IBM Security QRadar vs IBM Watson for Cyber Security comparison

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31,886 views|17,713 comparisons
92% willing to recommend
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91% willing to recommend
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100% willing to recommend
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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Security QRadar and IBM Watson for Cyber Security based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed IBM Security QRadar vs. IBM Watson for Cyber Security Report (Updated: May 2024).
771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The solution offers a lot of data on events. It helps us create specific detection strategies.""Sentinel enables us to ingest data from our entire ecosystem. In addition to integrating our Cisco ASA Firewall logs, we get our Palo Alto proxy logs and some on-premises data coming from our hardware devices... That is very important and is one way Sentinel is playing a wider role in our environment.""Previously, it was a little bit difficult to find where an incident came from, including which IP address and which country. So in Sentinel, it's very easy to find where the incident came from since we can easily get the information from the dashboard, after which we take action quickly.""The log query feature has been the most valuable because it's very good. You can put your data on the cloud and run queues from Sentinel. It will do it all very fast. I love that I don't have to upload it to an Excel file and then manually look for a piece of information. Sentinel is much faster and is good for big databases.""The main benefit is the ease of integration.""We have no complaints about the features or functionality.""It is able to connect to an ever-growing number of platforms and systems within the Microsoft ecosystem, such as Azure Active Directory and Microsoft 365 or Office 365, as well as to external services and systems that can be brought in and managed. We can manage on-premises infrastructure. We can manage not just the things that are running in Azure in the public cloud, but through Azure Arc and the hybrid capabilities, we can monitor on-premises servers and endpoints. We can monitor VMware infrastructure, for instance, running as part of a hybrid environment.""Mainly, this is a cloud-native product. So, there are zero concerns about managing the whole infrastructure on-premises."

More Microsoft Sentinel Pros →

"We run 65 servers globally with just two people: an engineering person and me.""The most valuable thing about QRadar is that you have a single window into your network, SIEM, network flows, and risk management of your assets. If you use Splunk, for instance, then you still need a full packet capture solution, whereas the full packet capture solution is integrated within QRadar. Its application ecosystem makes it very powerful in terms of doing analysis.""The UBA feature is the most valuable because you can see everything about users' activities.""It has very rich functionality.""It is a bit easier to use than other products, such as Splunk or ELK Elasticsearch.""On the back-end, Watson helps me figure out an exact problem, sometimes giving me the result.""It has a lot of good correlation rules. From a customer's point of view, it is one of the best solutions because you don't need to create correlation rules from scratch. You just review them and customize them as you want.""Most of the features are good. It is an excellent solution."

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"IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very stable.""The most valuable feature of this product is innovation, where the research and upgrading of technology never ends.""The customer support is very good.""The most valuable features of IBM Watson for Cyber Security are ease of use and out-of-the-box reports and compliance policies. Additionally, if there are aspects that are missing IBM add them in the next release."

More IBM Watson for Cyber Security Pros →

Cons
"I believe one of the challenges I encountered was the absence of live training sessions, even with the option to pay for them.""Add more out-of-the-box connectors with other SaaS platforms/applications.""We do have in-built or out-of-the-box metrics that are shown on the dashboard, but it doesn't give the kind of metrics that we need from our environment whereby we need to check the meantime to detect and meantime to resolve an incident. I have to do it manually. I have to pull all the logs or all the alerts that are fed into Sentinel over a certain period. We do this on a monthly basis, so I go into Microsoft Sentinel and pull all the alerts or incidents we closed over a period of thirty days.""When it comes to ingesting Azure native log sources, some of the log sources are specific to the subscription, and it is not always very clear.""The on-prem log sources still require a lot of development.""Multi-tenancy, in my opinion, needs to be improved. I believe it can do better as a managed service provider.""We do see continuous improvement all the time, however, I haven't got a specific feature that is lacking or not well designed.""In terms of features I would like to see in future releases, I'm interested in a few more use cases around automation. I do believe a lot of automation is available, and more is in progress, but that would be my area of interest."

More Microsoft Sentinel Cons →

"I would like to see a more user-friendly product.""The tool is very complicated. One place for improvement would be to have a more user-friendly interface. Having better support in Spanish would be cool.""With IBM Security QRadar, my company faced issues with the support we received for the product.""The user interface needs improvement.""I think that the search speed of this solution could be improved.""The tech support is not that good.""The solution lacks vendor support.""The interface is very old. IBM should remake it into a more modern interface."

More IBM Security QRadar Cons →

"The dashboard could improve in IBM Watson for Cyber Security.""In the future, I would like to see threat intelligence included.""This is an expensive product, so making it more cost-effective would be an improvement.""They need to continue to build the AI capabilities."

More IBM Watson for Cyber Security Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It comes with a Microsoft subscription which the customer has, so they don't have to invest somewhere else."
  • "It is a consumption-based license model. bands at 100, 200, 400 GB per day etc. Azure Sentinel Pricing | Microsoft Azure"
  • "Good monthly operational cost model for the detection and response outcomes delivered, M365 logs don't count toward the limits which is a good benefit."
  • "I have had mixed feedback. At one point, I heard a client say that it sometimes seems more expensive. Most of the clients are on Office 365 or M365, and they are forced to take Azure SIEM because of the integration."
  • "It is kind of like a sliding scale. There are different tiers of pricing that go from $100 per day up to $3,500 per day. So, it just kind of depends on how much data is being stored. There can be additional costs to the standard license other than the additional data. It just kind of depends on what other services you're spinning up in Azure, or if you're using something like Azure log analytics."
  • "I am just paying for the log space with Azure Sentinel. It costs us about $2,000 a month. Most of the logs are free. We are only paying money for Azure Firewall logs because email logs or Azure AD logs are free to use for us."
  • "Sentinel is a bit expensive. If you can figure a way of configuring it to meet your needs, then you can find a way around the cost."
  • "Azure Sentinel is very costly, or at least it appears to be very costly. The costs vary based on your ingestion and your retention charges."
  • More Microsoft Sentinel Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "found other solutions, with more features at the same cost or less. You don’t have to leave the Gartner Magic Quadrant to beat their price."
  • "Most of the time, it is easier and cheaper to buy a new product or the QRadar box."
  • "IBM's Qradar is not for small companie. Unfortunately, it would be 'overkill' to place it plainly. The pricing would be too much."
  • "IBM's Qradar is not for small companie. Unfortunately, it would be 'overkill' to place it plainly. The pricing would be too much."
  • "Go through a vulnerability assessment review for price breaks. A virtualized solution will also cut down on cost."
  • "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."
  • "The maintenance costs are high."
  • "Pricing (based on EPS) will be more accurate."
  • More IBM Security QRadar Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The price of this solution should be lower, although I understand why IBM charges a premium price."
  • "IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very simple to license and is priced well."
  • More IBM Watson for Cyber Security Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions are best for your needs.
    771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Comparison Review
    Vinod Shankar
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Yes, Azure Sentinel is a SIEM on the Cloud. Multiple data sources can be uploaded and analyzed with Azure Sentinel and… more »
    Top Answer:It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for… more »
    Top Answer:We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel is… more »
    Top Answer:It mostly depends on your use-cases and environment. Exabeam and Securonix have a stronger UEBA feature set, friendlier… more »
    Top Answer:For tools I’d recommend:  -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is… more »
    Top Answer:The event collector, flow collector, PCAP and SOAR are valuable.
    Top Answer:The most valuable features of IBM Watson for Cyber Security are ease of use and out-of-the-box reports and compliance… more »
    Top Answer:IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very simple to license and is priced well.
    Top Answer:The dashboard could improve in IBM Watson for Cyber Security.
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Azure Sentinel
    IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, QRadar, IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
    Learn More
    Overview

    Microsoft Sentinel is a scalable, cloud-native, security information event management (SIEM) and security orchestration automated response (SOAR) solution that lets you see and stop threats before they cause harm. Microsoft Sentinel delivers intelligent security analytics and threat intelligence across the enterprise, providing a single solution for alert detection, threat visibility, proactive hunting, and threat response. Eliminate security infrastructure setup and maintenance, and elastically scale to meet your security needs—while reducing IT costs. With Microsoft Sentinel, you can:

    - Collect data at cloud scale—across all users, devices, applications, and infrastructure, both on-premises and in multiple clouds

    - Detect previously uncovered threats and minimize false positives using analytics and unparalleled threat intelligence from Microsoft

    - Investigate threats with AI and hunt suspicious activities at scale, tapping into decades of cybersecurity work at Microsoft

    - Respond to incidents rapidly with built-in orchestration and automation of common tasks

    To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

    IBM Security QRadar is a security and analytics platform designed to defend against threats and scale security operations. This is done through integrated visibility, investigation, detection, and response. QRadar empowers security groups with actionable insights into high-priority threats by providing visibility into enterprise security data. Through centralized visibility, security teams and analysts can determine their security stance, which areas pose a potential threat, and which areas are critical. This will help streamline workflows by eliminating the need to pivot between tools.

    IBM Security QRadar is built to address a wide range of security issues and can be easily scaled with minimal customization effort required. As data is ingested, QRadar administers automated, real-time security intelligence to swiftly and precisely discover and prioritize threats. The platform will issue alerts with actionable, rich context into developing threats. Security teams and analysts can then rapidly respond to minimize the attackers' strike. The solution will provide a complete view of activity in both cloud-based and on-premise environments as a large amount of data is ingested throughout the enterprise. Additionally, QRadar’s anomaly detection intelligence enables security teams to identify any user behavior changes that could be indicators of potential threats. 

    IBM QRadar Log Manager

    To better help organizations protect themselves against potential security threats, attacks, and breaches, IBM QRadar Log Manager gathers, analyzes, preserves, and reports on security log events using QRadar Sense Analytics. All operating systems and applications, servers, devices, and applications are converted into searchable and actionable intelligent data. QRadar Log Manager then helps organizations meet compliance reporting and monitoring requirements, which can be further upgraded to QRadar SIEM for a more superior level of threat protection.

    Some of QRadar Log Manager’s key features include:

    • Data processing and capture on any security event
    • Disaster recovery options and high availability 
    • Scalability for large enterprises
    • SoftLayer cloud installation capability
    • Advanced threat protection

    Reviews from Real Users

    IBM Security QRadar is a solution of choice among users because it provides a complete solution for security teams by integrating network analysis, log management, user behavior analytics, threat intelligence, and AI-powered investigations into a single solution. Users particularly like having a single window into their network and its ability to be used for larger enterprises.

    Simon T., a cyber security services operations manager at an aerospace/defense firm, notes, "The most valuable thing about QRadar is that you have a single window into your network, SIEM, network flows, and risk management of your assets. If you use Splunk, for instance, then you still need a full packet capture solution, whereas the full packet capture solution is integrated within QRadar. Its application ecosystem makes it very powerful in terms of doing analysis."

    A management executive at a security firm says, "What we like about QRadar and the models that IBM has, is it can go from a small-to-medium enterprise to a larger organization, and it gives you the same value."

    Watson for cyber security can draw security intelligence from millions of security blogs, online forums and white papers - so you can see threats unseen by other systems.
    Sample Customers
    Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
    Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
    Information Not Available
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm22%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Government9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm23%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Security Firm6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization18%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Government6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm20%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Manufacturing Company13%
    Government8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise47%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise59%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business39%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise45%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise30%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise54%
    Buyer's Guide
    IBM Security QRadar vs. IBM Watson for Cyber Security
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. IBM Watson for Cyber Security and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    IBM Security QRadar is ranked 4th in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 198 reviews while IBM Watson for Cyber Security is ranked 45th in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 4 reviews. IBM Security QRadar is rated 8.0, while IBM Watson for Cyber Security is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of IBM Security QRadar writes "A highly stable and scalable solution that provides good technical support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Watson for Cyber Security writes "An innovative and stable product that is well maintained and always up-to-date". IBM Security QRadar is most compared with Splunk Enterprise Security, Wazuh, LogRhythm SIEM, Elastic Security and Sentinel, whereas IBM Watson for Cyber Security is most compared with Splunk Enterprise Security and i-SIEM. See our IBM Security QRadar vs. IBM Watson for Cyber Security report.

    See our list of best Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) vendors.

    We monitor all Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.