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IBM Security QRadar vs IBM Watson for Cyber Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 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

IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
209
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (5th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (15th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (9th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (13th)
IBM Watson for Cyber Security
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
57th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 7.4%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Watson for Cyber Security is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Elena Stefanovska - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"We can easily monitor many things using this tool."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is it has very good data correlation."
"What's most valuable in IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics is its higher availability than other tools."
"My overall rating for this solution is nine out of ten."
"It is a pretty solid product for the type that it is representing. It is a CM solution as compared to Splunk or ArcSight from HP. It is also user friendly. It comes with some internal AI as well, in which it automatically maps multiple lots from unrelated devices and makes a smart decision to link them back and create an offense based on that. It is a smart tool."
"Providing real-time visibility for threat detection and prioritization - QRadar SIEM provides contextual and actionable surveillance across the entire IT infrastructure."
"The solution is reliable."
"It's user-friendly when compared to other products."
"The customer support is very good."
"IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very stable."
"The most valuable feature of this product is innovation, where the research and upgrading of technology never ends."
"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."
 

Cons

"The solution is expensive compared to other products."
"QVM is another instance where they need to revise the vulnerability scoring and the proper remediation details."
"IBM technical support is always terrible."
"IBM Security QRadar’s GUI could be improved."
"Search capability and indexing still lag behind competitors. We also need to see improved rule based access controls and rule/event tuning."
"They should speed up the incident response and also, at the same time, reduce the amount of manual effort that is required."
"You can scale IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics, but it has room for improvement."
"Do your research before implementing it, because it is tough to implement."
"In the future, I would like to see threat intelligence included."
"They need to continue to build the AI capabilities."
"This is an expensive product, so making it more cost-effective would be an improvement."
"The dashboard could improve in IBM Watson for Cyber Security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Only enterprise businesses can afford the tool."
"IBM Security QRadar is a very expensive tool."
"Its price is good in terms of efficiency and the number of people required for implementing various things. You might pay more in terms of money, but you might save on the number of people. For example, if you are using Kibana, you have to pay more for people or experts, which is not the case with IBM QRadar."
"I would like for them to lower the price."
"We use QRadar as a managed service and we pay licensing fees to the partner."
"The pricing needs to be such that they are more competitive with other vendors."
"An X-Force feed is free with QRadar."
"The price could be better. I bought a subscription for three years."
"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."
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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%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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?
When comparing with Splunk, IBM Security QRadar's cost is reasonable. Splunk is more expensive than IBM Security QRadar.
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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: July 2025.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.