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IBM Security QRadar vs Sentinel 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Security QRadar is praised for efficient monitoring, low costs, valuable analytics, and beneficial long-term security investments.
Sentiment score
6.0
Sentinel tracks user behavior to prevent security issues, offering financial gain typically within a three-year lease period.
With SOAR, the workflow takes one minute or less to complete the analysis.
Investing this amount was very much worth it for my organization.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
IBM Security QRadar's customer service is praised overall, though technical support quality varies, with notable regional differences.
Sentiment score
4.5
Clients find Sentinel service excellent overall, but some face delays and difficulties, especially with low-priority issues.
The support is really good; for instance, if a critical ticket is submitted, you will get paged right away as it gets logged, and their analyst will look into it, letting you know as soon as possible so you can work on it.
This process can result in outages lasting three to four hours.
They assist with advanced issues, such as hardware or other problems, that are not part of standard operations.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
IBM Security QRadar is scalable and flexible, accommodating thousands of users and devices, though some express pricing concerns.
Sentiment score
8.0
Sentinel efficiently scales and integrates with systems, favored by large organizations for enterprise-grade performance in extensive environments.
For EPS license, if you increase or exceed the EPS license, you cannot receive events.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
IBM Security QRadar is generally stable, though some users face challenges with updates, configurations, scalability, and high log volumes.
Sentiment score
8.0
Sentinel is generally stable, with some users noting Java-related issues and region-specific outages, but high ratings overall.
The product has been stable so far.
I think QRadar is stable and currently satisfies my needs.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Security QRadar users seek improvements in interface design, integration, automation, cost-efficiency, and advanced analytics for better usability.
Sentinel requires improved web integration, user interface, customization, documentation, and dashboard simplicity, while addressing regional outages and cost concerns.
We receive logs from different types of devices and need a way to correlate them effectively.
IBM Security QRadar does not support Canvas, so we had to create custom scripts and workarounds to pull logs from Canvas.
If AI-related support can suggest rules and integrate with existing security devices like MD, IPS, this SIM can create more relevant rules.
Price is always a consideration, so the price would be nice if it were lower.
 

Setup Cost

IBM Security QRadar is costly yet efficient, priced on Events Per Second, and offers negotiable, simplified annual licensing.
Sentinel is a subscription-based enterprise solution with competitive pricing, offering discounts and regular updates, requiring a support contract.
Splunk is more expensive than IBM Security QRadar.
They nearly always bill it in dollars, so if it can be billed in our currency, that would be helpful and fixed in our currency.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Security QRadar is a scalable, user-friendly platform praised for rapid insights, advanced machine learning, and integration capabilities.
Sentinel excels with its scalable, user-friendly design, integrating advanced threat detection and automated incident response, enhancing security management.
Recently, I faced an incident, a cyber incident, and it was detected in real time.
IBM is seeking information about IBM QRadar because a part of QRadar, especially in the cloud, has been sold to Palo Alto.
I would assess IBM Security QRadar's AI and machine learning capabilities as very helpful for threat detection and response.
Sentinel's best features include that it's a very easy product to use.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
210
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (6th), 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)
Sentinel
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
21st
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 7.2%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sentinel is 3.8%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Security QRadar7.2%
Sentinel3.8%
Other89.0%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

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.
Simon Johnston - PeerSpot reviewer
Simple antivirus solution integrates well but could improve pricing and currency options
I don't really have experience working with these solutions. I promote them for our clients, but I don't work with them. I can't share my experience with these tools as I make assumptions about that. For both Adlumin and CrowdStrike, both confirm that they're scalable and enterprise-ready and all those kinds of things. We haven't had any specific problem with either of those. We just have a preference for which one we would prefer. If somebody says they want to use a different one from the one that we prefer, then we have to find reasons why they aren't. But scalability is not one of the reasons that one is better over the other. I don't really have advice for people that are looking into using Sentinel; just do your research across what is available. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Sentinel a seven.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions are best for your needs.
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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%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business88
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise102
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

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 NetIQ Sentinel?
The solution lets us get all the logs properly and regularly monitor customer infrastructure.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetIQ Sentinel?
I don't have too many comments overall about pricing as we're in South Africa, so it makes more sense if it's billed in rand. They nearly always bill it in dollars, so if it can be billed in our cu...
What needs improvement with NetIQ Sentinel?
I'm not sure what the room for improvement is for Sentinel. It needs to stay current, and it does, so I suppose that's fine. I don't have a high demand for what it should do. Price is always a cons...
 

Also Known As

IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
NetIQ Sentinel, Novell SIEM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Faysal Bank, GaVI, Handelsbanken, ISC Mªnster, Lambeth Council, Swisscard, The Municipality of Siena, Tukes, University of Dayton, University of the Sunshine Coast
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. Sentinel and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.