Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM Security QRadar vs IBM Watson for Cyber Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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 Security QRadar
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
219
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (7th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (2nd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (15th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (6th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (9th)
IBM Watson for Cyber Security
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
56th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 5.4%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Watson for Cyber Security is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Security QRadar5.4%
IBM Watson for Cyber Security0.7%
Other93.9%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Elena Stefanovska - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Account Manager at InTec System
Knowledgeable support, reliable, and useful compliance policies
IBM Watson for Cyber Security can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud and it is used as a SIEM solution The most valuable features of IBM Watson for Cyber Security are ease of use and out-of-the-box reports and compliance policies. Additionally, if there are aspects that are missing IBM add…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"QRadar shows very effective correlations. If you combine all the logins plus user behavior and the current intelligence, it gives a very good correlation for business. I think it reduces the false positives in user activity monitoring because there is a lot of social information to correlate with other data."
"The scalability is awesome, because QRadar includes other solutions in the same console."
"It's quite scalable. We have upgraded some solutions from 1000 APS up to 3500 APS to 5000 APS. It's a good solution, they have no scalability issues."
"The product can scale."
"The scalability is very good. It's not a problem."
"The most valuable thing about QRadar is that you have a single window into your network, SIEM, network flows, and risk management of your assets. If you use Splunk, for instance, then you still need a full packet capture solution, whereas the full packet capture solution is integrated within QRadar. Its application ecosystem makes it very powerful in terms of doing analysis."
"I have used IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics in a Cloud Pak on Amazon, and there it runs on top of it and is easy to assess. Additionally, I have installed processes and characters."
"A nice benefit is when we go to the process of selecting our youth cases, they go by building blocks. QRadar links it to building blocks."
"The customer support is very good."
"The most valuable features of IBM Watson for Cyber Security are ease of use and out-of-the-box reports and compliance policies. Additionally, if there are aspects that are missing IBM add them in the next release."
"The most valuable feature of this product is innovation, where the research and upgrading of technology never ends."
"IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very stable."
 

Cons

"They should speed up the incident response and also, at the same time, reduce the amount of manual effort that is required."
"Ideally we would like a mobile version so that any alert that comes in will notify us in a mobile app, or by using SMS integration."
"The released patch quality is poor. IBM should test those patches on their side, not on the client's side."
"It would be good if the program allowed certain profiles to only see certain customer information."
"Do your research before implementing it, because it is tough to implement."
"The solution lacks vendor support."
"The technical support is poor. Mostly because when I open a PMR for IBM, I am stuck with Level 1 staff. As an engineer, nothing that I am bringing them does not require Level 2 or Level 3 support."
"The threat intelligence functionality can be better. In addition, it can have more monitoring capabilities."
"In the future, I would like to see threat intelligence included."
"This is an expensive product, so making it more cost-effective would be an improvement."
"They need to continue to build the AI capabilities."
"The dashboard could improve in IBM Watson for Cyber Security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license to use this solution, which is paid annually. However, there are subscription options available."
"It is expensive. It is not a product that I can provide for SMBs. It is a program that I can only provide for really large enterprises."
"QRadar's price is reasonable compared to LogRhythm."
"think the pricing is quite flexible."
"There is a license required for this solution. There are some limitations depending on what license you purchase."
"In terms of additional costs, it depends on the subscription that you choose. There are plenty of options to choose from."
"The price of this solution is reasonable."
"Licensing can be costly depending on your architecture."
"The price of this solution should be lower, although I understand why IBM charges a premium price."
"IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very simple to license and is priced well."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions are best for your needs.
881,757 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
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business91
Midsize Enterprise39
Large Enterprise105
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Pricing and the license of EPS were managed by the governance team. I was not responsible for managing those. I was supposed to put up the requirement of the license needed to integrate that amount...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. IBM Watson for Cyber Security and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.