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Graylog Enterprise 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Graylog Enterprise is 2.8%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 4.2%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 6.8%, down from 7.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Splunk Enterprise Security6.8%
IBM Security QRadar4.2%
Graylog Enterprise2.8%
Other86.2%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

NC
Security Officer at JSC "Moldtelecom" S.A.
Log analysis has become clearer and faster but visualization and extensibility still need work
The problem was with the complexity and the cost to add extensions. We found this very expensive to buy another version with additional features. I think that Graylog Enterprise does not have customizable dashboards. I did not see them in Graylog Enterprise because most of the time we used the open source free version, which is limited. I think Graylog Enterprise should improve some things that they have in the paid version and perhaps provide users with a menu that gives examples of parsing logs and draws graphics so that people do not need to improve another system such as Grafana. This would be interesting. When it comes to functionalities, I found the log management in Graylog Enterprise acceptable. It is very simple to use and to collect logs. It has support for different protocols and different ports, and the sidecar is easy to use. However, in visualization, I think it needs to be much better.
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.
Sathis-Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at Bank of America
Helps us detect cyber threats quickly and integrate multiple feeds effectively
Overall, the product is good, but when it comes to some infrastructure issues, we have to dig into more logs. There is no straightforward indication of an issue. Health check kind of dashboards are not available. More AI would help us, and more optimization, since security products run more queries. The AI module could suggest solutions, optimizing queries or workload balancing. If the product itself advises on running queries during peak times, it would be similar to what ChatGPT currently offers. We see quite a few issues on stability. Even last week, we faced something, and identifying bottlenecks is not easy. We need more SMEs, and there is no mechanism to tell us about indexer or search head issues. Self-monitoring dashboards could be beneficial. The technical support still requires more improvement. Often, primary support takes a lot of time and forwards most solutions to the engineering side. The primary support team has very limited knowledge to provide.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Allowing us to set up alerts and integrate with platforms we already use, such as Slack and OpsGenie to alert users of these errors proactively, is also a very useful feature."
"I like the simplicity of the solution, the fact that it's open source and user friendly."
"I know that there are other similar tools available, but I enjoy using Graylog the most."
"Graylog Enterprise positively impacts the organization by helping the team and analysts investigate incidents faster since logs from servers, endpoints, cloud, and firewalls are available in one place."
"It is used as a log manager/SIEM. It provides visibility into the infrastructure and security related events."
"Graylog is valuable because it bridges technical knowledge to non-technical teams, presenting complex backend processes in a simple timeline."
"Troubleshooting is straightforward with Graylog Enterprise."
"Message forwarding through the in-built module."
"The most valuable feature that we found, especially this year, was the ability to build apps over it, as the platform has opened up and we can now customize it as per our needs and requirements and build interactive dashboards and other interesting things around it."
"In general, the product is awesome."
"It can analyze event logs, event security, and give a good consult."
"I am fond of IBM Security QRadar because it is very user-friendly."
"The ability to transition from microscopic to macroscopic view, instantly, is very good."
"The detection rate is good and the false positive rate is low."
"QRadar has significantly improved our security, reduced threats considerably, and provides increased visibility along with actionable intelligence."
"The most valuable feature is the machine learning module."
"Since Splunk is a platform for data, we can ingest and correlate data from virtually any type of system."
"The most valuable features for us include its robust log management capabilities, which allow us to efficiently handle and retain logs for extended periods as needed."
"There are quite a lot of things that we find useful; Splunk agents are useful and good, and its UI is quite impressive."
"The most valuable feature is the custom dashboard feature."
"It is a one stop shop as a full monitoring and alerting solution for operations and application analysis for most of our back-end systems."
"We use Splunk Cloud as a SIEM solution and to monitor traffic and the network for detection purposes."
"Splunk has reduced application downtime by helping identify the point of failure."
"Visualizations helped the organisation with a better understanding of its KPIs."
 

Cons

"There should be some user groups and an auto sign-in feature.​"
"More complex visualizations and the ability to execute custom Elasticsearch queries would be great."
"The initial setup was really complex because I did it myself."
"The technical support is a weak point in this product. It's not so easy to contact them and they don't answer immediately."
"Elasticsearch recommendations for tuning could be better. Graylog doesn't have direct support for running the system inside of Kubernetes, so it can be challenging to fill in the gaps and set up containers in a way that is both performant and stable."
"Graylog Enterprise performs well overall; however, the UI could be improved because the SOC team creates multiple dashboards based on their use cases, and creating dashboards is complex."
"The documentation for Graylog Enterprise can be improved, as this has been a pain point."
"More customization is always useful."
"There should be more focus on small and medium businesses, especially given the number of FinTechs and entrepreneurs in Mexico that require easier solutions with less budget."
"They should introduce some automation into the product."
"I'm not sure about the stability just yet. We've observed a few issues and we raised a supporting ticket for it."
"User/identity modeling needs improvement. Needs better visualization options beyond the time series charts and a few other options that they have."
"The setup is very complex; it's not like somebody can walk in and build it."
"We have had bad experiences with support from IBM. We are not satisfied with the support and they have made me very angry."
"QRadar's performance has room for improvement because it cannot handle the volume."
"Technical support is good. It's not great, it's good."
"Splunk could have more built-in use case presets that customers can build on and customize."
"Overall, I don't think that this is a very good product and I don't recommend it."
"I would like to see an updated dashboard. The dashboard is a little out-of-date. It could be made prettier."
"Splunk Enterprise Security can be improved by having more focus on the data health monitoring aspect, which will definitely be helpful."
"The product's price may be an area of concern where improvements are required."
"I'd love to see more integrations, which is one of the primary points of the key node with Splunk Enterprise Security."
"The GUI, now called Mission Control, which serves as issue management or ticket management, falls below what would be considered industry standards."
"I would definitely improve the risk-based alerts in Splunk Enterprise Security, helping SOC analysts to get to the drill-down searches."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am using a community edition. I have not looked at the enterprise offering from Graylog."
"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."
"If you want something that works and do not have the money for Splunk or QRadar, take Graylog.​​"
"We are using the free version of the product. However, the paid version is expensive."
"Having paid official support is wise for projects."
"​You get a lot out-of-the-box with the non-enterprise version, so give it a try first."
"It's open source and free. They have a paid version, but we never looked into that because we never needed the features of the paid version."
"Consider Enterprise support if you have atypical needs or setup requirements.​"
"There is an annual license required for this solution."
"The tool is priced in a competitive manner. The tool's price is dependent on the installation and the product size, but it is competitive in the marketplace."
"It is overly expensive and overly complex in terms of licensing. They have many different appliances, which makes it extremely difficult to choose the technology. It is very difficult to choose the technology or QRadar components that you should be deploying. They have improved some of it in the last few years. They have made it slightly easy with the fact that you can now buy virtual versions of all the appliances, which is good, but it is still very fragmented. For instance, on some of the smaller appliances, there is no upgrade path. So, if you exceed the capacity of the appliance, you have to buy a bigger appliance, which is not helpful because it is quite a major cost. If you want to add more disks to the system, they'll say that you can't."
"I think my company pays for the license yearly."
"IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics is an application framework and you can install many applications without any additional costs."
"The solution has a licensing model that is based on events per second so it scales to need and budget."
"Most of the time, it is easier and cheaper to buy a new product or the QRadar box."
"The price of this solution is a little bit expensive, so if it were cheaper then it would help."
"I think that most of the monitoring solutions are expensive."
"The licensing costs are high for Splunk Enterprise Security."
"Some of the insights that we have obtained as a part of using Splunk have greatly helped us in increasing our revenue in terms of selling our products."
"Splunk is really expensive."
"The tool's licensing is good and we haven't received any complaints from the team handling it."
"My experience with the solution's setup cost, pricing, and licensing was really good."
"This product could use better pricing in general."
"Splunk has always been on the expensive side."
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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
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business92
Midsize Enterprise39
Large Enterprise107
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business126
Midsize Enterprise53
Large Enterprise276
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Graylog?
I am not sure about the pricing, setup cost, and licensing because that was dealt with by a different team that handl...
What needs improvement with Graylog?
The documentation for Graylog Enterprise can be improved, as this has been a pain point. I think the visualization as...
What is your primary use case for Graylog?
I remember using Graylog Enterprise in the past at a software house where we used it for logging. During that time, w...
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...
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 needs improvement with Splunk?
The main dislikes about Splunk Enterprise Security are that we need more highly skilled people and the license for Sp...
 

Also Known As

Graylog2
IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
No data available
 

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.
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 Splunk, Wazuh, Cribl and others in Log Management. Updated: June 2026.
899,125 professionals have used our research since 2012.