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Fortinet FortiSIEM vs IBM Security QRadar comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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

Fortinet FortiSIEM
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
209
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (5th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (15th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (9th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiSIEM is 3.3%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 7.7%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Oliver Jackson - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems monitoring enhanced by firewall and intrusion detection features
My primary use case for Fortinet FortiSIEM is systems monitoring and alerting. I use it for standard functions like log monitoring, incident detection, and notification.  My customers are mostly medium-sized enterprises ranging from engineering companies, mining companies, independent schools, and…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Fortinet FortiSIEM provides good detection against advanced threats."
"Our customer did not have security monitoring in the first place. With this solution, it provided security posture management and visibility about the security landscape and threats that they had."
"One of the most valuable features is that we can combine SOC and NOC operations in the same tool. We can provide NOC and SOC services in the same tool for two separate teams. There are plenty of third-party solutions that integrate with FortiSIEM. All these solutions already have a ready integration, and we have the possibility to create a custom connector for these solutions. Its reports are also very good."
"The stability is very reliable. It offers very good performance."
"Fortinet FortiSIEM's most valuable feature is the simplicity in handling multi-tenancy and the ability to switch between different clients at the same time. That was handled flawlessly."
"FortiSIEM sends an email or SMS notifications to admins when there are significant incidents. It's a highly efficient way of responding to incidents."
"The primary valuable feature is that it has replaced a whole lot of other products with one platform."
"The most valuable feature is the dashboard. CMDB database collects data from a lot of pre-configured devices."
"It comes with many rules disabled. You can tune them and modify them according to your enterprise needs and avoid false positives."
"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."
"Provided that the report is prebuilt and I can find what I am looking for, the reporting is the most valuable feature in this solution."
"It is the core of our entire SOX."
"IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson is a stable solution."
"There are a lot of great out-of-the-box features included."
"QRadar shows very effective correlations. If you combine all the logins plus user behavior and the current intelligence, it gives a very good correlation for business. I think it reduces the false positives in user activity monitoring because there is a lot of social information to correlate with other data."
"It has a good integration with the artificial intelligence engine of Watson."
 

Cons

"Our team tried configuring MS SQL database logs with Fortinet FortiSIEM, but it did not work for some time."
"It's difficult to integrate unsupported devices with FortiSIEM compared to QRadar. It's easier to integrate and develop processes in QRadar. It's harder to develop a custom process in FortiSIEM."
"When our team tried configuring logs for Microsoft SQL, it did not work."
"The graphs on the user interface could be improved as we often experience glitches."
"It would be good if the solution offered even more configuration options, especially in relation to the VPN so that it continues to be a very flexible option."
"Not very good on non-API features, lacks that functionality."
"FortiSIEM could be better integrated with other vendors."
"The interface needs some improvements because it's a bit cumbersome when you're trying to view items. It takes some time to get used to. Additionally, sometimes the scrolling does not work."
"QRadar needs to be more specialized, along the lines of what other SIEM solutions are."
"Some UI enhancements would be nice, such as exporting custom event properties and the ability to export rules."
"The user interface needs improvement."
"The usability of interfaces could be improved."
"The solution does not support the integration of flat file databases."
"IBM technical support is always terrible."
"The solution is difficult to understand in the beginning and has complex management configurations that can be improved."
"I would like to see more integration in place after the security lock."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Please be cheaper and more simplified."
"Fortinet FortiSIEM is cheaper compared to other products."
"Fortinet FortiSIEM is very cost-efficient compared to other SIEM solutions."
"Manageable, however would be better as pay as you go versus CapEX."
"Fortinet's products are not expensive, it is less than the competition."
"They have a yearly subscription."
"The price is competitive."
"There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the product. The free version license of the product is available for two months."
"The tool's price is high."
"The pricing is good."
"It's very expensive but it fits our budget."
"The price of this solution is a little high."
"It's too expensive. The licensing is also a little bit difficult to understand because you have to license it per event and per number of flows."
"The cost of this product is expensive."
"There is a license required for this solution. There are some limitations depending on what license you purchase."
"The price could be better. I bought a subscription for three years."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions are best for your needs.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

VS
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
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiSIEM?
Fortinet FortiSIEM needs to provide better API integrations to users.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiSIEM?
The pricing is reasonable, which is why it is preferred by government customers. Windows agent licenses cost around 3,000 Rupees per device per year.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiSIEM?
Fortinet FortiSIEM should broaden its remediation part to include more features for incident management. Currently, to manage repetitive incidents or for remediation, I need to use a separate softw...
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, friendlier GUI and are not licensed based on capacity (amount of logs and information in...
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 asking to miss details that are critical, and ending up a statistic. Also, rememb...
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.
 

Also Known As

FortiSIEM, AccelOps
IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FortiSIEM has hundreds of customers worldwide in markets including managed services, technology, financial services, healthcare, and government. Customers include Aruba Networks, Compushare, Port of San Diego, Cleveland Indians, Infoblox, Healthways, and Referentia.
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiSIEM vs. IBM Security QRadar and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.