it in one shot. And the next good time I scan, it slips over it. So it helps in that.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM Qradar's ability to simplify the number of events, not only on a technical level but by making that information easy to pan through the orchestration deduplication. It is very impressive given that we have hundreds of devices that send event logs through."
"The solution is relatively easy to use."
"The support is very good. We get support whenever we need it. Sometimes they respond immediately and sometimes it will be within 24 hours. We can ask them to please do it right away and they can get a request done within an hour or two."
"It has improved my efficiency."
"Provided that the report is prebuilt and I can find what I am looking for, the reporting is the most valuable feature in this solution."
"It also has a graph that shows the traffic history. I can see what happened yesterday or today. If there's an incident, I can check the traffic behavior on QRadar."
"There is a single dashboard that gives us a complete overview of what is happening around the globe."
"Log correlation is very useful for processing alerts. It serves to follow up alerts in real-time, building an entire workflow."
"The telemetry to capture everything and the reports are very easy to configure without having a developer degree."
"The solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient."
"The most important feature is remediation. In remediation support, there is no group permission. We'll go ahead and remediate the access from the Dell folder to the parent folder."
"On the Varonis side, technical support is phenomenal. Their ability to explain is very good, and they seem to be very knowledgeable. When I get an alert that doesn't quite make sense, they dive in there and kind of take me through it. That's very useful and very good. There are some false alerts, but it is better to have a false alert than no alert at all."
"The solution has significantly improved data security and compliance posture by allowing us to track and monitor activities. We can see who accesses data and when files are created and understand what's happening in our environment."
"There's also a 90-day policy where if a user is not using the warehouse, it will automatically delete that username."
"I also appreciate the reporting feature, which allows for the extraction of various reports based on specific needs. These reports can be used for audit purposes, such as tracking changes in file locations or deletions."
"That alerting and reporting service is great."
 

Cons

"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."
"The product needs to improve its GUI."
"There are areas in IBM Security QRadar that could benefit from improvement. Its ability to customize knowledge for specific purposes could be enhanced. Also, it lacks clarity in presenting details. It is also difficult to see the reports."
"IBM technical support is always terrible."
"The implementation and configuration are not easy."
"Each module requires a separate license and a separate cost."
"QRadar needs to be improved on the storage side, particularly when the disc exceeded the maximum threshold."
"GUI needs to be improved."
"There is one thing that if I add something manually, I get so many alerts. That's the biggest bad thing."
"One area for improvement is the calculation engine. When applying rules in Varonis, especially for large datasets (terabytes of data), the calculations can be slow and require time to process. Speeding up this process would be beneficial."
"I'd like to see automatic updates for this solution. Currently, it's a manual process to update all the keywords"
"Varonis requires more access permissions for its core functions compared to competitors, which can be a concern for companies about data safety."
"We have Microsoft Office 365. I just saw an article today which says that they're actually getting integrated with Microsoft Office 365, which would be a useful feature. For user-based reports, log on activity, and stuff like that, it doesn't seem to really be present like Log360. That could just be my inexperience with it. I've been dealing with it for only about two and a half months."
"For unstructured data monitoring, it's one of the top ones, if not the top one, due to its usability."
"It is significantly complex."
"The solution's interface is a little complicated with regard to setting up filters and reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is always fine."
"The tool's price is high."
"There is an annual license required for this solution."
"IBM has subscriptions plans that run for one year."
"I think my company pays for the license yearly."
"This price is a little high, so it's an expensive product."
"The license is not subscription-based."
"IBM QRadar is a little bit expensive compared to other products."
"The platform is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."
"The pricing is good. It neither expensive nor cheap. It is average."
"It's expensive, kind of, really expensive."
"You could do a subscription, where you pay yearly, or you could purchase it outright. The licensing cost is based on the number of users on the system that you are monitoring."
"Licensing is on an annual basis. Maintenance and renewal fees are separate. Varonis Datalert is quite expensive."
"Varonis Platform wasn't certainly the cheapest solution."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
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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%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business89
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise102
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise11
 

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 Varonis Platform?
The solution has significantly improved data security and compliance posture by allowing us to track and monitor activities. We can see who accesses data and when files are created and understand w...
What needs improvement with Varonis Platform?
Varonis started as an on-premises solution and is transitioning to cloud. It hasn't fully moved yet, which is an area for improvement. Varonis requires more access permissions for its core function...
What is your primary use case for Varonis Platform?
The primary use case for Varonis Platform is data discovery, specifically for discovering sensitive data in our organization to protect it. We are looking for a solution that can scan our repositor...
 

Also Known As

IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
SlashNext Complete
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Nottingham Building Society
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