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IBM Security QRadar vs Splunk SOAR 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
7.1
IBM Security QRadar is praised for efficient monitoring, low costs, valuable analytics, and beneficial long-term security investments.
Sentiment score
6.3
Splunk SOAR's benefits vary, often improving efficiency, yet setup complexities and costs can challenge perceived returns and integration success.
With SOAR, the workflow takes one minute or less to complete the analysis.
Investing this amount was very much worth it for my organization.
We've seen a decrease in false positives and a significant increase in our containment.
 

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
6.9
Splunk SOAR's support is responsive and efficient, with strong documentation but needs improvement in niche telecom use cases.
They assist with advanced issues, such as hardware or other problems, that are not part of standard operations.
Support needs to understand the issue first, then escalate it to the engineering team.
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.
Discovering different troubleshooting methods is harder to do with Splunk SOAR than with Enterprise Security or other Splunk services.
Splunk's technical support is very good and generally not needed often due to the stable environment.
 

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
7.1
Splunk SOAR is highly scalable, adaptable for various environments, with users praising its flexibility despite occasional issues.
For EPS license, if you increase or exceed the EPS license, you cannot receive events.
It can be extended and adapted as necessary.
Splunk SOAR has the ability to scale quite significantly.
 

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
7.5
Splunk SOAR is stable with minimal outages, effective high-availability features, minor latency issues, and an eight out of ten stability rating.
I think QRadar is stable and currently satisfies my needs.
The product has been stable so far.
We have not experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues.
Splunk SOAR provides a stable environment and technology.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Security QRadar users seek improvements in interface design, integration, automation, cost-efficiency, and advanced analytics for better usability.
Splunk SOAR users seek better integration, advanced automation, improved usability, enhanced features, comprehensive documentation, and more responsive support.
We receive logs from different types of devices and need a way to correlate them effectively.
If AI-related support can suggest rules and integrate with existing security devices like MD, IPS, this SIM can create more relevant rules.
IBM Security QRadar does not support Canvas, so we had to create custom scripts and workarounds to pull logs from Canvas.
Although it enhances alert handling, it still has a journey to compete with Palo Alto SOAR and FortiSOAR.
Splunk's Unified Platform does help consolidate networking security and IT observability tools.
To make Splunk SOAR a better solution, there could be better built-in debugging tools, smarter playbook suggestions, and enhanced lifecycle management.
 

Setup Cost

IBM Security QRadar is costly yet efficient, priced on Events Per Second, and offers negotiable, simplified annual licensing.
Splunk SOAR's subscription model is costly but justified for its efficiency and automation benefits, especially for larger organizations.
Splunk is more expensive than IBM Security QRadar.
It was costly mainly because of the value you can get right now compared to other solutions.
Splunk SOAR is moderately priced, neither cheap nor overly expensive.
Splunk SOAR is affordable cost-wise only.
The solution is free for us, which is a beneficial aspect.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Security QRadar is a scalable, user-friendly platform praised for rapid insights, advanced machine learning, and integration capabilities.
Splunk SOAR excels in customizable automation, seamless integration, enhancing incident response, and reducing manual tasks with user-friendly features.
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.
We have FortiSOAR and IBM Resilient for IBM Security QRadar orchestration.
Creating playbooks using the Playbook Editor in Splunk SOAR is easy. The editor is designed to be user-friendly with visual drag and drop features, allowing for easy workflows without writing any code.
The customization of the playbook in Splunk SOAR is very beneficial.
The consolidation of tools greatly impacts my organization since I have everything all in one place, which is great.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
211
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (7th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (18th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (8th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (11th)
Splunk SOAR
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 7.1%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk SOAR is 7.7%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Splunk SOAR7.7%
IBM Security QRadar7.1%
Other85.2%
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
 

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.
Mack Scott - PeerSpot reviewer
Improves response time by consolidating tools and automating threat detection
I haven't gone too far into it to see anything that needs improvement yet. We can likely include some features related to the integration with on-premises resources, rather than focusing solely on the existing automation. These are the additional features that could be included in the future. Splunk's Unified Platform does help consolidate networking security and IT observability tools. They should integrate Splunk Enterprise Security better into Splunk Cloud.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) solutions are best for your needs.
868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business89
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise102
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise28
 

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 Splunk Phantom?
Splunk SOAR's quick response to incidents is the most valuable part.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Splunk Phantom?
I don't have experience with costs; management handles that aspect.
What needs improvement with Splunk Phantom?
I haven't gone too far into it to see anything that needs improvement yet. We can likely include some features related to the integration with on-premises resources, rather than focusing solely on ...
 

Also Known As

IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
Phantom
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Recorded Future, Blackstone
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. Splunk SOAR and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.