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Grafana Loki vs IBM Security QRadar 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

Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Log Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
210
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (17th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (8th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Grafana Loki is 8.1%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 3.8%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Grafana Loki8.1%
IBM Security QRadar3.8%
Other88.1%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Volodymyr Bondarchuk - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrations enhance monitoring but problem-solving proves challenging
Different types of integrations with various sources are the most helpful and useful features of Grafana Loki that I found for myself. As part of Kubernetes technology, I noticed benefits from using this product such as availability, configuration balancing, high availability solutions for high performance, and failover clustering. It provides a clear picture about the state of the system and gives needed information for taking action and quickly fixing problems.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The log collection feature is good and the solution is easily understandable. v"
"The solution's stability has never been a problem. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine to ten out of ten."
"The effectiveness of filters is pivotal for optimizing the search process and extracting the specific information we need from the extensive log data."
"The product's most valuable features are ease of installation, management, and reporting. It has an efficient ability to set thresholds for alerts, as well."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source tool that is stable and flexible."
"Grafana Loki is easy to monitor and detect errors."
"There are new features like that pilot code and things like that for profiling."
"The best feature of Grafana Loki is that it integrates well with our other tool."
"It's built around Red Hat Linux, which is highly robust."
"I have found IBM QRadar to be stable."
"It is suitable for large companies with critical infrastructure. For our clients, robustness, availability at a high level, and the level of references and experiences connected to the solution are important."
"The features that I have found most valuable in QRadar are its data enrichment, use case creations, and adding references - those kinds of features are very good. Also QRadar's event filtration and device integration are perfect."
"In addition to using this solution for our security operations center, we are using it for our other customers."
"I think this is a good product for enterprises because of the performance and out-of-the-box rules and use cases. If they want to reach the maturity level early, they can use these out-of-the-box rules and use cases. That will help them a lot."
"Most of our clients are interested in automation. The automation part is good because they are able to detect threats and vulnerabilities in real time. It's very fast."
"Providing real-time visibility for threat detection and prioritization - QRadar SIEM provides contextual and actionable surveillance across the entire IT infrastructure."
 

Cons

"There is a need for some change in the alerting types of the product. In short, a few changes in the alert area are needed due to minor shortcomings."
"It's not intended for proprietary services, so you have to struggle with configuration a lot."
"The product must improve its UI."
"The Docker container partition feature needs improvement as they do not reuse the space and goes into a pending state."
"The solution has shortcomings regarding security monitoring-oriented features that need improvement."
"Enhancing speed could be a game-changer, and while it might vary depending on the application, it's a factor worth exploring."
"The platform's stability needs improvement."
"The solution's scalability depends on the team managing the Grafana instance."
"Its architecture is very complicated."
"The architecture could be improved. I got stuck for a long time trying to understand the architecture, as it is quite challenging."
"They have to build more quantitative monitoring, profiling, and make it more predictive."
"Whenever we are upgrading or installing any type of patch, at that time we have some delays."
"The threat intelligence functionality can be better. In addition, it can have more monitoring capabilities."
"The initial setup requires that you have somebody with the proper skill set, and it would help if the configuration were easier."
"The IBM support can be better."
"Sometimes it takes time to load queries, but other than that, it performs excellently."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Grafana Loki is an open-source solution."
"I use the open-source version of the product."
"The cost is less than other paid services like CloudWatch."
"I find the licensing structure quite reasonable, as the free license effectively meets my requirements."
"We use a free version."
"Since we are using the open-source version of Grafana Loki, we are not paying anything for the solution."
"The pricing structure varies based on the number of users; there might be specific taxes to pay for it."
"You can use the free version of Grafana Loki on-premises."
"As for licensing costs, I haven't seen the exact figures, but it is considered somewhat costly. On a scale from one to ten, where one is very expensive and ten is very cheap, I would rate it a six—it’s costly but worth the money."
"The solution is priced fairly, there is a license for the solution, and we pay annually."
"In terms of additional costs, it depends on the subscription that you choose. There are plenty of options to choose from."
"QRadar is quite expensive. It wouldn't be worth it for a small business..."
"Our licensing costs for this solution is on a yearly basis."
"The price could be better. I bought a subscription for three years."
"QRadar UBA's price is a little more than street price and could be reduced."
"An X-Force feed is free with QRadar."
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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
16%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business88
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise102
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Grafana Loki?
We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana Loki?
Since it is an open source tool, there are no charges or fees.
What needs improvement with Grafana Loki?
I have no ideas at this moment about what could be improved in Grafana Loki.
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.
 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Find out what your peers are saying about Grafana Loki vs. IBM Security QRadar and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.