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IBM Security QRadar vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
218
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (2nd), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (3rd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (12th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (5th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (7th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (10th)
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Log Management
39th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (34th), Network Monitoring Software (21st), Server Monitoring (14th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (17th), Configuration Management (20th), Cloud Monitoring Software (25th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 4.5%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Security QRadar4.5%
WhatsUp Gold0.8%
Other94.7%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
EC
Technical Manager at Quan Hung Gourmet
Efficient monitoring with detailed customization, yet complexity remains
The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless. I have used the automated device discovery with this topology feature. The interactive map feature helps me manage the topology because sometimes we cannot draw the topology correctly, so we need to manually edit the connections. The alerting system is very tunable and customizable, but it's a little complicated to use. Many customers cannot manage it by themselves and need support from us, the provider. We always use the dashboards in the SOC, where we constantly display a dashboard or multiple dashboards. This allows us to know immediately if the connection or bandwidth is full or if the connection is broken.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"All in all, it's a good solution."
"The ability to correlate large amounts of data into rules that provide real-time alerting is the most valuable feature."
"This solution has allowed us to correlate logs from multiple sources."
"The threat protection network is the most valuable feature, because when you get an offense, you can actually trace it back to where it originated from, how it originated, and why."
"It can analyze event logs, event security, and give a good consult."
"I would rate IBM Security QRadar nine out of ten."
"IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics has easy architecture, has a good portfolio and integration."
"The solution is flexible and easy to use."
"It is very good at monitoring the network and keeps us up to date on the status of internal devices."
"You have to invest a few days to become an expert in this solution, but after that, it's possible to do almost anything with it."
"It's a good product, and if one has the expertise to use it, it will be a good investment and it will help IT to save and plan for the future."
"This is a good, stable network monitoring solution for devices."
"The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are the application monitors that allow for discreet roaming on network devices."
"The most valuable features are network bandwidth monitoring and monitoring device health."
"The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface."
 

Cons

"Basically, your listening agent is at the mercy of the administrators, and for a security device or security software, that is a big vulnerability, because anybody can then go into the server, stop the agent, and then run any command or make any change they want to do, which would make your monitoring null and void."
"No, it has not improved the efficiency of our security team."
"The released patch quality is poor. IBM should test those patches on their side, not on the client's side."
"The solution does not support the integration of flat file databases."
"QRadar log integration of various applications can be a tough job at times. There may be occasions when you will not find any QRadar guide on adding logs of a particular application. Even if you come across one, adding a log process is not an easy one."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in IBM QRadar in integrating features for SOC maturity and security levels directly into QRadar."
"IBM QRadar is pricey, and therefore, usually small enterprises are not able to afford it."
"Regional product team support is not very good."
"There is a very big gap in the support."
"The price could be improved. When we first started using this product, the company was new. The prices were very low then, in comparison with HP OpenView or IBM, but now the policy is too high, relative to the number of devices we have."
"I think there are a few bugs now. Although they give some resolution for this, we cannot share the network remotely because of our company policy."
"My understanding is that there are better products out there that do a better job."
"Adding on services increases the cost and on the version we have there is no option for ATM monitoring."
"The interface needs some work."
"Sometimes it's a little bit slow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is good."
"There is a license required for this solution. There are some limitations depending on what license you purchase."
"It is overly expensive and overly complex in terms of licensing. They have many different appliances, which makes it extremely difficult to choose the technology. It is very difficult to choose the technology or QRadar components that you should be deploying. They have improved some of it in the last few years. They have made it slightly easy with the fact that you can now buy virtual versions of all the appliances, which is good, but it is still very fragmented. For instance, on some of the smaller appliances, there is no upgrade path. So, if you exceed the capacity of the appliance, you have to buy a bigger appliance, which is not helpful because it is quite a major cost. If you want to add more disks to the system, they'll say that you can't."
"It is costlier as compared to the other alternatives available in the market."
"The solution's pricing is based on the EPS model."
"I think that the price is fair, but we can always say that the price could be cheaper."
"You have a one-time payment, and you also can purchase it for one year as a subscription. We have it on-premise, and we have a permanent license for it. We have to pay for the support on a yearly basis. If you compare its cost with Sentinel for one year, QRadar would seem more expensive, but if you compare its cost over five or ten years, Azure Sentinel will be more expensive than QRadar. If you compare its cost with Sentinel for one year, QRadar would seem more expensive, but if you compare its cost over five or 10 years, Azure Sentinel can be more expensive than QRadar."
"think the pricing is quite flexible."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."
"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."
"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
"There are some subscription charges that are quite heavy. I need to pay for support every year and these charges can be quite expensive. Aside from the initial cost for the tool, you need to pay additionally for support."
"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"The most valuable feature is the cost 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
11%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business92
Midsize Enterprise39
Large Enterprise107
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

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?
I am overall satisfied with the licensing cost for IBM Security QRadar.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WhatsUp Gold?
Clients find the licensing calculator confusing, but we simplify this for them by collecting relevant information first. The licensing is based on devices, providing better cost-effectiveness than ...
What needs improvement with WhatsUp Gold?
It would be great if WhatsUp Gold could add features that simplify management with AI, as it is currently too complicated to manage.
What is your primary use case for WhatsUp Gold?
My use case for WhatsUp Gold includes all device availability checks, bandwidth usage, CPU, and memory usage, as well as alarm notifications.
 

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.
Artoni Trasporti, Austin Independent School District, Banca Marche, Burke County North Carolina, Cambridge University School of Clinical Medicine, Clayco, Community Integrated Care, Desca, Deutsche Bergbau, Flexi-Van, Gropper, Hamleys, Hammonds Furniture, Knowledge IT, Idras S.P.A., Sibeg, Swann Engineering, Trivium Lindenhof
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.