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Elastic Security vs IBM Security QRadar comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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
5.9
Elastic Security provides positive ROI in 18-24 months, affordable for SMEs, though premium support may be lacking.
Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Security QRadar is cost-effective, enhancing security while reducing manpower, with positive feedback on financial returns.
It does not require hefty security budgets and can be deployed for enterprise security effectively.
With SOAR, the workflow takes one minute or less to complete the analysis.
Investing this amount was very much worth it for my organization.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Elastic Security support varies; open-source praised for community help, commercial support seen as responsive but with some improvement needed.
Sentiment score
6.1
IBM Security QRadar support is praised for expertise but criticized for slow response times and inconsistent service quality.
Providing necessary assistance efficiently.
Most of the time when my team encounters issues, they receive responses within 24 hours.
This process can result in outages lasting three to four hours.
They assist with advanced issues, such as hardware or other problems, that are not part of standard operations.
The problem escalates through level one to level three, and then the process starts over with Novo again.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Elastic Security is praised for scalability, easily supporting small to large businesses and adaptable through configuration adjustments.
Sentiment score
7.4
IBM Security QRadar is highly regarded for its scalability, with easy vertical and horizontal expansion and seamless cloud deployment.
It allows us to think about specific use cases, such as gathering malicious IPs in a single view and analyzing threats based on geolocation.
For EPS license, if you increase or exceed the EPS license, you cannot receive events.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Elastic Security is stable and reliable, but requires proper setup and resource management; frequent updates can disrupt some users.
Sentiment score
7.6
IBM Security QRadar is reliable but stability depends on correct deployment, capacity, and system resources, with minor update issues.
In terms of stability, I would rate Elastic a solid eight out of ten.
I think QRadar is stable and currently satisfies my needs.
The product has been stable so far.
 

Room For Improvement

Elastic Security faces challenges in usability, integration, scalability, and awareness, requiring enhancements in features and user support.
IBM Security QRadar needs UI improvement, better integration, enhanced detection, streamlined operations, and customization for cost-effective functionality.
My security testing team continuously reports vulnerabilities, and we have to fix and update the versions frequently.
CrowdStrike and Defender have more established threat intelligence integration due to having a larger client base.
Elastic Security consumes a lot of resources, requiring a substantial deployment setup.
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.
This would help identify critical or high-priority alarms in QRadar.
 

Setup Cost

Elastic Security is cost-effective for SMEs but advanced features and lack of included support can increase costs.
IBM Security QRadar is costly but efficient, offering flexible pricing, EPS discounts, and potential cost savings with negotiation.
This is beneficial for SMEs as they do not need extensive budgets for security solutions.
The pricing is reasonable, especially for Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), making it a viable option for businesses building their security infrastructure.
Elastic Security is considered cost-effective, especially at lower EPS levels.
Splunk is more expensive than IBM Security QRadar.
 

Valuable Features

Elastic Security offers rapid search, scalability, and affordability with strong machine learning and customizable dashboards for efficient threat detection.
IBM Security QRadar excels in log management, scalability, compliance, and integration, enhancing comprehensive security management with ease.
The platform provides more visibility and requires less effort in monitoring.
We require rapid processing speed for alerts and event data, and Elastic Security is very efficient at handling this level of data.
Elastic Security is as flexible and configurable as Microsoft Sentinel.
Recently, I faced an incident, a cyber incident, and it was detected in real time.
We have FortiSOAR and IBM Resilient for IBM Security QRadar orchestration.
IBM is seeking information about IBM QRadar because a part of QRadar, especially in the cloud, has been sold to Palo Alto.
 

Categories and Ranking

Elastic Security
Ranking in Log Management
10th
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
5th
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
16th
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
7th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
9th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Log Management
5th
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
4th
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
18th
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
4th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
209
Ranking in other categories
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 5.9%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 8.2%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

SyedAli17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralized monitoring improves security posture through rapid data processing
The processing part of Elastic Security ( /products/elastic-security-reviews ) is very interesting for us since we handle almost 7,000 to 8,000 alerts per minute. We require rapid processing speed for alerts and event data, and Elastic Security is very efficient at handling this level of data. Additionally, Elastic Security helps improve the security posture of Pakistan through centralized visibility and real-time processing.
Md. Shahriar Hussain - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time incident detection and user-friendly dashboard benefit daily operations
There are many types of AI, and this AI is very limited in SQL and features. There may be potential for improvement. So far, it seems very limited. It shows some good features in the correlation part, but I think there is room for improvement. For instance, when creating rules, it can suggest more rules, reducing the effort needed. If AI-related support can suggest rules and integrate with existing security devices like MD, IPS, this SIM can create more relevant rules. Sometimes logs I receive don't mean anything, and I need technical stakeholders to share or forward logs, but these are sometimes inadequate. Keywords can help identify insufficient logs. I often lack time to verify logs. Sharing false positive results could be reduced to help my team.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions are best for your needs.
856,874 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
16%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Educational Organization
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
What do you like most about Elastic Security?
Elastic provides the capability to index quickly due to the reverse indexes it offers. This data is crucial as it contains critical information. The reverse index allows fast data indexing because ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
Since Elastic Security is community-based, it does not require significant costs. This is beneficial for SMEs as they do not need extensive budgets for security solutions.
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

Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Security vs. IBM Security QRadar and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
856,874 professionals have used our research since 2012.