IBM Security QRadar vs IBM Watson for Cyber Security comparison

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31,886 views|17,713 comparisons
92% willing to recommend
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21,075 views|12,899 comparisons
91% willing to recommend
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639 views|400 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Security QRadar and IBM Watson for Cyber Security based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed IBM Security QRadar vs. IBM Watson for Cyber Security Report (Updated: May 2024).
771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The pricing of the product is excellent.""The solution offers a lot of data on events. It helps us create specific detection strategies.""The automation rules and playbooks are the most useful that I've seen. A number of other places segregate the automation and playbook as separate tools, whereas Microsoft is a SIEM and SOAR tool in one.""It has basic out-of-the-box integrations with multiple log sources.""It is easy to implement (turn on) - does need a skilled analyst to develop queries and playbooks.""Microsoft Sentinel provides the capability to integrate different log sources. On top of having several data connectors in place, you can also do integration with a threat intelligence platform to enhance and enrich the data that's available. You can collect as many logs and build all the use cases.""We have no complaints about the features or functionality.""There are a lot of things you can explore as a user. You can even go and actively hunt for threats. You can go on the offensive rather than on the defensive."

More Microsoft Sentinel Pros →

"It's hard for me to pinpoint any one feature that's most valuable because it is all about consuming logs and analyzing them. We started using QRadar UBA because we needed something that could analyze Linux authentication information. Other products take care of the Windows platform.""Log correlation is very useful for processing alerts. It serves to follow up alerts in real-time, building an entire workflow.""Blocks of predefined conditions can be used to configure detection rules without having to write complicated script.""It saves a lot of time. We integrate the customer's firewall with all their networking devices.""It provides many options for searching. I can see devices from different vendors, like Cisco, in one interface, which is good for me.""Improves visibility and has a great new dashboard.""The most valuable feature is the searching capability and real-time operational use.""A nice benefit is when we go to the process of selecting our youth cases, they go by building blocks. QRadar links it to building blocks."

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"The most valuable feature of this product is innovation, where the research and upgrading of technology never ends.""The most valuable features of IBM Watson for Cyber Security are ease of use and out-of-the-box reports and compliance policies. Additionally, if there are aspects that are missing IBM add them in the next release.""The customer support is very good.""IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very stable."

More IBM Watson for Cyber Security Pros →

Cons
"The solution could improve the playbooks.""At the network level, there is a limitation in integrating some of the switches or routers with Microsoft Sentinel. Currently, SPAN traffic monitoring is not available in Microsoft Sentinel. I have heard that it is available in Defender for Identity, which is a different product. It would be good if LAN traffic monitoring or SPAN traffic monitoring is available in Microsoft Sentinel. It would add a lot of value. It is available in some of the competitor products in the market.""We do see continuous improvement all the time, however, I haven't got a specific feature that is lacking or not well designed.""They're giving us the queries so we can plug them right into Sentinel. They need to have a streamlined process for updating them in the tool and knowing when things are updated and knowing when there are new detections available from Microsoft.""Sentinel should be improved with more connectors. At the moment, it only covers a few vendors. If I remember correctly, only 100 products are supported natively in Sentinel, although you can connect them with syslog. But Microsoft should increase the number of native connectors to get logs into Sentinel.""When it comes to ingesting Azure native log sources, some of the log sources are specific to the subscription, and it is not always very clear.""Currently, the watchlist feature is being utilized, and although there have been improvements, it is still not fully optimized.""Microsoft Sentinel should provide an alternative query language to KQL for users who lack KQL expertise."

More Microsoft Sentinel Cons →

"IBM Qradar could improve the reporting. The tool is not designed to report. It's a great operational monitoring tool. You put it on a screen and you watch it. If you want to have analytics out of it, that's a whole different story. You're going to need more people and tools. What should be added is reporting and integration into Power BI, into some capability that produces analytical reports from the source data. IBM does not seem to care to add these features.""In terms of what could be improved, I would say the script which we have to create for custom actions. QRadar needs to improve that feature. Additionally, QRadar has to provide the playbooks designing features.""The tech support is not that good.""QRadar needs to be more specialized, along the lines of what other SIEM solutions are.""I need a solution which will send alerts in the event of any behavior.""It needs more resilience and functionality.""You can scale IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics, but it has room for improvement.""They should introduce some automation into the product."

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"In the future, I would like to see threat intelligence included.""This is an expensive product, so making it more cost-effective would be an improvement.""They need to continue to build the AI capabilities.""The dashboard could improve in IBM Watson for Cyber Security."

More IBM Watson for Cyber Security Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It comes with a Microsoft subscription which the customer has, so they don't have to invest somewhere else."
  • "It is a consumption-based license model. bands at 100, 200, 400 GB per day etc. Azure Sentinel Pricing | Microsoft Azure"
  • "Good monthly operational cost model for the detection and response outcomes delivered, M365 logs don't count toward the limits which is a good benefit."
  • "I have had mixed feedback. At one point, I heard a client say that it sometimes seems more expensive. Most of the clients are on Office 365 or M365, and they are forced to take Azure SIEM because of the integration."
  • "It is kind of like a sliding scale. There are different tiers of pricing that go from $100 per day up to $3,500 per day. So, it just kind of depends on how much data is being stored. There can be additional costs to the standard license other than the additional data. It just kind of depends on what other services you're spinning up in Azure, or if you're using something like Azure log analytics."
  • "I am just paying for the log space with Azure Sentinel. It costs us about $2,000 a month. Most of the logs are free. We are only paying money for Azure Firewall logs because email logs or Azure AD logs are free to use for us."
  • "Sentinel is a bit expensive. If you can figure a way of configuring it to meet your needs, then you can find a way around the cost."
  • "Azure Sentinel is very costly, or at least it appears to be very costly. The costs vary based on your ingestion and your retention charges."
  • More Microsoft Sentinel Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "found other solutions, with more features at the same cost or less. You don’t have to leave the Gartner Magic Quadrant to beat their price."
  • "Most of the time, it is easier and cheaper to buy a new product or the QRadar box."
  • "IBM's Qradar is not for small companie. Unfortunately, it would be 'overkill' to place it plainly. The pricing would be too much."
  • "IBM's Qradar is not for small companie. Unfortunately, it would be 'overkill' to place it plainly. The pricing would be too much."
  • "Go through a vulnerability assessment review for price breaks. A virtualized solution will also cut down on cost."
  • "It is expensive. It is not a product that I can provide for SMBs. It is a program that I can only provide for really large enterprises."
  • "The maintenance costs are high."
  • "Pricing (based on EPS) will be more accurate."
  • More IBM Security QRadar Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The price of this solution should be lower, although I understand why IBM charges a premium price."
  • "IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very simple to license and is priced well."
  • More IBM Watson for Cyber Security Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions are best for your needs.
    771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Comparison Review
    Vinod Shankar
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Yes, Azure Sentinel is a SIEM on the Cloud. Multiple data sources can be uploaded and analyzed with Azure Sentinel and… more »
    Top Answer:It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for… more »
    Top Answer:We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel is… more »
    Top Answer:It mostly depends on your use-cases and environment. Exabeam and Securonix have a stronger UEBA feature set, friendlier… more »
    Top Answer:For tools I’d recommend:  -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is… more »
    Top Answer:The event collector, flow collector, PCAP and SOAR are valuable.
    Top Answer:The most valuable features of IBM Watson for Cyber Security are ease of use and out-of-the-box reports and compliance… more »
    Top Answer:IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very simple to license and is priced well.
    Top Answer:The dashboard could improve in IBM Watson for Cyber Security.
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Azure Sentinel
    IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, QRadar, IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
    Learn More
    Overview

    Microsoft Sentinel is a scalable, cloud-native, security information event management (SIEM) and security orchestration automated response (SOAR) solution that lets you see and stop threats before they cause harm. Microsoft Sentinel delivers intelligent security analytics and threat intelligence across the enterprise, providing a single solution for alert detection, threat visibility, proactive hunting, and threat response. Eliminate security infrastructure setup and maintenance, and elastically scale to meet your security needs—while reducing IT costs. With Microsoft Sentinel, you can:

    - Collect data at cloud scale—across all users, devices, applications, and infrastructure, both on-premises and in multiple clouds

    - Detect previously uncovered threats and minimize false positives using analytics and unparalleled threat intelligence from Microsoft

    - Investigate threats with AI and hunt suspicious activities at scale, tapping into decades of cybersecurity work at Microsoft

    - Respond to incidents rapidly with built-in orchestration and automation of common tasks

    To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

    IBM Security QRadar is a security and analytics platform designed to defend against threats and scale security operations. This is done through integrated visibility, investigation, detection, and response. QRadar empowers security groups with actionable insights into high-priority threats by providing visibility into enterprise security data. Through centralized visibility, security teams and analysts can determine their security stance, which areas pose a potential threat, and which areas are critical. This will help streamline workflows by eliminating the need to pivot between tools.

    IBM Security QRadar is built to address a wide range of security issues and can be easily scaled with minimal customization effort required. As data is ingested, QRadar administers automated, real-time security intelligence to swiftly and precisely discover and prioritize threats. The platform will issue alerts with actionable, rich context into developing threats. Security teams and analysts can then rapidly respond to minimize the attackers' strike. The solution will provide a complete view of activity in both cloud-based and on-premise environments as a large amount of data is ingested throughout the enterprise. Additionally, QRadar’s anomaly detection intelligence enables security teams to identify any user behavior changes that could be indicators of potential threats. 

    IBM QRadar Log Manager

    To better help organizations protect themselves against potential security threats, attacks, and breaches, IBM QRadar Log Manager gathers, analyzes, preserves, and reports on security log events using QRadar Sense Analytics. All operating systems and applications, servers, devices, and applications are converted into searchable and actionable intelligent data. QRadar Log Manager then helps organizations meet compliance reporting and monitoring requirements, which can be further upgraded to QRadar SIEM for a more superior level of threat protection.

    Some of QRadar Log Manager’s key features include:

    • Data processing and capture on any security event
    • Disaster recovery options and high availability 
    • Scalability for large enterprises
    • SoftLayer cloud installation capability
    • Advanced threat protection

    Reviews from Real Users

    IBM Security QRadar is a solution of choice among users because it provides a complete solution for security teams by integrating network analysis, log management, user behavior analytics, threat intelligence, and AI-powered investigations into a single solution. Users particularly like having a single window into their network and its ability to be used for larger enterprises.

    Simon T., a cyber security services operations manager at an aerospace/defense firm, notes, "The most valuable thing about QRadar is that you have a single window into your network, SIEM, network flows, and risk management of your assets. If you use Splunk, for instance, then you still need a full packet capture solution, whereas the full packet capture solution is integrated within QRadar. Its application ecosystem makes it very powerful in terms of doing analysis."

    A management executive at a security firm says, "What we like about QRadar and the models that IBM has, is it can go from a small-to-medium enterprise to a larger organization, and it gives you the same value."

    Watson for cyber security can draw security intelligence from millions of security blogs, online forums and white papers - so you can see threats unseen by other systems.
    Sample Customers
    Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
    Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
    Information Not Available
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm22%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Government9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm23%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Security Firm6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization18%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Government6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm20%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Manufacturing Company13%
    Government8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise47%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise59%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business39%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise45%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise30%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise54%
    Buyer's Guide
    IBM Security QRadar vs. IBM Watson for Cyber Security
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. IBM Watson for Cyber Security and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    IBM Security QRadar is ranked 4th in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 198 reviews while IBM Watson for Cyber Security is ranked 45th in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 4 reviews. IBM Security QRadar is rated 8.0, while IBM Watson for Cyber Security is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of IBM Security QRadar writes "A highly stable and scalable solution that provides good technical support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Watson for Cyber Security writes "An innovative and stable product that is well maintained and always up-to-date". IBM Security QRadar is most compared with Splunk Enterprise Security, Wazuh, LogRhythm SIEM, Elastic Security and Sentinel, whereas IBM Watson for Cyber Security is most compared with Splunk Enterprise Security and i-SIEM. See our IBM Security QRadar vs. IBM Watson for Cyber Security report.

    See our list of best Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) vendors.

    We monitor all Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.