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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
65
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (10th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (16th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (7th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (9th)
IBM Watson for Cyber Security
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
58th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 5.3%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Watson for Cyber Security is 0.3%, up from 0.2% 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 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

"It is scalable."
"It's simple and easy to use."
"We like Elastic Security because it's a REST API-based solution. That's the primary reason we use it."
"The solution has a good community surrounding it for lots of helpful documentation for troubleshooting purposes."
"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."
"Elastic has a lot of beats, such as Winlogbeat and Filebeat. Beats are the agents that have to be installed on the terminals to send the data. When we install beats or Elastic agents on every terminal, they don't overload the terminals. In other SIEM solutions such as Splunk or QRadar, when beats or agents are installed on endpoints, they are very heavy for the terminals. They consume a lot of power of the terminals, whereas Elastic agents hardly consume any power and don't overload the terminals."
"The most valuable feature is the search function, which allows me to go directly to the target to see the specific line a customer is searching for."
"The most valuable features are the speed, detail, and visualization. It has the latest standards."
"The most valuable feature of this product is innovation, where the research and upgrading of technology never ends."
"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."
 

Cons

"In terms of improvement, there could be more automation in responding to and evaluating detections."
"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."
"We had issues with scalability. Logstash was not scaling and aggregation was getting delayed. We moved to Fluentd making our stack from ELK to EFK."
"We'd like better premium support."
"Continuous upgrades can be quite inconvenient. My security testing team continuously reports vulnerabilities, and we have to fix and update the versions frequently."
"It would be better if Elastic Security had less storage for data. My customers do not like this. Other vendors have local support in different countries, but Elastic Security doesn't. I would like to have Operational Technology (OT) security in the next release."
"The biggest challenge has been related to the implementation."
"In terms of what could be improved with Elastic, in some use cases, especially on the advanced level, they are not ready made, so you'll have to write some scripts."
"In the future, I would like to see threat intelligence included."
"They need to continue to build the AI capabilities."
"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

"There is no charge for using the open-source version."
"This is an open-source product, so there are no costs."
"The price is reasonable. It probably costs the same as ArcSight and LogRhythm SIEM. FortiSIEM might cost less than Elastic Security. There are no hidden or additional costs."
"The solution is not expensive and costs around ten dollars a month."
"The product offers an amazing pricing structure. Price-wise, the product is very competitive."
"It is easy to deploy, easy to use, and you get everything you need to become operational with it, and have nothing further to pay unless you want the OLED plugin."
"Its price is fine. Its licensing works on a yearly basis. We have to renew the license every year. I also have a good experience with Darktrace. When we buy Darktrace, we get training free of cost, which is not there in Elastic. We have to pay extra for training. There is certainly room for improvement."
"Compared to other products such as Dynatrace, this is one of the cheaper options."
"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%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
No data available
 

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?
I am satisfied with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing cost. It is a pure 10.
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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: July 2025.
865,140 professionals have used our research since 2012.