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Elastic Security vs IBM Watson for Cyber Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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

Elastic Security
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (7th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (15th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (6th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (8th)
IBM Watson for Cyber Security
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
55th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 6.3%, down from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Watson for Cyber Security is 0.2%, down from 0.3% 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.
Elena Stefanovska - PeerSpot reviewer
Knowledgeable support, reliable, and useful compliance policies
IBM Watson for Cyber Security can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud and it is used as a SIEM solution 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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product has huge integration varieties available."
"ELK Logstash is easy and fast, at least for the initial setup with the out of box uses."
"ELK documentation is very good, so never needed to contact technical support."
"The most valuable thing is that this solution is widely used for work management and research. It's easy to jump into the security use case with the same technology."
"The performance is good and it is faster than IBM QRadar."
"We've found the initial setup to be quite straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to collect authentication information from service providers."
"We like Elastic Security because it's a REST API-based solution. That's the primary reason we use it."
"IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very stable."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of this product is innovation, where the research and upgrading of technology never ends."
 

Cons

"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."
"If you compare this with CrowdStrike or Carbon Black, they can improve."
"The solution's basic setup takes time, and a lot of effort is required from the beginning to make it actually work."
"We are paying dearly for the guy who is working on the ELK Stack. That knowledge is quite rare and hard to come by. For difficulty and availability of resources, I would rate it a five out of 10."
"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."
"If the documentation were improved and made more clear for beginners, or even professionals, then we would be more attracted to this solution."
"The solution needs to be more reactive to investigations. We need to be able to detect and prevent any attacks before it can damage our infrastructure. Currently, this solution doesn't offer that."
"Elastic Security's maintenance is hard and its scalability is a challenge. There are complications in scaling and upgrading. The solution needs to also provide periodic upgrade checks."
"They need to continue to build the AI capabilities."
"In the future, I would like to see threat intelligence included."
"The dashboard could improve in IBM Watson for Cyber Security."
"This is an expensive product, so making it more cost-effective would be an improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Elastic Security is free to use."
"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."
"The solution is not expensive and costs around ten dollars a month."
"I find it better than Splunk in terms of cost-effectiveness. For cost-effectiveness, I would rate it a nine out of 10."
"Affordable but with additional costs"
"Compared to other tools, Elastic Security is a cheaper solution."
"We are using the free, open-source version of this solution."
"The base product is open-source but if you need advanced security features then you need to pay for the subscription. Elastic Security's price is reasonable in some cases and in other cases it's not."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Media Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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.
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Also Known As

Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Security vs. IBM Watson for Cyber Security and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.