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Elastic Security vs IBM Security QRadar comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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

Torq
Sponsored
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
AI-SOC (3rd), AI-Powered Security Automation (2nd)
Elastic Security
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (9th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (15th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (8th)
IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
217
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (7th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (3rd), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (2nd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (16th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (6th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

Nimrod Vardi - PeerSpot reviewer
Global IT Director at OpenWeb
Automation workflows have transformed our IT, enabling secure just-in-time access control
We work with them quite often, so we have a direct line regarding areas in Torq that have room for improvement. If we have a feature request, we can request it. I do not have anything in mind at the moment. We were a design partner for a short while, so we feel that they listen and that users of the system have an impact on the way the system is designed for the better. They have a new community, which is something that I personally suggested years ago. There are many people like me in different places and they might have already built the workflow that I need. Having the option to share workflows or to jump on a thread and say I have this need, did anyone ever build a workflow for it, is amazing. Someone would jump in and say yes, sure, here, take this workflow. I think this is an amazing thing and I really hope that the community will come alive because I think this is really powerful. This is something that I already suggested and it did happen eventually, and I am quite happy with it. I do not have any specific feature in mind that I have a need for at the moment.
Laurentiu Popescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Product Officer at ClusterPower
Has improved threat detection with deep log analysis and streamlined investigation workflows
The most useful features I find in Elastic Security are the forensic ones that allow us to carry deeper analysis into the logs for in-depth investigations, and the dashboards, with the reporting dashboard being quite user-friendly. Elastic Security is quite good at identifying threats, as it is part of the deep investigation tool that I mentioned before. Unless we need to look further into a certain log, we can carry out a deeper analysis and forensics on those particular logs. I can assess the impact of Elastic Security's real-time data analysis on our threat response efficiency as working pretty good. We are looking for real-time analysis because we have a continuous inflow of logs from different sources: from our cloud, from Active Directory, from our network. So it works pretty well.
HarshBhardiya - PeerSpot reviewer
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Have managed daily asset and alert monitoring effectively but have encountered limitations with manual processes and interface usability
It's still very manual and doesn't work on its own. It's still in an early stage and not on par where we can consider it a really successful detection system. The accuracy is not there. The UI could be better when compared to Sentinels where we can use flags and tagging. It could be much more user-friendly. IBM Security QRadar has all features and is fully competitive with other SIEM tools, but when it comes to user-friendliness, a new user takes time to get used to it. More intuitive, user-friendly interfaces and more helpful documentation would be beneficial. The query searching and data fetching could be faster. In large to very large organizations with around 5,000 or 6,000 assets or beyond, even with proper configurations and RAM and hardware backing up, the query is fairly slow.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Once I started to use the system and I saw the potential, it changed all of our work in IT."
"Using that one piece of AI, we auto-closed 511 cases in quarter four alone."
"Since we started working with Torq, I am handling much fewer alerts, it is becoming really easy for me to handle an alert, I have all the information that I need, I do not need to connect to different vendors to receive this information, and the main thing I got from Torq is time, which now helps me to build another automated system and learn."
"As an analyst, it has demonstrated potential to reduce workforce requirements and time needed for related activities."
"Any request that comes in, regardless of how complex it is, I can accomplish it with Torq."
"If I review about 100 vendors that I might work with, Torq is definitely in the top five that gave me personally investment back, just because every bit of effort I put into Torq eventually became a workflow that gave it back to me."
"What I appreciate most about Torq is that it is an essential part of our system."
"The visualization is very good."
"It's a good platform and the very best in the current market. We looked at the Forester report from December 2022 where it was said to be a leader."
"The solution is compatible with the cloud-native environment and they can adapt to it faster."
"The product has huge integration varieties available."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the prevention methods and the incident alerts."
"We like Elastic Security because it's a REST API-based solution. That's the primary reason we use it."
"It's open-source and free to use."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to collect authentication information from service providers."
"This solution has allowed us to correlate logs from multiple sources."
"The rule engine is very easy to use — very flexible."
"Vulnerability data, network data and the like, are part of correlation and detection."
"It has a logical, user-friendly GUI."
"The most valuable features of IBM Security QRadar are flexibility, IBM support, and scalability."
"The playbook engine is flexible and allows for the graphical visualization of processes, enabling the implementation of dynamic playbooks for incident response or testing."
"IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson is a stable solution."
"The support is very good. We get support whenever we need it. Sometimes they respond immediately and sometimes it will be within 24 hours. We can ask them to please do it right away and they can get a request done within an hour or two."
 

Cons

"Even now, we have workflows that are in production that use AI steps and I get different results, making it unusable to some degree."
"Regarding the pricing of Torq, I would say it is expensive."
"We have MCP that we are working with our cloud security platform, and we wanted to connect this MCP to the case management."
"It was able to capture data but was unable to differentiate between the agent hostname we are using and the hostname that resides on the back end of the Internet."
"The initial deployment of Torq was not easy."
"Regarding stability, I have noticed some lagging, crashing, and downtime, which is one of my largest gripes."
"Improvements in Elastic Security could include refining and normalizing queries to make them more user-friendly, enhancing the user experience with better documentation, and addressing any latency issues."
"This solution is very hard to implement."
"There should be a simulation environment to check whether my Elastic implementation is functioning perfectly fine. Other solutions have their own Android and iOS applications that I can install on my mobile so that I am continuously connected to the SIEM."
"An area for improvement in Elastic Security is the pricing. It could be better. Right now, when you increase the volume of logs to be collected, the price also increases a lot."
"Technical support could respond faster."
"The solution should generate an automatic product that integrates with ELK Stack to use artificial intelligence."
"The process of designing dashboards is a little cumbersome in Kibana. Unless you are an expert, you will not be able to use it. The process should be pretty straightforward. The authentication feature is what we are looking for. We would love to have a central authentication system in the open-source edition without the need for a license or an enterprise license. If they can give at least a simple authentication system within a company. In a large organization, authentication is very essential for security because logs can contain a lot of confidential data. Therefore, an authentication feature for who accesses it should be there."
"If the documentation were improved and made more clear for beginners, or even professionals, then we would be more attracted to this solution."
"Improving the integration with IBM Server for MetaMask for correlation rules would be beneficial. Currently, I use Sentinel in Azure, and I would prefer creating one rule to roll it out to both Sentinel and QRadar. However, this is not possible because QRadar lacks this capability."
"The solution lacks vendor support."
"I would like for them to develop a detection management solution. It does not have a detecting management solution in it, you have to buy it as it is, on top of the extended solution."
"The released patch quality is poor. IBM should test those patches on their side, not on the client's side."
"Pricing model could be more cost-effective."
"The tech support is not that good."
"The solution is clunky."
"The threat detection needs improvement, they have many false positives."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Compared to other products such as Dynatrace, this is one of the cheaper options."
"Compared to other tools, Elastic Security is a cheaper solution."
"The licensing cost of Elastic Security is based on the daily ingestion rate. I can't recall the exact figure, but for 10GB of log action daily, it would cost around $20,000."
"This is an open-source product, so there are no costs."
"The product offers an amazing pricing structure. Price-wise, the product is very competitive."
"When compared to other products, the price is average or on the low side."
"I can say that the product is cheaply priced."
"The solution is not expensive and costs around ten dollars a month."
"The maintenance costs are high."
"Customers have to purchase a license based on the number of users, devices, and applications they want to protect. It allows you to take a license on a subscription basis for three years or five years."
"The solution comes with a high price tag, while some of the competitors provide identical functionality in their offerings at no extra cost."
"There is a license required for this solution."
"Licensing is very expensive, IBM QRadar is a very expensive solution. If you want to minimize costs then IBM QRadar is not for you."
"It's too expensive."
"I think my company pays for the license yearly."
"I feel that the price is reasonable but compared to other products that are on the market, such as an offering by Microsoft, it is more expensive."
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Comparison Review

VS
Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business91
Midsize Enterprise39
Large Enterprise105
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Torq?
We do not utilize the AI features that much. When it comes to general AI features of Torq, we are just slowly startin...
What is your primary use case for Torq?
Torq markets itself as a security tool, and we do use them for security, but not in the traditional sense they market...
What advice do you have for others considering Torq?
I would rate Torq an eight overall. I feel that Torq is as good as the effort you put into it. The limitations are ve...
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 time...
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 con...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
I am satisfied with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing cost. It is a pure 10.
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?
Pricing and the license of EPS were managed by the governance team. I was not responsible for managing those. I was s...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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: March 2026.
884,328 professionals have used our research since 2012.