Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM Security QRadar vs OpenText Enterprise Security Manager vs Splunk Enterprise Security 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Security QRadar is cost-effective, enhancing security while reducing manpower, with positive feedback on financial returns.
Sentiment score
8.9
OpenText Enterprise Security Manager's ROI is challenging to quantify but enhances threat detection, compliance, and organizational security efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.0
Splunk Enterprise Security enhances operations, reduces troubleshooting time, and improves visibility, offering positive ROI despite high costs.
With SOAR, the workflow takes one minute or less to complete the analysis.
Investing this amount was very much worth it for my organization.
The documentation for Splunk Enterprise Security is outstanding. It is well-organized and easy to access.
I have noticed a return on investment with Splunk Enterprise Security, as it delivers substantial value for money.
Customers see the value in investing in this solution, particularly when it helps resolve issues quickly, turning a potential 20-hour response into one hour.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
IBM Security QRadar support is praised for expertise but criticized for slow response times and inconsistent service quality.
Sentiment score
5.7
OpenText Enterprise Security Manager's service is satisfactory but faces issues with technical support consistency and problem management resolution.
Sentiment score
6.6
Splunk Enterprise Security support is praised for its knowledge, but concerns exist about response times and initial contact expertise.
They assist with advanced issues, such as hardware or other problems, that are not part of standard operations.
Support needs to understand the issue first, then escalate it to the engineering team.
The problem escalates through level one to level three, and then the process starts over with Novo again.
If I raise a P1 or P0 ticket, the response time is often delayed by four to eight hours.
If you want to write your own correlation rules, it is very difficult to do, and you need Splunk's support to write new correlation rules for the SIEM tool.
They try to close issues as soon as possible, often just offering documentation links.
They are responsive and effectively resolve issues.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
IBM Security QRadar is highly regarded for its scalability, with easy vertical and horizontal expansion and seamless cloud deployment.
Sentiment score
7.1
OpenText Enterprise Security Manager offers strong scalability but is costly, requiring expertise and careful budgeting for extensive deployments.
Sentiment score
7.6
Splunk Enterprise Security excels in scalability; however, costs and infrastructure needs can impact on-premise and cloud deployments.
For EPS license, if you increase or exceed the EPS license, you cannot receive events.
It lacks some capabilities compared to other tools available in the market.
They struggle a bit with pure virtual environments, but in terms of how much they can handle, it is pretty good.
It is easy to scale.
It's big in a Central European context, and small from a Splunk North American context.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
IBM Security QRadar is reliable but stability depends on correct deployment, capacity, and system resources, with minor update issues.
Sentiment score
7.1
OpenText Enterprise Security Manager is reliable but depends on proper setup; issues are rare when optimized correctly.
Sentiment score
7.8
Splunk Enterprise Security is stable and reliable, requiring careful capacity planning and monitoring for optimal performance.
I think QRadar is stable and currently satisfies my needs.
The product has been stable so far.
The stability of ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is not very robust.
They test it very thoroughly before release, and our customers have Splunk running for months without issues.
It provides a stable environment but needs to integrate with ITSM platforms to achieve better visibility.
I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Security QRadar needs UI improvement, better integration, enhanced detection, streamlined operations, and customization for cost-effective functionality.
OpenText Enterprise Security Manager needs UI upgrades, performance improvements, better integration, support, deployment, analytics, and scalability enhancements.
Splunk Enterprise Security requires better user guidance, intuitive tools, AI improvements, affordable pricing, and enhanced performance and integration.
We receive logs from different types of devices and need a way to correlate them effectively.
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.
The integration aspect of ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) needs improvement.
Improving the infrastructure behind Splunk Enterprise Security is vital—enhanced cores, CPUs, and memory should be prioritized to support better processing power.
Splunk Enterprise Security is not something that automatically picks things; you have to set up use cases, update data models, and link the right use cases to the right data models for those detections to happen.
For any future enhancements or features, such as MLTK and SOAR platform integration, we need more visibility, training, and certification for the skilled professionals who are working.
 

Setup Cost

IBM Security QRadar is costly but efficient, offering flexible pricing, EPS discounts, and potential cost savings with negotiation.
OpenText Enterprise Security Manager pricing, while high, is justified by its robust features and deemed competitive for enterprise needs.
Splunk Enterprise Security can be costly due to data volumes, but offers extensive features and potential ROI for enterprises.
Splunk is more expensive than IBM Security QRadar.
ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is very cheap compared to other tools.
I saw clients spend two million dollars a year just feeding data into the Splunk solution.
The platform requires significant financial investment and resources, making it expensive despite its comprehensive features.
Splunk is priced higher than other solutions.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Security QRadar excels in log management, scalability, compliance, and integration, enhancing comprehensive security management with ease.
OpenText Enterprise Security Manager offers powerful integration, real-time threat detection, customization, and robust event management for security teams.
Splunk Enterprise Security excels in log management, swift searches, scalability, user-friendly interface, integration, and compliance, mitigating risks efficiently.
Recently, I faced an incident, a cyber incident, and it was detected in real time.
IBM is seeking information about IBM QRadar because a part of QRadar, especially in the cloud, has been sold to Palo Alto.
We have FortiSOAR and IBM Resilient for IBM Security QRadar orchestration.
The ability to interpret data is highly valued.
This capability is useful for performance monitoring and issue identification.
I assess Splunk Enterprise Security's insider threat detection capabilities for helping to find unknown threats and anomalous user behavior as great.
Splunk Enterprise Security provides the foundation for unified threat detection, investigation, and response, enabling fast identification of critical issues.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 7.7%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Enterprise Security Manager is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 9.4%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

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.
Gaurav Ranade - PeerSpot reviewer
Excels at performing regression and correlation on the data
ArcSight is a legacy technology, and many customers want AI-powered technologies integrated with it. That hasn't been done yet, but ArcSight needs to catch up with the newer solutions and technologies available in the market. It can't just rely on the legacy technology from 2010 or 2012. You can't run that in 2024. It's a legacy technology with its own limitations. Customers often face issues that other software or newer solutions can resolve easily. That's the main challenge we face from customers right now. So, the only concerns are that AI needs to be integrated and scalability improved. Those are the main areas to be improved.
ROBERT-CHRISTIAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Has many predefined correlation rules and is brilliant for investigation and log analysis
It is very complicated to write your own correlation rules without the help of Splunk support. What Splunk could do better is to create an API to the standard SIEM tools, such as Microsoft Sentinel. The idea would be to make it less painful. In ELK Stack, Kibana is the query language with which you can search log files. I believe Splunk has also a query language in which they search their log files, but once you have identified the log file that you want to use for further security correlation, you want to very quickly transport that into your SIEM tool, such as Microsoft Sentinel. That is something that Splunk could make a little bit less painful because it is a lot of effort to find that log file and forward it. An API with Microsoft Sentinel or a similar SIEM tool would be a good idea.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions are best for your needs.
862,077 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

VS
Feb 26, 2015
HP ArcSight vs. IBM QRadar vs. ​McAfee Nitro vs. Splunk vs. RSA Security vs. LogRhythm
We at Infosecnirvana.com have done several posts on SIEM. After the Dummies Guide on SIEM, we are following it up with a SIEM Product Comparison – 101 deck. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Let me know what you think by posting your comments below. The key products compared here are…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

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, friendli...
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 a...
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.
Which is the best SIEM tool for a mid-sized financial services firm: Arcsight or Securonix?
In my market, a lot of financial companies had or have an ArcSight installation. Just because in former times it was ...
What do you like most about ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM)?
We utilize ArcSight ESM for real-time threat detection in our organization. We have custom rules that we've developed...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM)?
ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) is very cheap compared to other tools. It is worth the investment if you a...
What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?
It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingest...
How does Splunk compare with Azure Monitor?
Splunk handles a high amount of data very well. We use Splunk to capture information and as an aggregator for monitor...
What do you like most about Splunk?
There are a lot of third-party applications that can be installed.
 

Also Known As

IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
Micro Focus ArcSight, HPE ArcSight, ArcSight
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Lake Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bank AlJazira, Banca Intesa, and Obrela.
Splunk has more than 7,000 customers spread across over 90 countries. These customers include Telenor, UniCredit, ideeli, McKenney's, Tesco, and SurveyMonkey.
Find out what your peers are saying about Splunk, Wazuh, Microsoft and others in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM). Updated: June 2025.
862,077 professionals have used our research since 2012.