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IBM Security QRadar vs Microsoft Sentinel comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 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

Torq
Sponsored
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
AI-SOC (3rd), AI-Powered Security Automation (2nd)
IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
217
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (7th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (3rd), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (2nd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (16th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (6th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (11th)
Microsoft Sentinel
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (6th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

Nimrod Vardi - PeerSpot reviewer
Global IT Director at OpenWeb
Automation workflows have transformed our IT, enabling secure just-in-time access control
We work with them quite often, so we have a direct line regarding areas in Torq that have room for improvement. If we have a feature request, we can request it. I do not have anything in mind at the moment. We were a design partner for a short while, so we feel that they listen and that users of the system have an impact on the way the system is designed for the better. They have a new community, which is something that I personally suggested years ago. There are many people like me in different places and they might have already built the workflow that I need. Having the option to share workflows or to jump on a thread and say I have this need, did anyone ever build a workflow for it, is amazing. Someone would jump in and say yes, sure, here, take this workflow. I think this is an amazing thing and I really hope that the community will come alive because I think this is really powerful. This is something that I already suggested and it did happen eventually, and I am quite happy with it. I do not have any specific feature in mind that I have a need for at the moment.
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.
Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
Centralized monitoring has improved threat response but cost control still needs refinement
Based on real operations used in our corporate IT environment, the key features include log correlation and incident view. Microsoft Sentinel's biggest strength is how it correlates multiple related alerts into a single incident. This significantly reduces alert noise and helps the SOC focus on real threats instead of isolated events. Another valuable feature is KQL-based threat hunting with Kusto Query Language. The flexibility of this language allows us to build custom hunting queries based on our environment's behavior. This is extremely useful for detecting low and slow threats or hidden threats that default rules may miss. Cloud-native scalability and stability is another important feature. Being cloud-native, Microsoft Sentinel scales well for medium to large corporate environments without infrastructure management. Stability has been solid in day-to-day production. SOAR automation using playbooks is a feature we highly recommend. Microsoft Sentinel's SOAR functionality helps automate repetitive SOC tasks like alert enrichment and notification. This saves analyst time and improves response consistency.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If I review about 100 vendors that I might work with, Torq is definitely in the top five that gave me personally investment back, just because every bit of effort I put into Torq eventually became a workflow that gave it back to me."
"As an analyst, it has demonstrated potential to reduce workforce requirements and time needed for related activities."
"Any request that comes in, regardless of how complex it is, I can accomplish it with Torq."
"What I appreciate most about Torq is that it is an essential part of our system."
"Using that one piece of AI, we auto-closed 511 cases in quarter four alone."
"Once I started to use the system and I saw the potential, it changed all of our work in IT."
"think QRadar is great overall. We’ve had a positive experience with it and recommend it for deployment. However, there are areas for improvement. The technical support is good, and the documentation is valuable, but it could be enhanced, especially regarding integration with other systems. In terms of support and updates, QRadar’s capabilities are crucial for maintaining high security standards. Network and software administrators can monitor all traffic effectively, which reassures clients and drives further adoption."
"Most valuable features include the granularity of information."
"Vulnerability detection is the most valuable feature. It's the tool that finds the threats."
"The best part of this solution is having a third-party SOC."
"The most valuable features are the versatility of this solution and the variety of things you can do with it."
"The query search and log fetching are really helpful in IBM Security QRadar when compared to other tools."
"One very useful feature is the plug-in offering that allows you to integrate it with other solutions, such as integrating it with plug-ins like Scout, Carbon Black, and the rest."
"The most valuable features would have to be the products' ability to customize vulnerability management settings."
"The standout feature of Sentinel is that, because it's cloud-based and because it's from Microsoft, it integrates really well with all the other Microsoft products. It's really simple to set up and get going."
"Microsoft Sentinel flags when admin credentials log in from an unusual location, automatically alerting the security team so they can investigate."
"The machine learning and artificial intelligence on offer are great."
"There are some very powerful features to Sentinel, such as the integration of various connectors. We have a lot of departments that use both IaaS and SaaS services, including M365 as well as Azure services. The ability to leverage connectors into these environments allows for large-scale data injection."
"Sentinel has features that have helped improve our security poster. It helped us in going ahead and identifying the gaps via analysis and focusing on the key elements."
"Sentinel uses Azure Logic Apps for automation, which is really powerful. This allows us to easily automate responses to incidents."
"Microsoft Sentinel's ability to correlate data from multiple sources has improved our capability significantly."
"Sentinel has reduced the work involved in the event investigation by quite a lot."
 

Cons

"Regarding stability, I have noticed some lagging, crashing, and downtime, which is one of my largest gripes."
"Regarding the pricing of Torq, I would say it is expensive."
"It was able to capture data but was unable to differentiate between the agent hostname we are using and the hostname that resides on the back end of the Internet."
"The initial deployment of Torq was not easy."
"Even now, we have workflows that are in production that use AI steps and I get different results, making it unusable to some degree."
"The solution can be improved by lowering the cost and bettering their technical support."
"The solution is expensive compared to other products."
"Certain updates—especially when using Azure—don't apply directly. Our engineering team must invest additional effort to implement these updates. However, the tool's cloud-based version poses no issues. However, upgrading the product can sometimes be challenging for on-premises instances."
"The interface is very old. IBM should remake it into a more modern interface."
"I would like to see the update process simplified."
"The only challenge with products like IBM is the EPS. You just have to be really on the events per second, as that's where the cost factor becomes a huge issue."
"Right now, if you look at the compatibility, if you need to deploy QRadar in a physical appliance you have only two choices of server, their own or a Lenovo server. In today's world, you cannot keep something tied to such a big brand. Clients want to be able to use whatever type of server they want."
"IBM QRadar has outdated technology, and this is its area for improvement. When you try to implement an analytic expression, it's not updated. The solution doesn't support newer technologies, and it doesn't update regularly. For example, around the world, others implement new technologies, while IBM updates later than others."
"We're satisfied with the comprehensiveness of the security protection. That said, we do have issues sometimes where there have been global outages and we need to raise a ticket with Microsoft."
"Not all information shows up in Sentinel. Sometimes there are items provided in 365 and if you looked in Sentinel you would not see them and therefore think they do not exist. There can be discrepancies between Microsoft tools."
"Microsoft Sentinel should provide an alternative query language to KQL for users who lack KQL expertise."
"It would be good to have some connectors for third-party SIEM solutions. Many customers are struggling with the integration of Azure Sentinel with their on-premise SIEM. Microsoft is changing the log structure many times a year, which can corrupt a custom integration. It would be good to have some connectors developed by Microsoft or supply vendors, but they are not providing such functionality or tools."
"Microsoft Sentinel can be improved in terms of automation or connecting with security products so that it is easier to use for general IT admins."
"When compared to other industry standard SIEM solutions like Splunk or Palo Alto, Microsoft Sentinel can improve a lot."
"It could have a better API to be able to automate many things more extensively and get more extensive data and more expensive deployment possibilities. It can gain some points on the automation part and the integration part. The API is very limited, and I would like to see it extended a bit more."
"Microsoft should improve Sentinel, considering that from the legacy systems, it cannot collect logs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Pricing is good."
"QRadar's price is reasonable compared to LogRhythm."
"There are additional costs, such as the cost associated with the different hardware required for implementation and deployment. Along with the add-on apps, these are all additional costs, and they require licensing as well."
"The price of this solution is a little high."
"Licensing is very expensive, IBM QRadar is a very expensive solution. If you want to minimize costs then IBM QRadar is not for you."
"It's free of charge."
"As for licensing costs, I haven't seen the exact figures, but it is considered somewhat costly. On a scale from one to ten, where one is very expensive and ten is very cheap, I would rate it a six—it’s costly but worth the money."
"The cost of this product is expensive."
"For us, it is not expensive at this time, but if we start to collect all logs from our on-premise SIEM solutions, it will cost more than QRadar. If we calculate its cost over the next five or ten years, it will cost more than what we paid for QRadar."
"Sentinel is costly."
"It's costly to maintain and renew."
"There are no additional costs other than the initial costs of Sentinel."
"Sentinel is pretty competitive. The pricing is at the level of other SIEM solutions."
"We only pay for the amount of data we bring in, which is fair."
"Sentinel is costly compared to other solutions, but it's fair. SIEM solutions like CrowdStrike charge based on daily log volume. They generally process a set number of logs for free before they start charging. Microsoft's pricing is clearer. It's free under five gigabytes. Some of these logs we ingest have a cost, so they don't hide it. I believe the tenant pays the price, and Microsoft helps create awareness of the cost."
"Azure Sentinel is very costly, or at least it appears to be very costly. The costs vary based on your ingestion and your retention charges."
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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
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business91
Midsize Enterprise39
Large Enterprise105
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise45
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Torq?
We do not utilize the AI features that much. When it comes to general AI features of Torq, we are just slowly startin...
What is your primary use case for Torq?
Torq markets itself as a security tool, and we do use them for security, but not in the traditional sense they market...
What advice do you have for others considering Torq?
I would rate Torq an eight overall. I feel that Torq is as good as the effort you put into it. The limitations are ve...
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...
Is there a common threat intelligence tool that aggregates multiple threat intelligence sources?
Yes, Azure Sentinel is a SIEM on the Cloud. Multiple data sources can be uploaded and analyzed with Azure Sentinel an...
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...
Which is better - Azure Sentinel or AWS Security Hub?
We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. Microsoft Sentinel and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
883,044 professionals have used our research since 2012.