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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

"Real-time UDP/GELF logging and full text-based searching."
"I like the correlation and the alerting."
"I am very proud of how very stable the solution is."
"The build is stable and requires little maintenance, even compared to some extremely expensive products."
"The ability to write custom alerts is key to information security and compliance."
"Message forwarding through the in-built module."
"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."
"The UBA feature is the most valuable because you can see everything about users' activities."
"Flexible and valuable product that is modular, so you can easily set up a roadmap for your clients."
"Improved our organization's TCO."
"This is a distributed application, meaning that a customer can stack small and then scale it so that they can expand pretty effectively. You can use, basically, the same product in an SMB or a large enterprise."
"There are a lot of features in QRadar. App Exchange is the most valuable feature. User behavior analytics (UBA) is also a very good feature. Watson is also there, but we are not currently using Watson. It is versatile and quite easy. It also has an all-in-one-box feature and good integration with AWS."
"IBM QRadar is easy to scale, it doesn't affect the environment. In our office, we have around 40 - 50 users, but our clients have more users on their networks. Our organization has staff in the software department that manages IBM QRadar for us."
"It has a powerful GUI where you can put together your use cases, and don't have to write your own scripts."
"The threat protection network is the most valuable feature, because when you get an offense, you can actually trace it back to where it originated from, how it originated, and why."
 

Cons

"I would like to see a default dashboard widget that shows the topology of the clusters defined for the graylog install."
"It would be great if Graylog could provide a better Python package in order to make it easier to use for the Python community."
"Graylog needs to improve their authentication. Also, the fact that Graylog displays logs from the top down is just ridiculous."
"There should be some user groups and an auto sign-in feature.​"
"I would like to see some kind of visualization included in Graylog."
"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."
"The infrastructure cost is the main issue. I like the rest. If the infrastructure costs could be lower, it would be fantastic."
"The biggest problem is the collector application, as we wanted to avoid using Graylog Collector Sidecar due to its architecture."
"Technical support could be improved by a bit."
"The product does not have a team for investigating malware."
"Communication between the silos sometimes becomes an issue, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The only challenge is that IBM has been a closed enterprise. It should be more open to integrating with other providers at an enterprise level. We're a bank and the core banking system integration is not way straightforward and there is no integration between IBM and these products. If IBM could open up and provide a way of integrating it seamlessly, without charging more for it, that would make a big difference."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly product."
"There are areas in IBM Security QRadar that could benefit from improvement. Its ability to customize knowledge for specific purposes could be enhanced. Also, it lacks clarity in presenting details. It is also difficult to see the reports."
"I need a solution which will send alerts in the event of any behavior."
"There should be easier and wider integration opportunities. There should be more opportunities for integration with CTI info sharing areas. On platforms where you exchange CTI, there should be more visibility connected to what we share, what we can reach, or what options are connected to CTI info sharing. This is one area where they could add value because we cannot integrate it easily with QRadar. If a client has a legacy or already existing solutions for CTI, we cannot ask them to forget it because we cannot guarantee that QRadar is able to deliver everything connected to this area."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​You get a lot out-of-the-box with the non-enterprise version, so give it a try first."
"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."
"We're using the Community edition."
"I use the free version of Graylog."
"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."
"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 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."
"It's free of charge."
"It's not expensive for the resources that it gives you."
"We use QRadar as a managed service and we pay licensing fees to the partner."
"There is a license required for this solution. There are some limitations depending on what license you purchase."
"The cost of this product is expensive."
"When compared with other SIM solutions, QRadar is considerably less expensive."
"It is costlier as compared to the other alternatives available in the market."
"QRadar is quite expensive. It wouldn't be worth it for a small business..."
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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: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.