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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)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
AI-SOC (7th), AI-Powered Security Automation (2nd)
Elastic Security
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
5th
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) (14th), 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) (15th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (6th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (9th)
 

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."
"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."
"Using that one piece of AI, we auto-closed 511 cases in quarter four alone."
"What I appreciate most about Torq is that it is an essential part of our system."
"The solution's most valuable features are anomaly detection and connectivity reporting."
"The stability of the solution is good."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the prevention methods and the incident alerts."
"ELK Logstash is easy and fast, at least for the initial setup with the out of box uses."
"The most valuable feature is the scalability. We are in Indonesia, more engineers understand Elastic Security here. So it is easier to scale and also develop. In features, the discovery to query all the logs is very important to us. It is very easy, especially with the query function and the feature to generate alerts and create tools. Sometimes we use the alert security dashboard to monitor our clients."
"I like the indexing of the logs."
"The feature that we have found the most valuable is scalability."
"I can look at events from more than one source across multiple different locations and find patterns or anomalies. The machine learning capabilities are helpful, and I can create rules for notifications to be more proactive rather than responding after something has gone wrong."
"The most valuable thing about QRadar is that you have a single window into your network, SIEM, network flows, and risk management of your assets. If you use Splunk, for instance, then you still need a full packet capture solution, whereas the full packet capture solution is integrated within QRadar. Its application ecosystem makes it very powerful in terms of doing analysis."
"I like the graphical interface. It's so good and easy."
"The initial setup of QRadar is not complex because we have done it before and we are used to the development. It is getting easier all the time."
"The scalability is awesome, because QRadar includes other solutions in the same console."
"The solution is quite flexible."
"We find predictive analysis capabilities valuable."
"There are a lot of features in QRadar. App Exchange is the most valuable feature. User behavior analytics (UBA) is also a very good feature. Watson is also there, but we are not currently using Watson. It is versatile and quite easy. It also has an all-in-one-box feature and good integration with AWS."
"No doubt about it, the solution is extremely stable."
 

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 stability, I have noticed some lagging, crashing, and downtime, which is one of my largest gripes."
"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."
"The problem with ELK is it's difficult to administer. When you have a problem, it can be very, very difficult to rebuild indexes."
"The interface could be more user friendly because it is sometimes hard to deal with."
"Email notification should be done the same way as Logentries does it."
"This type of monitoring is not very mature just yet. We need more real-time information in a way that's easier to manage."
"I want to find an automatic security system in the tool, like a SOAR solution. I am looking forward to seeing a SOAR system in the tool."
"One thing they could add is a quick step to enable users who don't have a solid background to build a dashboard and quickly search, without difficulty."
"In terms of improvement, there could be more automation in responding to and evaluating detections."
"It is difficult to anticipate and understand the space utilization, so more clarity there would be great."
"The price of IBM Security QRadar is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Do your research before implementing it, because it is tough to implement."
"Search capability and indexing still lag behind competitors. We also need to see improved rule based access controls and rule/event tuning."
"It's resource-intensive."
"In a future release, the solution could provide malware analysis."
"QRadar needs a lot of fine tuning"
"I think that the search speed of this solution could be improved."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution is free."
"We are using the free, open-source version of this solution."
"The tool's pricing is flexible and comes at unit cost. You don't have to pay for everything."
"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 pricing is in the middle. I think it is not an expensive experience if we compare it with big names, for example, QRadar, and also Oxide. I think Elastic Security is quite cheap. I would rate the pricing of this solution a five out of ten."
"We use the open-source version, so there is no charge for this solution."
"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."
"It could be cheaper, but the value itself is far more important for us than the price. Typically, our clients have yearly subscriptions."
"It's not expensive for the resources that it gives you."
"In terms of additional costs, it depends on the subscription that you choose. There are plenty of options to choose from."
"There are different types of subscriptions available. We were on an annual subscription, but our customers typically choose the two years subscription option."
"On a scale of one to ten, I rate the price a one, where one is an extremely expensive product, and ten is a cheap product."
"Our licensing costs for this solution is on a yearly basis."
"The price could be better. I bought a subscription for three years."
"Pricing (based on EPS) will be more accurate."
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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
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
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: February 2026.
882,813 professionals have used our research since 2012.