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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
6.4
Number of Reviews
6
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

"As an analyst, it has demonstrated potential to reduce workforce requirements and time needed for related activities."
"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."
"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."
"Any request that comes in, regardless of how complex it is, I can accomplish it with Torq."
"What I appreciate most about Torq is that it is an essential part of our system."
"We chose the product based on the ability to scan for malware using a malware behavioral model as opposed to just a traditional hash-based antivirus. Therefore, it's not as intensive."
"Elastic Security offers advanced features such as machine learning and integration with ChatGPT."
"It's not very complicated to install Elastic."
"What customers found most valuable in Elastic Security feature-wise is the search capability, in particular, the way of writing the search query and the speed of searching for results."
"Elastic Security is very easy to adapt."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is that it is more flexible than AlienVault."
"The scalability is good. It can be scaled easily in the production environment."
"It is the best open-source product for people working in SO, managing and analyzing logs."
"In terms of the most valuable features, the log collections and log processing mechanisms are good. They have good dashboards."
"In addition to using this solution for our security operations center, we are using it for our other customers."
"IBM QRadar has improved my organization by introducing many functions. It collects logs from all of our systems in the organization and has functioned very well. It alerts and correlates the aggregate events or offenses we receive through all the applications we use."
"The solution is relatively easy to use."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable features of IBM Security QRadar are flexibility, IBM support, and scalability."
"It integrates very easily with other solutions. The solution is flexible. We can add anything to it, as it is a good companion to other tools."
"This solution has allowed us to correlate logs from multiple sources."
 

Cons

"The initial deployment of Torq was not easy."
"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."
"Regarding the pricing of Torq, I would say it is expensive."
"Regarding stability, I have noticed some lagging, crashing, and downtime, which is one of my largest gripes."
"Even now, we have workflows that are in production that use AI steps and I get different results, making it unusable to some degree."
"Authentication is not a default in Kibana. We need to have another tool to have authentication and authorization. These two should be part of Kibana."
"In terms of improvement, there could be more automation in responding to and evaluating detections."
"If the documentation were improved and made more clear for beginners, or even professionals, then we would be more attracted to this solution."
"Continuous upgrades can be quite inconvenient. My security testing team continuously reports vulnerabilities, and we have to fix and update the versions frequently."
"If you compare this with CrowdStrike or Carbon Black, they can improve."
"I do not have any specific recommendations for improvements in Elastic Security, but I feel that the AI module should get more mature."
"I think because we are a cybersecurity company, the thing that can be improved is the prebuilt tools, especially quality. Compared to its competitor, they still have fewer prebuilt security rules. Elastic Security, in terms of generating alerts, cannot group the same products into one another. Even though the alerts are the same, they still generate them one by one. So, it is very noisy in our dashboard. I would like the Elastic Security admin to group all the same alarms into one alarm so that our dashboard is not noisy."
"The biggest challenge has been related to the implementation."
"It is not app based."
"The technical support is poor. Mostly because when I open a PMR for IBM, I am stuck with Level 1 staff. As an engineer, nothing that I am bringing them does not require Level 2 or Level 3 support."
"Do your research before implementing it, because it is tough to implement."
"The implementation and configuration are not easy."
"The only problem is that if you have too many events that occur, then the storage capacity becomes a problem. We would need to increase the storage capacity."
"In terms of additional features, a mobile app would be nice. Also, the reporting is definitely okay, but you have to make sure that everybody with different roles can understand it. There is room for improvement in the reporting."
"QVM is another instance where they need to revise the vulnerability scoring and the proper remediation details."
"They need to improve their threat intelligence feed and they need to improve their user behavior analytics modules."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"This is an open-source product, so there are no costs."
"Elastic Security is free to use."
"I can say that the product is cheaply priced."
"Compared to other tools, Elastic Security is a cheaper solution."
"When compared to other products, the price is average or on the low side."
"We use the open-source version, so there is no charge for this solution."
"Affordable but with additional costs"
"An X-Force feed is free with QRadar."
"Go through a vulnerability assessment review for price breaks. A virtualized solution will also cut down on cost."
"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."
"QRadar is quite expensive. It wouldn't be worth it for a small business..."
"The tool's on-premise version is expensive. However, it is cheaper than Splunk. The hybrid model offers shared instances for customers, which is not expensive. Customers with a limited budget can opt for it. You can get premium support with licenses. However, if you need customized integration, you need to buy it."
"The pricing is higher but cheaper than others and there are no additional costs."
"The solution comes with a high price tag, while some of the competitors provide identical functionality in their offerings at no extra cost."
"It's too 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%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
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.
883,896 professionals have used our research since 2012.