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IBM Security QRadar vs NetWitness Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 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
7th
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
216
Ranking in other categories
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (17th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (8th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (11th)
NetWitness Platform
Ranking in Log Management
34th
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
30th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 3.6%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Security QRadar3.6%
NetWitness Platform0.5%
Other95.9%
Log Management
 

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.
MOTASHIM Al Razi - PeerSpot reviewer
CISO at One Bank Limited
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

"It is very stable. We have not faced interruptions in the past four and a half years."
"It's hard for me to pinpoint any one feature that's most valuable because it is all about consuming logs and analyzing them. We started using QRadar UBA because we needed something that could analyze Linux authentication information. Other products take care of the Windows platform."
"The playbook engine is flexible and allows for the graphical visualization of processes, enabling the implementation of dynamic playbooks for incident response or testing."
"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."
"We run 65 servers globally with just two people: an engineering person and me."
"It is a bit easier to use than other products, such as Splunk or ELK Elasticsearch."
"There are a lot of features in QRadar. App Exchange is the most valuable feature. User behavior analytics (UBA) is also a very good feature. Watson is also there, but we are not currently using Watson. It is versatile and quite easy. It also has an all-in-one-box feature and good integration with AWS."
"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."
"NetWitness Platform is valuable for creating rules that the solution must detect."
"Their technical support responds quickly and are knowledgable."
"I can have enterprise security, email security, next generation firewall security log, HIDS and NIDS logs, etc. all on the same dashboard. It makes it easy to pinpoint or correlate our server to this. I can find out if there is lateral movement. This is the biggest advantage of this solution."
"It's quite economical compared to other solutions in the market."
"It gives the ability to investigate into network traffic in the Net and the organization what we couldn't do before."
"The most valuable feature is the hunting ability to work in a CERT."
"It gives the capability for the incident response team to correlate logs to identify any kind of problem like malware and incidents in a general sense, both for logs and packets."
"In my opinion, the solution's most valuable feature is its capacity to monitor network traffic, logs from devices within the network, and network captures. This capability extends beyond logs to include full network capturing."
 

Cons

"The threat detection needs improvement, they have many false positives."
"The advanced planning management (APM) features should be included."
"I think QRadar is very complex. It's a distributed system and IBM QRadar has an all-in-one solution which is not like that distributed solution but it's a good product. IBM needs to consider the user interface because if we compare it with AlienVault, the AlienVault user interface is fantastic but the IBM QRadar user interface is very complex. They should focus on how to make it easier for the client."
"I would like to see some artificial intelligence and alternative solutions."
"IMB should reduce the pricing, or reduce some of the features for a more economical solution for the customer."
"The solution can be improved by lowering the cost and bettering their technical support."
"GUI needs to be improved."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly product."
"The implementation needs assistance."
"Nowadays, their support is a little subpar compared to other solutions. I rate RSA support six out of 10."
"The log system is a bit complex and has room for improvement."
"The multi-tenant capabilities are lagging compared to IBM QRadar."
"Health monitoring of the event sources and devices."
"Its technical support could be better."
"There is no support for this product in this country, so problems have to be resolved through global technical teams."
"They should implement algorithms to digest that data and produce additional, more advanced reporting, alerting and support of internal security teams."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price of this solution is a little bit expensive, so if it were cheaper then it would help."
"think the pricing is quite flexible."
"There are different types of subscriptions available. We were on an annual subscription, but our customers typically choose the two years subscription option."
"Licensing can be costly depending on your architecture."
"IBM QRadar is a little bit expensive compared to other products."
"It's free of charge."
"The license is not subscription-based."
"Compared to the competition, the is price is not that high."
"The licenses are good but the cost is very expensive."
"The new pricing and licensing mechanisms are fair. I would advise always to get the full solution (i.e., not only Logs)."
"We have a perpetual license, so the total cost of ownership is not very expensive. It's a good investment."
"In comparison to other SIEM solutions such as Splunk, NetWitness is less costly."
"Our license is for one year."
"This is a pricey solution; it's not cheap."
"The product price was reasonable for my region and the market."
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Comparison Review

VS
Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Performing Arts
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business89
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise105
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise20
 

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?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is great compared to the other vendor.
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.
Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. NetWitness Platform and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,259 professionals have used our research since 2012.