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Fortinet FortiSIEM vs IBM Security QRadar comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 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

Fortinet FortiSIEM
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
73
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
207
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) (9th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiSIEM is 3.1%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 8.7%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Oliver Jackson - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems monitoring enhanced by firewall and intrusion detection features
My primary use case for Fortinet FortiSIEM is systems monitoring and alerting. I use it for standard functions like log monitoring, incident detection, and notification.  My customers are mostly medium-sized enterprises ranging from engineering companies, mining companies, independent schools, and…
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.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It detects new technologies, vulnerabilities, and emerging threats on the internet."
"Analytics is the most valuable feature. The business service summaries in the dashboards and the correlations for the SIEM are also valuable features."
"There are things like dashboards and reports (pre-configured and custom) that let me know that things are operating the way they should be, and when they are not."
"The event correlation is pretty robust. The GUI is pretty good."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiSIEM is the correlation of many events."
"The solution is very stable. It's run for years without the need to do anything except, add new patches when they are available, which are always a good idea to install."
"To add workers and even collectors is pretty easy."
"AccelOps can handle a lot of data and it's just so important to true monitoring. Also, I can create a lot of rules to detect anything I like."
"The most valuable features are log monitoring, easy-to-fix issues, and problem-solving."
"It can analyze event logs, event security, and give a good consult."
"It is the core of our entire SOX."
"Blocks of predefined conditions can be used to configure detection rules without having to write complicated script."
"The interface is good."
"This solution has excellent security analytics."
"Integration is very easy and the reporting is good."
"We run 65 servers globally with just two people: an engineering person and me."
 

Cons

"The interface needs some improvements because it's a bit cumbersome when you're trying to view items. It takes some time to get used to. Additionally, sometimes the scrolling does not work."
"When an alert triggers in Fortinet FortiSIEM, the layout or format can feel limited"
"The backup and recovery process for this solution needs improvement."
"The support of the product changed recently, and I don't think it's for the better. They should work to improve the support they offer to clients."
"Areas for improvement would be the ease of use and the integration with Fortinet's own products."
"The policy editing should be easier. Right now, it's too hard."
"Patching is not great - we're not getting the support we'd expect."
"It's difficult to integrate unsupported devices with FortiSIEM compared to QRadar. It's easier to integrate and develop processes in QRadar. It's harder to develop a custom process in FortiSIEM."
"The threat intelligence functionality can be better. In addition, it can have more monitoring capabilities."
"Technical support could be improved by a bit."
"The only challenge with products like IBM is the EPS. You just have to be really on the events per second, as that's where the cost factor becomes a huge issue."
"The custom rules could be simplified more or it should be possible to use a different language, other than the ones that the solution is already using. They should add other languages into the mix."
"IBM QRadar has outdated technology, and this is its area for improvement. When you try to implement an analytic expression, it's not updated. The solution doesn't support newer technologies, and it doesn't update regularly. For example, around the world, others implement new technologies, while IBM updates later than others."
"The product can be a bit complex."
"The user interface and configurability of IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics can be improved. It has a lot of pre-configured settings and not many things can be changed. It also needs more integrations. Currently, User Behavior Analytics is integrated only with IBM QRadar. It could have deeper integrations. It can also have more complicated scoring models. Currently, it has a very simple linear scoring model for users."
"The user interface is a bit clunky, a bit hard to find what you need."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is really expensive. For what the tool does for our team, the price is fair."
"The price of Fortinet FortiSIEM was reasonable compared to other solutions."
"This is probably more on the lower cost end of the spectrum compared to competing products. Fortinet's license model is based on events per second, which makes sense, but that's not typical. It makes it very hard to calculate what your costs are going to be as you scale the platform because some log sources, such as firewall logs, are very noisy, and there are lots and lots of events per second, but some of them are not. So, it becomes a bit of a science experiment trying to guess what your costs are going to be as you scale the solution. This is where other competing products perhaps have a more straightforward license model."
"They have a yearly subscription."
"The price is competitive."
"We pay for a license for FortiSIEM. We pay for the license and renewal."
"Manageable, however would be better as pay as you go versus CapEX."
"The price of Fortinet FortiSIEM is a lot less when compared to other solutions."
"IBM's Qradar is not for small companie. Unfortunately, it would be 'overkill' to place it plainly. The pricing would be too much."
"On a scale of one to ten, I rate the price a one, where one is an extremely expensive product, and ten is a cheap product."
"When compared with other SIM solutions, QRadar is considerably less expensive."
"The price of this product is high."
"The product is expensive. We have purchased the perpetual license, but we pay for the support."
"The tool's price is high."
"The pricing is good."
"The price could be better. I bought a subscription for three years."
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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
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
23%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiSIEM?
Fortinet FortiSIEM needs to provide better API integrations to users.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiSIEM?
As a service, the cost is reasonable and affordable with scalable pricing based on the number of monitored devices. However, setting it up for oneself as an enterprise-licensed product can be quite...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiSIEM?
The built-in APIs in Fortinet FortiSIEM are somewhat lacking and could be improved for better integration with external ITSM products. Improving software stability and reducing bugs will make it a ...
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?
The cost depends. The price I negotiated varies by region and relationship with the OEM. Cost is not shared due to another procurement team handling negotiations, but it was reasonable as far as I ...
 

Also Known As

FortiSIEM, AccelOps
IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FortiSIEM has hundreds of customers worldwide in markets including managed services, technology, financial services, healthcare, and government. Customers include Aruba Networks, Compushare, Port of San Diego, Cleveland Indians, Infoblox, Healthways, and Referentia.
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiSIEM vs. IBM Security QRadar and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.