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Fortinet FortiAnalyzer vs IBM Security QRadar vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.9
Fortinet FortiAnalyzer offers high ROI with competitive pricing, cost savings, and efficient functionality for medium-sized deployments.
Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Security QRadar is cost-effective, enhancing security while reducing manpower, with positive feedback on financial returns.
Sentiment score
6.5
Splunk Enterprise Security enhances visibility, improves error resolution, automates processes, and integrates well, though ROI assessment can be challenging.
The impact of the tool is low when the functionalities are inaccessible due to resource consumption.
Fortinet is highly efficient for moderate deployments and provides a secure platform for medium-sized networks and data centers.
I have seen a return on investment with Fortinet FortiAnalyzer due to its competitive pricing and straightforward licensing model based on the amount of log data processed per day.
With SOAR, the workflow takes one minute or less to complete the analysis.
Investing this amount was very much worth it for my organization.
The documentation for Splunk Enterprise Security is outstanding. It is well-organized and easy to access.
I have noticed a return on investment with Splunk Enterprise Security, as it delivers substantial value for money.
Customers see the value in investing in this solution, particularly when it helps resolve issues quickly, turning a potential 20-hour response into one hour.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Fortinet FortiAnalyzer's customer support receives mixed feedback, praised for responsiveness but criticized for inconsistency and regional variations.
Sentiment score
6.1
IBM Security QRadar support is praised for expertise but criticized for slow response times and inconsistent service quality.
Sentiment score
6.4
Splunk Enterprise Security support is knowledgeable but occasionally slow, with mixed efficiency reviews and valuable community resources.
Customer service and support for Fortinet FortiAnalyzer are quite helpful and responsive.
Technical support is good, and I rate it ten out of ten.
The support service is very slow and incompetent.
They assist with advanced issues, such as hardware or other problems, that are not part of standard operations.
Support needs to understand the issue first, then escalate it to the engineering team.
The problem escalates through level one to level three, and then the process starts over with Novo again.
We have paid for Splunk support, and we’re not on the free tier hoping for assistance; we are a significant customer and invest a lot in this service.
If you want to write your own correlation rules, it is very difficult to do, and you need Splunk's support to write new correlation rules for the SIEM tool.
They try to close issues as soon as possible, often just offering documentation links.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.4
Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is considered scalable, highly rated in virtual environments, but costs and hardware can limit expansion.
Sentiment score
7.4
IBM Security QRadar is highly regarded for its scalability, with easy vertical and horizontal expansion and seamless cloud deployment.
Sentiment score
7.5
Splunk Enterprise Security offers scalable, flexible solutions handling large data volumes effortlessly, though cost concerns persist, especially on-premise.
Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is scalable, especially for the VM versions, as additional space can be provisioned from the servers as needed.
FortiAnalyzer is a scalable product.
It typically handles three to five years of expansion effectively.
For EPS license, if you increase or exceed the EPS license, you cannot receive events.
They struggle a bit with pure virtual environments, but in terms of how much they can handle, it is pretty good.
It is easy to scale.
It's big in a Central European context, and small from a Splunk North American context.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is highly stable, with strong user ratings, improved performance, and rare connectivity or resource issues.
Sentiment score
7.6
IBM Security QRadar is reliable but stability depends on correct deployment, capacity, and system resources, with minor update issues.
Sentiment score
7.6
Splunk Enterprise Security is stable and resilient, though resource-heavy queries can cause occasional bugs, needing optimized use cases.
We faced some CPU consumption issues, which caused the machine to slow down and required a restart of FortiAnalyzer.
It remains stable during implementation for one or two years.
It provides a reliable solution for managing network-wide data.
I think QRadar is stable and currently satisfies my needs.
The product has been stable so far.
They test it very thoroughly before release, and our customers have Splunk running for months without issues.
It provides a stable environment but needs to integrate with ITSM platforms to achieve better visibility.
I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.
 

Room For Improvement

Fortinet FortiAnalyzer needs UI improvements, better integration, enhanced analytics, and competitive pricing for multi-vendor compatibility and ease of use.
IBM Security QRadar needs UI improvement, better integration, enhanced detection, streamlined operations, and customization for cost-effective functionality.
Splunk Enterprise Security users desire improved GUI, integration, pricing, training, data handling, and advanced features for better efficiency.
When licensing, each device is licensed separately, such as the firewall, which can become expensive.
This would help in analyzing various security incidents and events more effectively by delivering a handful of relevant logs instead of thousands.
Enhanced deep inspection features would make troubleshooting easier.
We receive logs from different types of devices and need a way to correlate them effectively.
If AI-related support can suggest rules and integrate with existing security devices like MD, IPS, this SIM can create more relevant rules.
IBM Security QRadar does not support Canvas, so we had to create custom scripts and workarounds to pull logs from Canvas.
Improving the infrastructure behind Splunk Enterprise Security is vital—enhanced cores, CPUs, and memory should be prioritized to support better processing power.
Splunk Enterprise Security is not something that automatically picks things; you have to set up use cases, update data models, and link the right use cases to the right data models for those detections to happen.
For any future enhancements or features, such as MLTK and SOAR platform integration, we need more visibility, training, and certification for the skilled professionals who are working.
 

Setup Cost

Fortinet FortiAnalyzer's pricing is competitive but high, with subscription-based licensing that may be costly for smaller businesses.
IBM Security QRadar is costly but efficient, offering flexible pricing, EPS discounts, and potential cost savings with negotiation.
Splunk Enterprise Security is costly but valued for features and scalability, with pricing concerns for smaller businesses.
Its licensing model is based on the amount of log data processed per day, making it more cost-effective compared to QRadar, which is EPS and device-based.
In terms of pricing, FortiAnalyzer is not expensive.
In the Indian market, Fortinet's pricing is very competitive, allowing us to win most of our deals.
Splunk is more expensive than IBM Security QRadar.
I saw clients spend two million dollars a year just feeding data into the Splunk solution.
The platform requires significant financial investment and resources, making it expensive despite its comprehensive features.
I find it to be affordable, which is why every industry uses it.
 

Valuable Features

Fortinet FortiAnalyzer enhances network monitoring with comprehensive reporting, real-time insights, and seamless integration, benefiting users managing dispersed networks.
IBM Security QRadar excels in log management, scalability, compliance, and integration, enhancing comprehensive security management with ease.
Splunk Enterprise Security excels in log management, data ingestion, and integration, enhancing security operations with user-friendly features.
The advanced analytics capabilities aid in threat detection by providing visibility into indicators of compromise.
The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is its ability to simplify and display logs clearly, providing details like which IPs are accessing the system, the destination, and the policies applied.
The log management is useful as we have connected around two hundred eighty-five walls and around fifteen to twenty plus firewalls with Fortinet FortiAnalyzer, making it highly beneficial compared to logging into each individual firewall.
Recently, I faced an incident, a cyber incident, and it was detected in real time.
IBM is seeking information about IBM QRadar because a part of QRadar, especially in the cloud, has been sold to Palo Alto.
We have FortiSOAR and IBM Resilient for IBM Security QRadar orchestration.
This capability is useful for performance monitoring and issue identification.
I assess Splunk Enterprise Security's insider threat detection capabilities for helping to find unknown threats and anomalous user behavior as great.
Splunk Enterprise Security provides the foundation for unified threat detection, investigation, and response, enabling fast identification of critical issues.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is 1.9%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 3.6%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 7.4%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Manikandan Kannan - PeerSpot reviewer
Simplifying log management by displaying detailed access information
The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is its ability to simplify and display logs clearly, providing details like which IPs are accessing the system, the destination, and the policies applied. This visualization and detail make managing logs more straightforward. In conjunction with our VMware setup, Fortinet FortiAnalyzer enhances organizational efficiency, meeting the standard log retention period for up to a year.
Mahmoud Younes - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable installation and diverse use cases provide strong value
IBM Security QRadar has some areas for improvement. We have missed some DSM components. We need to customize logs where there is no DSM or connector for certain products. We can integrate but we have missed the DSM, which is the connector to pass logs coming from different applications. For example, with a university customer, we tried onboarding Canvas service. IBM Security QRadar does not support Canvas, so we had to create custom scripts and workarounds to pull logs from Canvas.
ROBERT-CHRISTIAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Has many predefined correlation rules and is brilliant for investigation and log analysis
It is very complicated to write your own correlation rules without the help of Splunk support. What Splunk could do better is to create an API to the standard SIEM tools, such as Microsoft Sentinel. The idea would be to make it less painful. In ELK Stack, Kibana is the query language with which you can search log files. I believe Splunk has also a query language in which they search their log files, but once you have identified the log file that you want to use for further security correlation, you want to very quickly transport that into your SIEM tool, such as Microsoft Sentinel. That is something that Splunk could make a little bit less painful because it is a lot of effort to find that log file and forward it. An API with Microsoft Sentinel or a similar SIEM tool would be a good idea.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

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Feb 26, 2015
HP ArcSight vs. IBM QRadar vs. ​McAfee Nitro vs. Splunk vs. RSA Security vs. LogRhythm
We at Infosecnirvana.com have done several posts on SIEM. After the Dummies Guide on SIEM, we are following it up with a SIEM Product Comparison – 101 deck. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Let me know what you think by posting your comments below. The key products compared here are…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiAnalyzer?
The reporting features, which offer customization, real-time insights, and compliance support, are particularly notew...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiAnalyzer?
I have experience with pricing, licensing, and setup costs as I prepare quotes for clients. While Fortinet FortiAnaly...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiAnalyzer?
When I had contact with FortiManager and Fortinet FortiAnalyzer, it was not so easy, but with some reading or trainin...
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?
When comparing with Splunk, IBM Security QRadar's cost is reasonable. Splunk is more expensive than IBM Security QRadar.
What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?
It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingest...
How does Splunk compare with Azure Monitor?
Splunk handles a high amount of data very well. We use Splunk to capture information and as an aggregator for monitor...
What do you like most about Splunk?
There are a lot of third-party applications that can be installed.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

General Directorate of Information Technology
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Splunk has more than 7,000 customers spread across over 90 countries. These customers include Telenor, UniCredit, ideeli, McKenney's, Tesco, and SurveyMonkey.
Find out what your peers are saying about Wazuh, Splunk, Datadog and others in Log Management. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.