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IBM Security QRadar vs NetWitness Platform 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 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) (15th), 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
37th
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 August 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 3.6%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

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.
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

"The threat protection network is the most valuable feature, because when you get an offense, you can actually trace it back to where it originated from, how it originated, and why."
"We run 65 servers globally with just two people: an engineering person and me."
"I would rate IBM Security QRadar nine out of ten."
"The product can scale."
"IBM Security QRadar has significantly improved our incident response procedures."
"The ability to add extensions is the most valuable feature. For example, extensions that provide valuable test ports."
"I like that it's easy to use and the performance is good."
"In addition to using this solution for our security operations center, we are using it for our other customers."
"The most valuable features are the threat prediction and network forensics."
"NetWitness can be highly beneficial for incident detection and response."
"The most valuable features are the packet inspection and the automated incident response."
"The software is scalable to whatever is required, and you can also put a lot of resources in the cloud."
"The most valuable feature is the hunting ability to work in a CERT."
"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."
"The most valuable features are the integration and ease of use."
"Possibility to investigate incidents based on logs and raw packets, such as extracting files sent over the network"
 

Cons

"Communication between the silos sometimes becomes an issue, making it an area where improvements are required."
"You can scale IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics, but it has room for improvement."
"There is a lot of manual configuration required in order for the product to run smoothly, and I think that it could be made more automatic."
"The user interface is a bit difficult to get used to."
"For future updates, I'd like to see more advanced threat intelligence features integrated with AI. This would help with analyzing traffic patterns and improving protection. QRadar currently doesn't integrate with AI for threat analysis. However, AI could enhance its capabilities by learning traffic patterns and automatically blocking or quarantining suspicious traffic. This would be especially useful when administrators are not actively monitoring. AI could help by analyzing incoming and outgoing traffic and adjusting policies accordingly."
"There should be more opportunity for community kind of distribution where, for example, if there was a zero-day threat targeting companies."
"The costing part could be improved."
"QRadar needs to be more specialized, along the lines of what other SIEM solutions are."
"It is not so easy to customize this product."
"There are instances where you try to run the reports and then it does not give you the desired outcome."
"I'd like to see improvement in its ease of use. It's basically unusable. It's overly complex."
"More customizability is required, which is something that they need to improve on."
"They should implement algorithms to digest that data and produce additional, more advanced reporting, alerting and support of internal security teams."
"Log aggregation is an issue with this solution because there are a huge number of alerts in a single instance."
"The initial setup is complex. There are other solutions that are easier to implement."
"The solution should have more integration capabilities with different platforms."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this solution is reasonable."
"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."
"There is a license to use this solution, which is paid annually. However, there are subscription options available."
"It's too expensive. The licensing is also a little bit difficult to understand because you have to license it per event and per number of flows."
"There is an annual license required for this solution."
"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."
"We use QRadar as a managed service and we pay licensing fees to the partner."
"Most of the time, it is easier and cheaper to buy a new product or the QRadar box."
"It’s cheaper to run virtual machines in a VMware environment."
"The licenses are good but the cost is very expensive."
"RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets do not have a subscription model, it's a one-time purchase. There is only a perpetual license."
"The product is expensive."
"We have a perpetual license, so the total cost of ownership is not very expensive. It's a good investment."
"It is cheap."
"This is a pricey solution; it's not cheap."
"We have yearly licensing costs. The license fee can be based on the volume of EPS. Some organizations may have, as a gentlemanly gesture, 10,000 EPS and get a 3,000 EPS license but actually use 5,000 EPS."
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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%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
 

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.
Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. NetWitness Platform and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
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