No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

IBM Application Performance Management vs IBM Security QRadar 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Application Performance...
Average Rating
6.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (59th)
IBM Security QRadar
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
218
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (5th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (2nd), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (3rd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (12th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (5th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (7th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

IBM Application Performance Management and IBM Security QRadar aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM Application Performance Management is designed for Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability and holds a mindshare of 0.6%, up 0.3% compared to last year.
IBM Security QRadar, on the other hand, focuses on Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), holds 5.5% mindshare, down 7.4% since last year.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Application Performance Management0.6%
Dynatrace5.0%
Splunk AppDynamics4.5%
Other89.9%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Security QRadar5.5%
Splunk Enterprise Security7.6%
Wazuh4.1%
Other82.8%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Daniel Tamiru - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Database & System Administration at Awash International Bank
A multi-functional solution but has poor stability and performance-related issues
We are using version 4 of IBM Application Performance Management, and it is deployed on-premises. We use it for internet banking and mainly for application performance on-site. For example, if we face performance-related issues in one of our software or managed services, we use this solution to…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The transaction tracking feature from IBM is the most important feature for us. It is something that provides a terrific value for us and our clients. It has a lot of data sources and agents that are collectors. It is also stable."
"I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is the breakdown that it provides, such as a description of the fields for a particular transaction."
"Because we have partnerships with other partners, I can share a bit about what I've noticed with IBM APM compared to other vendor solutions. Specifically, with IBM, the visibility into detailed process information is more tangible. On the OS level, APM displays all processes (or the top 10 processes) that are consuming CPU or resident memory. This is the most important thing that is not always available with other vendors."
"The initial setup was straightforward and took minimal effort."
"It's easy to use."
"IBM Application Performance Management helped us increased our response time by 80% and cost 60% less."
"IBM Application Performance Management has improved the way my organization is able to function."
"Almost every feature is useful."
"I have found its network traffic log, network bit log, and QBI most valuable."
"I like that it's easy to use and the performance is good."
"There are new things that are coming up in QRadar, such as AI to IBM Watson, which is going to create a huge impact in these types of solutions."
"It has a lot of good correlation rules. From a customer's point of view, it is one of the best solutions because you don't need to create correlation rules from scratch. You just review them and customize them as you want."
"QRadar is built around Red Hat Linux, which is highly robust."
"The product helps increase development speed, and the customization is very good, as are the dashboards and the security."
"IBM has everything you need in a cybersecurity solution. If you want to build a cybersecurity operation center version then I think QRadar is a perfect solution."
 

Cons

"Its web user interface is a little bit old in comparison to other solutions, such as New Relic, and it should be improved. Its scalability and technical support should also be improved. Currently, it is scalable, but only in a vertical way. They provide good technical support, but the initial steps for a new case can be improved to fasten the resolution process."
"It's still missing some platforms. For example, if you look to applications itself, it is missing the interface."
"The solution, itself, has a negative impact on the performance of the machine."
"The technical support is not really good, I must say."
"The demo that was provided to us is not working very well. At times, there are errors."
"The stability is not great and should be better."
"With APM, we noticed that the agent can cause a lot of issues for the application, making the agent very unreliable. Many issues are happening, and we've had to discuss it with support to try and get a fix. It affects application availability, and sometimes actions fail because of the agent, degrading the performance of the application."
"They should focus on potentially enhancing the dashboard to make it more contemporary and adding some customization options. Furthermore, there might be room for improvement in the pricing policy."
"IBM needs to invest more into the collaboration with other vendors."
"I think the solution lacks some maturity."
"They should speed up the incident response and also, at the same time, reduce the amount of manual effort that is required."
"I don't give it a 10 because it is something we have to request. I would love it if UBA was included out of the box like Microsoft."
"Sometimes, we have a problem with support. We are also using QVM (IBM Security QRadar Vulnerability Manager) and I think it is a little bit buggy for now."
"The biggest problem was built on top of the QRadar in the executive operations center network. The integration was not using the network security specialist properly, and all the incidents were inferior with QRadar. Its compatibility is not really good."
"For large organizations that want to integrate all of the log sources, the pricing will be too expensive."
"IMB should reduce the pricing, or reduce some of the features for a more economical solution for the customer."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing fees can be paid every six months or on a yearly basis."
"As I previously indicated, I initiated the IBM and uncovered all its elements. Consequently, I'm not inclined towards a licensing approach."
"IBM APM is one of the cheaper products on the market, while everything necessary to get started is included in the license."
"It could be cheaper, but the value itself is far more important for us than the price. Typically, our clients have yearly subscriptions."
"It is very expensive."
"There are different types of subscriptions available. We were on an annual subscription, but our customers typically choose the two years subscription option."
"This price is a little high, so it's an expensive product."
"IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics is an application framework and you can install many applications without any additional costs."
"I would like for them to lower the price."
"Pricing and licensing are competitive. Their new licensing options allow logs to bypass the correlation engine for a flat rate, which is also appealing for log data that is compliance-driven for a small amount of money."
"Customers have to purchase a license based on the number of users, devices, and applications they want to protect. It allows you to take a license on a subscription basis for three years or five years."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
Financial Services Firm
19%
Construction Company
13%
Healthcare Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business92
Midsize Enterprise39
Large Enterprise107
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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?
I am overall satisfied with the licensing cost for IBM Security QRadar.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mibtree, EatDrinkDeals.com, IT Performance Advisor
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunk and others in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability. Updated: August 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.