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Elastic Security vs IBM Security QRadar vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
5.9
Elastic Security provides positive ROI in 18-24 months, affordable for SMEs, though premium support may be lacking.
Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Security QRadar is praised for efficiency, affordability, and high ROI, acting as essential protection against security threats.
Sentiment score
7.2
Splunk Enterprise Security boosts efficiency, improves visibility, and increases profitability, offering flexibility, automation, and significant ROI in operations.
It does not require hefty security budgets and can be deployed for enterprise security effectively.
Investing this amount was very much worth it for my organization.
I have noticed a return on investment with Splunk Enterprise Security, as it delivers substantial value for money.
Splunk's cost is justified for large environments with extensive assets.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Elastic Security support varies; open-source praised for community help, commercial support seen as responsive but with some improvement needed.
Sentiment score
6.1
IBM Security QRadar's customer service is excellent but has inconsistent support quality and response times varying by region.
Sentiment score
6.7
Splunk Enterprise Security support is generally positive, but faster resolutions often require premium options due to occasional delays.
Support is prompt and helpful.
Most of the time when my team encounters issues, they receive responses within 24 hours.
They assist with advanced issues, such as hardware or other problems, that are not part of standard operations.
The problem escalates through level one to level three, and then the process starts over with Novo again.
I received very good support, possibly due to a good relationship with IBM.
If you want to write your own correlation rules, it is very difficult to do, and you need Splunk's support to write new correlation rules for the SIEM tool.
I have sought assistance from Splunk Enterprise Security support in the past, particularly during deployment, and they provide friendly and effective help.
The technical support for Splunk met my expectations.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Elastic Security is praised for scalability, easily supporting small to large businesses and adaptable through configuration adjustments.
Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Security QRadar is renowned for its scalability, smoothly managing large loads with hardware integration and license upgrades.
Sentiment score
7.7
Splunk Enterprise Security excels in scalability with smooth integration but may incur cost issues due to volume-based pricing.
It allows us to think about specific use cases, such as gathering malicious IPs in a single view and analyzing threats based on geolocation.
They struggle a bit with pure virtual environments, but in terms of how much they can handle, it is pretty good.
It is easy to scale.
I find it easy to scale Splunk Enterprise Security for our environment.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Elastic Security is stable and reliable, but requires proper setup and resource management; frequent updates can disrupt some users.
Sentiment score
7.6
IBM Security QRadar is stable with proper deployment, though some users face issues from misconfigurations or high log volumes.
Sentiment score
7.9
Splunk Enterprise Security is reliable, robust, and adaptable, effectively managing large data volumes with minimal downtime and ease.
In terms of stability, I would rate Elastic a solid eight out of ten.
I think QRadar is stable and currently satisfies my needs.
The product has been stable so far.
It provides a stable environment but needs to integrate with ITSM platforms to achieve better visibility.
It is very stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Elastic Security faces challenges in usability, integration, scalability, and awareness, requiring enhancements in features and user support.
IBM Security QRadar requires enhanced UI, integration, and AI, as it's complex, costly, and has suboptimal support and dashboard features.
Splunk Enterprise Security needs user-friendliness, pricing adjustments, and improved integration to enhance functionality and user experience.
CrowdStrike and Defender have more established threat intelligence integration due to having a larger client base.
My security testing team continuously reports vulnerabilities, and we have to fix and update the versions frequently.
Elastic Security consumes a lot of resources, requiring a substantial deployment setup.
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.
Improving the integration with IBM Server for MetaMask for correlation rules would be beneficial.
Improving the infrastructure behind Splunk Enterprise Security is vital—enhanced cores, CPUs, and memory should be prioritized to support better processing power.
What Splunk could do better is to create an API to the standard SIEM tools, such as Microsoft Sentinel.
Splunk Enterprise Security would benefit from a more robust rule engine to reduce false positives.
 

Setup Cost

Elastic Security is cost-effective for SMEs but advanced features and lack of included support can increase costs.
IBM Security QRadar is a high-cost SIEM solution ideal for large enterprises, offering strong features and negotiable pricing.
Splunk Enterprise Security's pricing is complex and costly but justified by its advanced analytics and comprehensive features.
The pricing is reasonable, especially for Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), making it a viable option for businesses building their security infrastructure.
This is beneficial for SMEs as they do not need extensive budgets for security solutions.
Elastic Security is considered cost-effective, especially at lower EPS levels.
I saw clients spend two million dollars a year just feeding data into the Splunk solution.
The platform requires significant financial investment and resources, making it expensive despite its comprehensive features.
Splunk is priced higher than other solutions.
 

Valuable Features

Elastic Security offers rapid search, scalability, and affordability with strong machine learning and customizable dashboards for efficient threat detection.
IBM Security QRadar excels in scalability, integration, real-time threat detection, and supports diverse environments with customizable dashboards and analytics.
Splunk Enterprise Security excels with robust log management, seamless integration, real-time insights, and advanced threat detection for comprehensive monitoring.
Elastic Security offers good insight regarding alerts, reports, and cases.
Elastic Security offers advanced features such as machine learning and integration with ChatGPT.
We require rapid processing speed for alerts and event data, and Elastic Security is very efficient at handling this level of data.
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.
The scenarios we could write regarding the compliance-related issues were quite helpful.
This capability is useful for performance monitoring and issue identification.
They have approximately 50,000 predefined correlation rules.
The Splunk Enterprise Security's threat-hunting capabilities have been particularly useful in later releases.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 6.6%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 8.7%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 9.5%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

SyedAli17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralized monitoring improves security posture through rapid data processing
The processing part of Elastic Security ( /products/elastic-security-reviews ) is very interesting for us since we handle almost 7,000 to 8,000 alerts per minute. We require rapid processing speed for alerts and event data, and Elastic Security is very efficient at handling this level of data. Additionally, Elastic Security helps improve the security posture of Pakistan through centralized visibility and real-time processing.
Md. Shahriar Hussain - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time incident detection and user-friendly dashboard benefit daily operations
There are many types of AI, and this AI is very limited in SQL and features. There may be potential for improvement. So far, it seems very limited. It shows some good features in the correlation part, but I think there is room for improvement. For instance, when creating rules, it can suggest more rules, reducing the effort needed. If AI-related support can suggest rules and integrate with existing security devices like MD, IPS, this SIM can create more relevant rules. Sometimes logs I receive don't mean anything, and I need technical stakeholders to share or forward logs, but these are sometimes inadequate. Keywords can help identify insufficient logs. I often lack time to verify logs. Sharing false positive results could be reduced to help my team.
ROBERT-CHRISTIAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Has many predefined correlation rules and is brilliant for investigation and log analysis
It is very complicated to write your own correlation rules without the help of Splunk support. What Splunk could do better is to create an API to the standard SIEM tools, such as Microsoft Sentinel. The idea would be to make it less painful. In ELK Stack, Kibana is the query language with which you can search log files. I believe Splunk has also a query language in which they search their log files, but once you have identified the log file that you want to use for further security correlation, you want to very quickly transport that into your SIEM tool, such as Microsoft Sentinel. That is something that Splunk could make a little bit less painful because it is a lot of effort to find that log file and forward it. An API with Microsoft Sentinel or a similar SIEM tool would be a good idea.
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Comparison Review

VS
Feb 26, 2015
HP ArcSight vs. IBM QRadar vs. ​McAfee Nitro vs. Splunk vs. RSA Security vs. LogRhythm
We at Infosecnirvana.com have done several posts on SIEM. After the Dummies Guide on SIEM, we are following it up with a SIEM Product Comparison – 101 deck. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Let me know what you think by posting your comments below. The key products compared here are…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several time...
What do you like most about Elastic Security?
Elastic provides the capability to index quickly due to the reverse indexes it offers. This data is crucial as it con...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
Since Elastic Security is community-based, it does not require significant costs. This is beneficial for SMEs as they...
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, friendli...
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 a...
What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?
It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingest...
How does Splunk compare with Azure Monitor?
Splunk handles a high amount of data very well. We use Splunk to capture information and as an aggregator for monitor...
What do you like most about Splunk?
There are a lot of third-party applications that can be installed.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Splunk has more than 7,000 customers spread across over 90 countries. These customers include Telenor, UniCredit, ideeli, McKenney's, Tesco, and SurveyMonkey.
Find out what your peers are saying about Splunk, Wazuh, Microsoft and others in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM). Updated: April 2025.
849,475 professionals have used our research since 2012.