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IBM Security QRadar vs Rapid7 InsightIDR comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 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

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Sponsored
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
6th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
10th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
218
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (6th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (2nd), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (3rd), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (5th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (7th)
Rapid7 InsightIDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
47th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
28th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (25th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (12th), Threat Deception Platforms (6th)
 

Q&A Highlights

Navin Rehnius - PeerSpot reviewer
SOC Analyst at Tata Consultancy Services, Ltd
Aug 10, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

ABHISHEK_SINGH - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Gained full visibility and streamlined threat detection through behavior-based insights and AI integration
Initially, we got to have a lot of false positives when we onboarded, but nowadays it's quite smooth. We have fine-tuned our security policies and allowed different levels of policies to get rid of those false positives. Currently, we are getting a fairly good amount of incidents that are not false positives or benign, but actionable items. The process is streamlined. In the initial days, the operations used to get involved in a lot of benign and other activities, but now the process is streamlined. We are leveraging the auto-detection and remediation plans. The operations teams are now more involved in other business roles as well, not just looking into the logs and fetching out what's happening there. They have fixed a lot of things. Initially, they didn't have IAC code drift detection, cloud posture management, or security posture management, but they have those now. They purchased different vendors and did a merger with that. They have now Prisma Cloud that gets integrated and now they are working with Cortex Cloud. Everything that was negative has now been addressed, and the product altogether looks to be in a very better and mature shape now. Currently, it's more or less detecting the workloads with AI-based best practices. Since most organizations are consuming AI agents and other things, we are looking forward to seeing what other feature enhancements Palo Alto can support in that.
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.
SohailHyder - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of Cyber Security at Super Secure
Has supported compliance needs for mid-sized organizations but lacks customization and advanced integration
If we pitch Rapid7 InsightIDR against solutions such as SIEMs from Splunk or LogRhythm, it is not as customizable as a SIEM solution is. This is where it can improve if we keep in front the feature sets of a complete SIEM solution. Most common in the market is QRadar, but it is depleting now. It has been taken over by some other products such as Splunk and LogRhythm. If we compare these things with Rapid7 InsightIDR, then there are definitely some gaps that need to be filled. Data retention is also one concern because Rapid7 InsightIDR is cloud-based and operates on a subscription model. Whatever data you want to retain, it has to be paid for separately or it has a cost. Other solutions that are on-premises can have their own infrastructure or they provide some data retention for a month or in some capacity-wise, they provide that solution to them which makes them more attractive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cortex XDR features advanced threat detection capabilities."
"It has absolutely improved the way our organization functions, we are more secure, it is giving us more peace of mind, and it has found malicious activity happening on our endpoints that probably would not have been detected if we didn't have it."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"I don't have to do much monitoring with it; I don't have to have anybody manually looking at this, it gives us reports, and it lets us know if something needs to be addressed, and we can easily address it."
"Its interface and pricing are most valuable, and it is better than other vendors in terms of security."
"I like that the product has behavior-based detection which offers many benefits over signature-based detection."
"From the Palo Alto side, whatever they buy, they integrate that really well into their integration suite, and that makes a massive difference."
"In one single alert, we are getting the network telemetry, endpoint telemetry, email security telemetry, and proxy telemetry all in one single ticket, making it very easy."
"We chose IBM because it has a lot of power, and you can grow it as much as and however you want it to."
"The most valuable feature is the DSM Editor. The custom parsing tool is very nice, outstanding."
"IBM has everything you need in a cybersecurity solution. If you want to build a cybersecurity operation center version then I think QRadar is a perfect solution."
"I think the QDI is very good."
"The IBM QRadar Licensing for the core Events(EPS) and Flows(FPS) is per second based, the licensing is perpetual and surely expensive but the output of the product makes it worth your money."
"The most valuable feature is the machine learning module."
"Overall a great solution."
"The ability to transition from microscopic to macroscopic view, instantly, is very good."
"We were able to identify criminals attempting to login from China and put a stop on their IP locations."
"The technical support is a solid 10 out of 10 as they take the time to answer any questions or problems which may arise in a reasonable time frame."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR is budget-friendly and has a good market position because not everybody can afford to go for LogRhythm or Splunk or QRadar."
"Very intuitive and easy to set up."
"Another very important part of insightIDR is the ability to collect data from endpoint devices via agent software. With a large remote workforce, this allows visibility into the endpoints that are connected to the internet, but not to the corporate network."
"The incident case management is the most valuable feature. Even though there's always something I find I would like to add to that feature, the ability to quickly sort through all the logs, network and endpoint data, etc., and add it to an incident case as part of the investigation, is nice. Having it automatically timeline that additional data into the original incident timeline, and correlate it to other notable events and activities on the network, results in a huge improvement in our overall confidence that we've quickly traced down the right source of an issue."
"InsightIDR’s ability to process millions of transactions per day, and to notify me of the most critical ones, is priceless. InsightIDR has the alerts tuned, and has the ability to quickly drill down to determine the threat level."
"Rapid7 is easy to use and deploy. It is a simple solution and has easy data pulling."
 

Cons

"It's more focused on network communication. If a customer wants to increase the level of protection and start working with documents, it's impossible to integrate these features into the system. It's more of a communication-oriented system than a content security-oriented system."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a very good product, but financially, it is very expensive, so the company should look into that area."
"There are some false positives. What our guys would have liked is that it would have been easier to manipulate as soon as they found a false positive that they knew was a false positive. How to do so was not obvious. Some people complained about it. The interface, the ESM, is not user-friendly."
"If you compare it to SentinelOne, which has more functionalities and detection capabilities on an open platform, the pricing on SentinelOne is far more reasonable and cheaper than Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks."
"We had a problem with getting our older endpoints up to date, but their newest updates have been really good. I've been pleased with it in terms of what our needs are. It's doing what we want it to do."
"Previously, the endpoint would leave the environment, not being on our VPN, essentially unable to interact with the server to upload files. It was unable to retrieve new file verdicts. It was using a thing called "local analysis" to determine if something was a malicious file or not. There was no dynamic analysis."
"Based on our experience so far, its implementation is quite complex."
"I would like to see improvement in the tool's user interface, particularly in the area of managing alerts and providing more reporting capabilities."
"The price of this solution is a little bit expensive, so if it were cheaper then it would help."
"I would like to see more APIs available in order to provide tighter integrations between other IBM products and third-party solutions."
"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."
"The technical support from IBM Qradar could improve. I rate the support from IBM Qradar a two out of ten."
"The biggest problem was built on top of the QRadar in the executive operations center network. The integration was not using the network security specialist properly, and all the incidents were inferior with QRadar. Its compatibility is not really good."
"The AQL queries could be better."
"The product does not have a team for investigating malware."
"The product is good, but one feature they should have is an Elasticsearch. Currently, in QRadar, there are no Elasticsearch criteria."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR is not intuitive to search for logs. It should be more user-friendly and improve the dashboards. We should be able to use ready-made templates instead of having to build one."
"The ability to tune the collector for custom logs would greatly help."
"I'd like to see a mobile application included and some feature related to the generality of segregation for internal users that access the application."
"Needs a better ability to customize the check within the console."
"The dashboard is an area that could be simplified. For management, it should be clear and the files should be there."
"One thing that springs to mind is easier API integration with ITSMs."
"I would like the ability to adjust the threshold of certain existing alerts. Currently the only option is to change the notifications or create my own alert."
"It takes time for the product's support team to resolve issues, making it an area of concern where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is high for the license and in general."
"This is an expensive solution."
"The solution has one subscription for endpoint protection and one subscription for detection and response. The two licenses combined give you the BRO version."
"The price of the solution could be reduced. I have customers that have voiced that the solution is good for the value but if I want to sell more of the solution the price reduction would help."
"It is present, but when compared to other competitive products, I would say it is not less expensive; however, when all of the other added values are considered, the price is reasonable."
"Cortex XDR’s pricing is very reasonable."
"Every customer has to pay for a license because it doesn't work with what you get from a managed services provider."
"It is "expensive" and flexible."
"We pay approximately $40,000 to use the solution annually. This solution is a lot less expensive than Splunk."
"Most of the time, it is easier and cheaper to buy a new product or the QRadar box."
"On a scale of one to ten, I rate the price a one, where one is an extremely expensive product, and ten is a cheap product."
"The price of this solution is a little high."
"It is costlier as compared to the other alternatives available in the market."
"Licensing can be costly depending on your architecture."
"The price of this solution is reasonable."
"There is a license to use this solution, which is paid annually. However, there are subscription options available."
"The pricing of the solution depends on the user. But there is a yearly licensing cost."
"​I am sure that there are cheaper products out there, but none that meet so many of our needs whilst maintaining stability and usability.​"
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"The pricing is good, and it is not very expensive."
"​Accurately predict your licensing counts as this is a subscription based product.​"
"It is on a yearly basis. For our own company, for about 250 users, it was 16,000 euros a year."
"Licensing is by endpoint and amount of retention time (at least ours is). Default retention was one year, but we are able to push the retention further if needed. There's also a provide-your-own-S3 option for longer retention if you don't want to pay for the additional retention years in your Rapid7 agreement."
"I rate Rapid7 InsightIDR's price a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
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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…
 

Answers from the Community

Navin Rehnius - PeerSpot reviewer
SOC Analyst at Tata Consultancy Services, Ltd
Aug 10, 2021
Aug 10, 2021
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, remember that any EDR/XDR should integrate to the SIEM/SOAR and a strong threat intel source. If you consider SOC outsourcing take your time and find one you can integrate like a virtual team member. They a...
2 out of 12 answers
KM
IT Infrastructure Analyst at AG Group
Jul 26, 2021
I haven't used these big-name ones like Splunk etc. but I feel they're overpriced. I think they charge an arm and a leg for each module. The ROI justification is not there. Why not try a cheaper and robust alternative like Elasticsearch?
KA
Unit Head Titanium (Security Solution) at RapidCompute
Jul 26, 2021
We are using LogRthythm SIEM complete case management and offer SIEM/SOC as service.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business92
Midsize Enterprise39
Large Enterprise107
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. Sentinel One
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. SentinelOne SentinelOne offers very detailed specifics with regard to risks or attacks. ...
Comparing CrowdStrike Falcon to Cortex XDR (Palo Alto)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Both Cortex XDR and Crowd Strike Falcon offer cloud-based solutions th...
How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface,...
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...
What needs improvement with Rapid7 InsightIDR?
If we pitch Rapid7 InsightIDR against solutions such as SIEMs from Splunk or LogRhythm, it is not as customizable as ...
What is your primary use case for Rapid7 InsightIDR?
I am working with Rapid7 InsightOps and Rapid7 InsightIDR because the requirement is as such from the customer side, ...
What advice do you have for others considering Rapid7 InsightIDR?
Rapid7 InsightIDR is budget-friendly and has a good market position because not everybody can afford to go for LogRhy...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
InsightIDR
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Liberty Wines, Pioneer Telephone, Visier
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,417 professionals have used our research since 2012.