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IBM Security QRadar vs Security Onion 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
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
210
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), 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)
Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
19th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 3.8%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Security Onion is 4.6%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Security QRadar3.8%
Security Onion4.6%
Other91.6%
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.
Jörg Kippe - PeerSpot reviewer
A mature and affordable solution that is easy to install and easy to update
The product takes time to learn, it's not that easy. In the beginning we had a lot of questions. If you want to use such a tool in an real (industrial) environment, you have to ask how to get the network data. Can we do a full packet capture? Can we provide agents to our end systems? There are no simple solutions to these questions. It's a general problem when running such systems in an industrial environment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature that I have found most valuable is its artificial intelligence component, Watson. Its contribution is pretty good from a machine-learning artificial intelligence perspective. This compliments the orchestration automation component, as well."
"The most valuable feature is the machine learning module."
"It provides many options for searching. I can see devices from different vendors, like Cisco, in one interface, which is good for me."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with the GRD, for banking."
"It's built around Red Hat Linux, which is highly robust."
"IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson is a stable solution."
"There are a lot of great out-of-the-box features included."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
"The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports."
"Security Onion is the most mature solution in the market."
 

Cons

"IBM Security QRadar’s GUI could be improved."
"You can scale IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics, but it has room for improvement."
"QRadar needs to be more specialized, along the lines of what other SIEM solutions are."
"The price of IBM Security QRadar is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"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 solution should enhance its capabilities of UEBA and AI/ML tech modeling."
"We would like to see better instrumentation for debugging changes in the log flow."
"We sometimes experience downtime, but it depends on the version. There is some variability."
"The product is not easy to learn."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay approximately $40,000 to use the solution annually. This solution is a lot less expensive than Splunk."
"There is a license required for this solution. There are some limitations depending on what license you purchase."
"It is a perpetual license that we have for the event collector. The licensing is done based on the number of events and flows that you receive on this particular device. These are perpetual licenses, which means once you purchase them, they don't expire, which means that the support to IBM is definitely renewed after every one year. We have an enterprise agreement with IBM, which puts the cost in a totally different category as compared to someone who is not an IBM partner and is approaching IBM for this solution. We were able to get massive discounts. To give you an idea, we recently purchased 30,000 event licenses, and it costs around $480,000. It is definitely not a cheap product. We have licenses for about 270,000 events per second and 3 million flows per second. All the appliances and their events and flows are basically clubbed together and charged or rather calculated through a single source. The console receives all the details from all the event processes that we have globally. So, the license that we have is a single license for 270,000 events per second and 3 million flows per second, but that can be managed centrally. I was only part of the secondary purchase, which was 30,000 events per second for about $480,000. You can calculate how much we paid for 270,000 events. Reducing its price would be a compromise. We have already used a lower-priced product in the form of NNT, but we had to get rid of it because it was not doing the job that we actually wanted to do. You get what you pay for."
"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 not expensive for the resources that it gives you."
"There is a license to use this solution, which is paid annually. However, there are subscription options available."
"The pricing is higher but cheaper than others and there are no additional costs."
"IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics is an application framework and you can install many applications without any additional costs."
"Security Onion is a free solution."
"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
"It is an open-source solution."
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Comparison Review

VS
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
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
University
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business88
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise102
No data available
 

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 Security Onion?
The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Security Onion?
Security Onion is an open-source solution. On a scale from one to ten, where ten is expensive and one is cheap, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten.
What needs improvement with Security Onion?
The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. Security Onion and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.