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Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs IBM Security QRadar comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 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

Google Cloud's operations s...
Ranking in Log Management
30th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (29th), Cloud Monitoring Software (20th)
IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Log Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
209
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (18th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (9th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) is 0.6%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 3.6%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Anand_Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers reliable Ops Agent and logging transport feature with easy third-party integrations
As part of our company, we implemented several changes in our log analytics pattern, including the storage and procurement process. Earlier, before implementing the solution, our company was able to procure only one year of data, but later, we came to the three-year mark. Around 15-20% reduction has been witnessed in the total analytic consumption of our company. The aforementioned result was possible because the solution allowed the creation of a dashboard where factors like storage costs, proportion of logs, and logs presence in a storage bucket or BigQuery can all be checked. Earlier all logs were stored in a raw storage, but currently our company is able to move logs in table bucket that contributes towards cost savings.
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

"Provides visibility into the performance uptime."
"Offers a valuable logging transport feature"
"Our company has a corporate account for Google Cloud and so our systems and clusters integrate really well."
"It's easy to use."
"The cloud login enables us to get our logs from the different platforms that we currently use."
"The features that I have found most valuable are its graphs - if I need any statistics, in Kubernetes or Kong level or VPN level, I can quickly get the reports."
"I like the monitoring feature."
"The most valuable feature is the multi-cloud integration, where there is support for both GCP and AWS."
"The most valuable features are all the implementations, the plug-ins, and the User Behavior Analytics (UBA)."
"It is a pretty solid product for the type that it is representing. It is a CM solution as compared to Splunk or ArcSight from HP. It is also user friendly. It comes with some internal AI as well, in which it automatically maps multiple lots from unrelated devices and makes a smart decision to link them back and create an offense based on that. It is a smart tool."
"We run 65 servers globally with just two people: an engineering person and me."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is how it monitors the real network. That is its leading security feature."
"What's most valuable in IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics is its higher availability than other tools."
"We've found the technical support to be very good."
"One of the most valuable features is its ability to integrate with other solutions. IBM has a lot of solutions and we have managed to make it work with IBM BigFix and MaaS360, and even Microsoft."
"It helps us discover any threats with their alerts and tracking."
 

Cons

"The process of logging analytics can be improved"
"While we are satisfied with the overall performance, in certain cases we must add additional metrics and additional tools like Grafana and Dynatrace."
"It could be even more automated."
"It could be more stable."
"The logging functionality could be better."
"If I want to track any round-trip or breakdowns of my response times, I'm not able to get it. My request goes through various levels of the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and comes back to my client machine. Suppose that my request has taken 10 seconds overall, so if I want to break it down, to see where the delay is happening within my architecture, I am not able to find that out using Stackdriver."
"Lacking sufficient operations documentation."
"It is difficult to estimate in advance how much something is going to cost."
"There is one problem with QRadar in regards to the add-on apps. The apps can be frustrating. For example, when I add a big app like one of the add-ons for resiliency, add-on applications for QRadar, these applications require different hardware to implement and to deploy. The resiliency connector because there's a considerable amount of data scanning, operates for these apps correctly."
"IBM is going through some problems with its resources currently making its support response time slow."
"Some UI enhancements would be nice, such as exporting custom event properties and the ability to export rules."
"Search capability and indexing still lag behind competitors. We also need to see improved rule based access controls and rule/event tuning."
"I have also been working with other SIEM solutions, and I have observed that they have extensive Linux-based and Unix-based integrations. They have been able to support some of the Linux-based agents, which is useful to investigate and process the information on the Linux and Unix side."
"The playbook guide which specifies the rules for security use cases needs to be provided to support in case the organization needs help."
"The solution could improve by having more out-of-the-box use cases."
"Its architecture is very complicated."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost could be lower."
"The cost of using Stackdriver depends on usage."
"We have a basic standard license without any additional costs."
"Licensing can be costly depending on your architecture."
"There is an annual license required for this solution."
"IBM has subscriptions plans that run for one year."
"Only enterprise businesses can afford the tool."
"An X-Force feed is free with QRadar."
"It is very expensive."
"QRadar is quite expensive. It wouldn't be worth it for a small business..."
"This price is a little high, so it's an expensive product."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.
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Comparison Review

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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
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Google Stackdriver?
If the errors are caught early in the interface, it would be easier for users to manage. The process of logging analytics can be improved.
What is your primary use case for Google Stackdriver?
I use the solution for logging, defining alerts, and monitoring. Our company's Java and Python logging teams mainly use it.
What advice do you have for others considering Google Stackdriver?
The Ops Agent and logging transport feature of the solution have had a major impact on improving application performance. The solution also allows the transport of logs into log buckets, which is h...
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

Google Stackdriver, Stackdriver Monitoring, Stackdriver Logging, Google Cloud Monitoring
IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Batterii, Q42, Dovetail Games
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs. IBM Security QRadar and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.