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IBM Security QRadar vs Varonis Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 7, 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 User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
210
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (6th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), 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)
Varonis Platform
Ranking in User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA)
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (20th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (9th), Data Governance (4th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (18th), Threat Intelligence Platforms (12th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (7th), Ransomware Protection (10th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 9.3%, down from 13.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Varonis Platform is 5.0%, up from 5.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Security QRadar9.3%
Varonis Platform5.0%
Other85.7%
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA)
 

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.
Herman Pienaar - PeerSpot reviewer
Has valuable data alerting capabilities and efficient reporting features
The solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient. It provides good reporting and visualization, which is superior to previous tools like Microsoft's. The platform's data alerting capabilities and automation features for managing broken permissions are particularly notable. It offers robust automation capabilities, including global permission repair, broken access repairs, and data transport engine features for archiving and migration. The automation tools are useful for managing permissions and performing cleanup tasks efficiently. It provides strong reporting capabilities that help customers adhere to regulations and maintain compliance. Automating reporting is beneficial for maintaining robust governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) posture. It does incorporate some AI elements, particularly in its data alerting module. However, AI integration has yet to be the primary focus of my implementations. AI is expected to play a larger role in future enhancements. I recommend Varonis, particularly its effectiveness in performing data security remediation tasks. Despite its high cost, it is valuable for its capabilities and the lack of impact on end users. Overall, I rate it a nine 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

"It saves a lot of time. We integrate the customer's firewall with all their networking devices."
"The solution is quite flexible."
"IBM QRadar is easy to scale, it doesn't affect the environment. In our office, we have around 40 - 50 users, but our clients have more users on their networks. Our organization has staff in the software department that manages IBM QRadar for us."
"No doubt about it, the solution is extremely stable."
"Most of the features are good. It is an excellent solution."
"It allows us to search data both on-premises and on the cloud."
"think QRadar is great overall. We’ve had a positive experience with it and recommend it for deployment. However, there are areas for improvement. The technical support is good, and the documentation is valuable, but it could be enhanced, especially regarding integration with other systems. In terms of support and updates, QRadar’s capabilities are crucial for maintaining high security standards. Network and software administrators can monitor all traffic effectively, which reassures clients and drives further adoption."
"The product has plenty of features and capabilities."
"The solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient."
"The telemetry to capture everything and the reports are very easy to configure without having a developer degree."
"It can easily identify unusual behavior or access patterns that may pose a potential threat, while operating as a unified reporting system."
"The analytics would have to be our most valuable feature."
"Technical support from Varonis is rated as nine out of ten."
"The solution ensures that users have not accidentally shared sensitive information with the wrong people or too many people."
"That alerting and reporting service is great."
"The most important feature is remediation. In remediation support, there is no group permission. We'll go ahead and remediate the access from the Dell folder to the parent folder."
 

Cons

"Some UI enhancements would be nice, such as exporting custom event properties and the ability to export rules."
"A lot of information that we receive for the devices is IP-based, but it would help if we could have a default dashboard in which we can add more details about the assets for which we are receiving the information. For example, if it is a Windows or Linux device, we only get the IP for that particular device. We don't really get the name and other details of that particular device. For that, you have to drill down into your own asset management system. It would be good to have a place where we can probably add this information so that we don't have to look into other tools."
"The only challenge is that IBM has been a closed enterprise. It should be more open to integrating with other providers at an enterprise level. We're a bank and the core banking system integration is not way straightforward and there is no integration between IBM and these products. If IBM could open up and provide a way of integrating it seamlessly, without charging more for it, that would make a big difference."
"The product does not have a team for investigating malware."
"I need a solution which will send alerts in the event of any behavior."
"It needs more resilience and functionality."
"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."
"Before we didn't have any security issues but recently a few of the user emails were hacked. We had to actually recreate their emails for them."
"For unstructured data monitoring, it's one of the top ones, if not the top one, due to its usability."
"The solution's interface is a little complicated with regard to setting up filters and reports."
"Varonis requires more access permissions for its core functions compared to competitors, which can be a concern for companies about data safety."
"The solution's areas of improvement are the interface and the dependency on on-premises deployment for some components."
"We have Microsoft Office 365. I just saw an article today which says that they're actually getting integrated with Microsoft Office 365, which would be a useful feature. For user-based reports, log on activity, and stuff like that, it doesn't seem to really be present like Log360. That could just be my inexperience with it. I've been dealing with it for only about two and a half months."
"The product is very complicated."
"I would like it to have cloud integration."
"One area for improvement is the calculation engine. When applying rules in Varonis, especially for large datasets (terabytes of data), the calculations can be slow and require time to process. Speeding up this process would be beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing needs to be such that they are more competitive with other vendors."
"The pricing is always fine."
"It's too expensive."
"An X-Force feed is free with QRadar."
"I feel that the price is reasonable but compared to other products that are on the market, such as an offering by Microsoft, it is more expensive."
"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."
"IBM Security QRadar is a very expensive tool."
"They can give us some scalability and flexibility on pricing. If its pricing can be reduced, it would help a lot of customers in bringing in a new SIEM environment and grow business in the market. If I start a license today and take around 10,000 EPS, and after a month, there is an increase in the number of clients on my platform, I can increase the number of licenses. I can add 5,000 EPS on a yearly basis."
"Varonis Platform wasn't certainly the cheapest solution."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"You could do a subscription, where you pay yearly, or you could purchase it outright. The licensing cost is based on the number of users on the system that you are monitoring."
"It's expensive, kind of, really expensive."
"Licensing is on an annual basis. Maintenance and renewal fees are separate. Varonis Datalert is quite expensive."
"The platform is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."
"The pricing is good. It neither expensive nor cheap. It is average."
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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%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
8%
 

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 Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise11
 

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 Varonis Platform?
The solution has significantly improved data security and compliance posture by allowing us to track and monitor activities. We can see who accesses data and when files are created and understand w...
What needs improvement with Varonis Platform?
Varonis started as an on-premises solution and is transitioning to cloud. It hasn't fully moved yet, which is an area for improvement. Varonis requires more access permissions for its core function...
What is your primary use case for Varonis Platform?
The primary use case for Varonis Platform is data discovery, specifically for discovering sensitive data in our organization to protect it. We are looking for a solution that can scan our repositor...
 

Also Known As

IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
SlashNext Complete
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
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