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IBM Security QRadar vs NetWitness Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 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 Log Management
5th
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
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (18th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (9th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (13th)
NetWitness Platform
Ranking in Log Management
38th
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
29th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 3.7%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 0.3%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Md. Shahriar Hussain - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time incident detection and user-friendly dashboard benefit daily operations
There are many types of AI, and this AI is very limited in SQL and features. There may be potential for improvement. So far, it seems very limited. It shows some good features in the correlation part, but I think there is room for improvement. For instance, when creating rules, it can suggest more rules, reducing the effort needed. If AI-related support can suggest rules and integrate with existing security devices like MD, IPS, this SIM can create more relevant rules. Sometimes logs I receive don't mean anything, and I need technical stakeholders to share or forward logs, but these are sometimes inadequate. Keywords can help identify insufficient logs. I often lack time to verify logs. Sharing false positive results could be reduced to help my team.
MOTASHIM Al Razi - PeerSpot reviewer
It is a stable solution, but they should make the user interface easier to understand
The solution's initial setup takes work. We have to organize multiple paths and many features. The deployment process takes less than a week. But it takes a month to complete if we want to make the solution smarter by integrating it with various devices. I rate the process as a six out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I think it's a very stable product that provides much more visibility than the other product."
"IBM QRadar is great help from its security event monitoring to data center and NOC troubleshooting of issues hard for other departments to spot."
"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."
"The best part of this solution is having a third-party SOC."
"I would rate IBM Security QRadar nine out of ten."
"The most valuable features are log monitoring, easy-to-fix issues, and problem-solving."
"What I like about IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics is that it uses machine learning algorithms to generate risk scoring for the user activity. I also like that it syncs with our Active Directory users, so it really has full coverage for all users in our environment."
"It has very rich functionality."
"The most valuable features are its ingestion of logs and raising of alerts based on those logs."
"The product's initial setup phase was not at all difficult."
"Alerting Module: It provides real-time event processing language on all the logs/packets stream for advanced alerting, i.e., using SQL LIKE statements."
"The product has a user-friendly interface and a valuable feature for threat intelligence integration."
"The most valuable feature is the hunting ability to work in a CERT."
"The most valuable features are the packet decoder, log decoder, and concentrator."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to write rules and triggers for network communication, and then being able to investigate based on that."
"NetWitness Platform is valuable for creating rules that the solution must detect."
 

Cons

"You can scale IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics, but it has room for improvement."
"IBM QRadar has a margin for development, for out-of-the-box use cases. It can be enhanced with better support and automate the use cases for that."
"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."
"Some of the cloud apps need improvement."
"Integration could be better. They should make it easy to integrate with other solutions."
"The quality of technical support depends on the IBM support person. Sometimes, it's hard to get the right person on the other side. A ticket coordinator could be the key to better quality delivery."
"QRadar UBA only keeps the data for a short while (it's refreshed every five minutes) and would be improved if this were extended to a week or month."
"Maybe there should be more custom rules in the exchange. Basically, we are using a lot of threat rules, so maybe they'll develop something like that."
"The log system is a bit complex and has room for improvement."
"The initial setup was complex because it takes a lot of time to complete the implementation."
"There are instances where you try to run the reports and then it does not give you the desired outcome."
"Log aggregation is an issue with this solution because there are a huge number of alerts in a single instance."
"It should have a monitoring feature. It would help us analyze the current state of attacks faster from a single platform."
"They should implement algorithms to digest that data and produce additional, more advanced reporting, alerting and support of internal security teams."
"The implementation needs assistance."
"Technical support could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is priced in a competitive manner. The tool's price is dependent on the installation and the product size, but it is competitive in the marketplace."
"They can give us some scalability and flexibility on pricing. If its pricing can be reduced, it would help a lot of customers in bringing in a new SIEM environment and grow business in the market. If I start a license today and take around 10,000 EPS, and after a month, there is an increase in the number of clients on my platform, I can increase the number of licenses. I can add 5,000 EPS on a yearly basis."
"The pricing is higher but cheaper than others and there are no additional costs."
"IBM's Qradar is not for small companie. Unfortunately, it would be 'overkill' to place it plainly. The pricing would be too much."
"There is an annual license required for this solution."
"The pricing needs to be such that they are more competitive with other vendors."
"Most of the time, it is easier and cheaper to buy a new product or the QRadar box."
"It is overly expensive and overly complex in terms of licensing. They have many different appliances, which makes it extremely difficult to choose the technology. It is very difficult to choose the technology or QRadar components that you should be deploying. They have improved some of it in the last few years. They have made it slightly easy with the fact that you can now buy virtual versions of all the appliances, which is good, but it is still very fragmented. For instance, on some of the smaller appliances, there is no upgrade path. So, if you exceed the capacity of the appliance, you have to buy a bigger appliance, which is not helpful because it is quite a major cost. If you want to add more disks to the system, they'll say that you can't."
"Compared to the competition, the is price is not that high."
"The tool is very expensive, so I rate the pricing a ten out of ten. The solution has an annual subscription."
"RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets do not have a subscription model, it's a one-time purchase. There is only a perpetual license."
"It is cheap."
"It’s cheaper to run virtual machines in a VMware environment."
"The product price was reasonable for my region and the market."
"Our license is for one year."
"The new pricing and licensing mechanisms are fair. I would advise always to get the full solution (i.e., not only Logs)."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.
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Comparison Review

VS
Feb 26, 2015
HP ArcSight vs. IBM QRadar vs. ​McAfee Nitro vs. Splunk vs. RSA Security vs. LogRhythm
We at Infosecnirvana.com have done several posts on SIEM. After the Dummies Guide on SIEM, we are following it up with a SIEM Product Comparison – 101 deck. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Let me know what you think by posting your comments below. The key products compared here are…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Educational Organization
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
6%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
What do you like most about NetWitness Platform?
The product's initial setup phase was not at all difficult.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetWitness Platform?
The pricing is comparable to others, and I consider the cost to be intermediate. Specific cost details are unknown to me.
What needs improvement with NetWitness Platform?
There is currently no need for improvement in the SIEM ( /categories/security-information-and-event-management-siem ), though there could be potential enhancements by integrating with AI.
 

Also Known As

IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
RSA Security Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
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Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. NetWitness Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
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