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

Binary Defense MDR 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

Binary Defense MDR
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
9th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
8th
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), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (18th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of Binary Defense MDR is 0.6%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Security QRadar1.0%
Binary Defense MDR0.6%
Other98.4%
Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
 

Featured Reviews

Rich Ullom - PeerSpot reviewer
Worth the money, fantastic communication, and fast service with an average response time of about four minutes on an alert
This is my third SOC. I have never had anybody react as well. So, it's hard for me to provide something that they could do better because I'm really happy with them. I just signed another three-year contract with them. I don't find any downside to them, but if I have to put one, it would be consistent manpower or staffing. The only area where the solution can be improved is going to be with people. As they grow, they are struggling with the same thing that every other company is, which is getting talent and getting that talent to stay, but they've just revised their tiering system to go from a flat analyst and manager to a three-tier solution where it goes through two or three before it gets elevated. That seems to have worked out well, so if one level misses it, the next one picks it up, and it works out fine. Consistent staffing is the only challenge they have because when you're hiring level-one analysts, you go through them pretty quickly. You'll probably hire them at 50K or 55K, and after they do it for a year, they find out they can make 85K somewhere else, and they bounce. So, their turnover is a little high, but that's it.
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

"Among the valuable features are the agent, continuous reporting, and dashboard. It has all the features we need and we haven't had to customize it, other than turning on certain features that we wanted."
"Binary Defense's most valuable feature is the 24/7 monitoring and threat hunting. Their team checks the latest breaches and how they're done."
"Binary Defense has a human service department that provides live monitoring for our systems."
"The most valuable part of Binary Defense is its team of cybersecurity analysts. Their analysts filter out the noise and only forward the critical threats that require a response instead of false positives."
"The speed at which their services are reactive is valuable. Nowadays, when a threat hits an endpoint, you've got minutes, not hours or days. Their average response time is about four minutes on an alert. For anything that needs to be sent to us, it's about fourteen minutes, which is pretty good. They're the third SOC that I've used in fifteen years. By far, they are the quickest ones to act. When you're looking at prevention, that's a key factor."
"The customization has been the most valuable aspect and was really the reason we ended up selecting Binary Defense. They worked with us to provide exactly the level of support, features, response, and collaboration we needed."
"The case interface is Binary Defense MDR's most valuable feature."
"With Binary Defense, we don't just get an alert, but also a detailed rundown of why they're alerting us on it. They tell us what was executed, or the username, script, or IP. That way, we're not wasting time investigating."
"The solution is flexible and easy to use."
"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."
"The most valuable feature currently is security behaviors and the pdf files."
"The most valuable feature is the searching capability and real-time operational use."
"The ability to transition from microscopic to macroscopic view, instantly, is very good."
"It is incredibly easy to deploy. All the appliances are flexible in the roles that they serve and are all managed the in the same way."
"The event collector, flow collector, PCAP and SOAR are valuable."
"IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics has easy architecture, has a good portfolio and integration."
 

Cons

"We found a couple of bugs in the user interface."
"I would like to see more frequent check-ins with our security status."
"The most significant area for improvement is in support for non-English speakers; we're a global organization, so many of our users are not English speakers, which can make interacting with them a challenge. There's no Chinese language support, so we must rely on what we can do with the internet. We don't expect Binary Defense to build a language staff, but details can get lost in translation when we assume the whole world speaks English."
"Binary Defense MDR could be even better with additional features, like automatic scans and file quarantine."
"We should be able to isolate devices faster. They should shorten the time between clicking on a device to contain it and carrying out the action. That would be a welcome improvement."
"We found that an earlier version of the agent had high memory usage and that was a bit concerning, but we raised the concern with their support team and they immediately replied that they had noticed the same thing and had a candidate fix already available... it totally fixed the issue."
"It's hard to think of anything that they need to improve on, but just to point out something, I would like to see them provide advanced XDR."
"The current reporting system could benefit from improvement."
"We need more features in order to create rules to detect or to meet some requirements for other areas, for example, catching the event from other authentication tools."
"What needs to be improved in IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics is the user experience. It's not optimal. Some screens are a bit clunky. The solution needs to be more user-friendly."
"There should be easier and wider integration opportunities. There should be more opportunities for integration with CTI info sharing areas. On platforms where you exchange CTI, there should be more visibility connected to what we share, what we can reach, or what options are connected to CTI info sharing. This is one area where they could add value because we cannot integrate it easily with QRadar. If a client has a legacy or already existing solutions for CTI, we cannot ask them to forget it because we cannot guarantee that QRadar is able to deliver everything connected to this area."
"The product does not have a team for investigating malware."
"IBM needs to invest more into the collaboration with other vendors."
"The dashboard is pathetic and it takes a long time to perform a search."
"When it comes to what could be better, it is always what others are trying to do and what is the roadmap. It can have more integration. It should have more flexible RESTful APIs for integration with applications. These are the things that are always in demand for any of the SIEM solutions, not only for QRadar. Integration is ever-evolving. Nowadays, different versions of mobile handsets are there and data is getting scattered. Users are using their personal handsets to keep the data of the organization. So, it should have a more flexible integration, irrespective of the flavor of the firmware and iOS or Android version. It should have an API that can seamlessly get integrated. It should also provide more flexible control and a more advanced or analytical view to see what exactly is happening across the globe or network. From wherever a user is connecting and accessing the enterprise data, it should give real-time visibility and predictive visibility about what exactly is happening. These things are already there, but there should be more advanced control in terms of managing the security."
"The product needs to improve its GUI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Binary Defense has changed its pricing model from being primarily based on the volume of data to one based on escalations and incidents they handle."
"It has been good. We have saved money, and we have a better product."
"The solution's price is spot on; if anything, it's slightly below the norm for most services. Compared to building the same team internally, it would cost more to create the same amount of capability than what we get from an external team. Price-wise, Binary Defense is in a great spot."
"It's valued at the right price. Even with the number of endpoints we have, we don't feel that it's a lot more than any competitor. In fact, it might be less expensive when you look at the fact that you're getting a full flex SOC out of it along with the tools."
"The pricing is very good. They are definitely competitive and they were lower at the time that we went with them."
"From the initial cost that Binary Defense came in with, we pared it down quite a bit over the course of 30 or 60 days. My leadership would say that their cost was high, but realistically, they were in line with the market."
"After we acquired this platform, we met with a number of different vendors. Binary Defense came in with a proposal that was surprisingly affordable. In fact, we were able to recoup the cost of their services within a short period of time. This is because Binary Defense is able to provide the same level of security as a team of two or three in-house analysts but at a fraction of the cost. As a result, Binary Defense is saving us an estimated $250,000 to $300,000 per year."
"Binary Defense MDR is priced competitively and may be slightly lower than CrowdStrike."
"We pay approximately $40,000 to use the solution annually. This solution is a lot less expensive than Splunk."
"QRadar's price is reasonable compared to LogRhythm."
"think the pricing is quite flexible."
"Pricing (based on EPS) will be more accurate."
"Only enterprise businesses can afford the tool."
"IBM has subscriptions plans that run for one year."
"IBM QRadar is a little bit expensive compared to other products."
"The pricing is always fine."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solutions are best for your needs.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
18%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business89
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise102
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Binary Defense MDR?
The most valuable feature is reviewing tickets and the notes added by technicians.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Binary Defense MDR?
It has been good. We have saved money, and we have a better product. We are a company that has become an enterprise from a small medium business in two years. Our company passed a certain dollar ma...
What needs improvement with Binary Defense MDR?
We are going to have a meeting with them the following Monday. It will be our first quarterly business review. Half of it is going to be looking at new products and new functions that they are brin...
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

Binary Defense Vision, Binary Defense Managed Detection and Response, Binary Defense Managed Detection & Response
IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Securitas USA, Black Hills Energy, Lincoln Electric,The J.M. Smuckers Company, New York Community Bank, State of Connecticut, NCR
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Find out what your peers are saying about Binary Defense MDR vs. IBM Security QRadar and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.