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Graylog Enterprise vs IBM Security QRadar comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 8, 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

Graylog Enterprise
Ranking in Log Management
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Log Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
210
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (17th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (8th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Graylog Enterprise is 6.2%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 3.8%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Security QRadar3.8%
Graylog6.2%
Other90.0%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ivan Kokalovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates backend service monitoring with efficient log retrieval and API flexibility
Graylog is valuable because it bridges technical knowledge to non-technical teams, presenting complex backend processes in a simple timeline. It boosts the knowledge of sales and customer support teams by allowing them to see the backend operations without needing to read the code. Its API is flexible for visualization, and its powerful search engine efficiently handles large volumes of log data. Moreover, its stability, fast search capabilities, and compatibility with languages like ANSI SQL enhance its utility in IT infrastructure.
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

"Graylog is valuable because it bridges technical knowledge to non-technical teams, presenting complex backend processes in a simple timeline."
"Graylog's search functionality, alerting functionality, user management, and dashboards are useful."
"We're using the Community edition, but I know that it has really good dashboarding and alerts."
"Everything stands out as valuable, including the fact that I can quantify and qualify the logs, create pipelines and process the logs in any way I like, and create charts or data maps."
"Message forwarding through the in-built module."
"We have scaled from a single machine installation (a VM with a Graylog + ES + MongoDB) to (2 Graylog + 2 ES + 3 MongoDB). This was done smoothly with a minimal impact on logging."
"The best feature of Graylog is the Elasticsearch integration. We can integrate and we can run filters, such as an event of interest, and those logs we can send to any SIEM tool or as an analytic. Additionally, there are clear and well-documented implementation instructions on their website to follow if needed."
"Open source and user friendly."
"The tool helps with infrastructure, application, and network monitoring."
"In terms of the most valuable features, the log collections and log processing mechanisms are good. They have good dashboards."
"The features that I have found most valuable in QRadar are its data enrichment, use case creations, and adding references - those kinds of features are very good. Also QRadar's event filtration and device integration are perfect."
"It is the core of our entire SOX."
"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."
"The solution is quite flexible."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with the GRD, for banking."
"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."
 

Cons

"When it comes to configuring the processing pipeline, writing the rules can be very tedious, especially since the documentation isn't extensive on how the functions provided for these rules work."
"When it comes to configuring the processing pipeline, writing the rules can be very tedious, especially since the documentation isn't extensive on how the functions provided for these rules work."
"I hope to see improvements in Graylog for more interactivity, user-friendliness, and creating alerts. The initial setup is complex."
"I would like to see some kind of visualization included in Graylog."
"The area in Graylog that needs to be improved or enhanced would be the integrations."
"We ran into problems with Elasticsearch throwing a circuit-breaking exception due to field data size being too large. It turned out that the heap size directly impacted this size in a high-throughput environment, causing unexplained instability in Graylog. We were able to troubleshoot on the Elasticsearch size, but we should have been able to reference some minimum requirements for Graylog to know that our settings weren't sufficient."
"Lacks sufficient documentation."
"Since container orchestration systems are popular and Graylog fits the niche well, perhaps they could officially support running in docker containers on Kubernetes as a StatefulSet as a use case. That way, the declarative nature of Kubernetes config files would document their best case deployment scenario-"
"The quoting and the dashboard session could be improved. It should be more user-friendly."
"I would like for Yara to be supported by all components."
"Pricing model could be more cost-effective."
"The solution should include remote action capabilities."
"Needs better visualization options beyond the time series charts and a few other options that they have."
"We sometimes experience downtime, but it depends on the version. There is some variability."
"In a future release, the solution could provide malware analysis."
"IBM Security QRadar lacks automated response. With this feature, there's no need to visit VirusTotal or other sites for IP reputation. There should be a small plug-in where users can click to retrieve details about the reputation and organization of public IP."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Graylog is a free open-source solution. The free version has a capacity limitation of 2 GB daily, if you want to go above this you have to purchase a license."
"I use the free version of Graylog."
"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."
"​You get a lot out-of-the-box with the non-enterprise version, so give it a try first."
"Consider Enterprise support if you have atypical needs or setup requirements.​"
"I am using a community edition. I have not looked at the enterprise offering from Graylog."
"If you want something that works and do not have the money for Splunk or QRadar, take Graylog.​​"
"There is an open source version and an enterprise version. I wouldn't recommend the enterprise version, but as an open source solution, it is solid and works really well."
"It's free of charge."
"QRadar's price is reasonable compared to LogRhythm."
"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 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."
"It is cheaper than ArcSight."
"The pricing is always fine."
"IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics is an application framework and you can install many applications without any additional costs."
"It's not expensive for the resources that it gives you."
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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
16%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
8%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business88
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise102
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Graylog?
The product is scalable. The solution is stable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Graylog?
I am not familiar with the pricing details of Graylog, as I was not responsible for that aspect. It was determined that we didn't need an enterprise plan, which is more suited for clients with less...
What needs improvement with Graylog?
An improvement I would suggest is in Graylog's user interface, such as allowing for font size adjustments. A potential enhancement could be the integration with Ollama to run large language models ...
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

Graylog2
IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Find out what your peers are saying about Graylog Enterprise vs. IBM Security QRadar and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
866,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.