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IBM Security QRadar vs NetWitness Platform 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

IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Log Management
6th
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
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (18th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (10th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (12th)
NetWitness Platform
Ranking in Log Management
22nd
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
23rd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 4.0%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetWitness Platform is 0.3%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
MdZaman - PeerSpot reviewer
Really scalable for enterprise customers
The solution should have more integration capabilities with different platforms. The API is nearly open and scalable, so the solution can integrate with many platforms. The solution has more than 200 log sources in the scalability to support, but this is its limit. Installation is pretty easy. However, there are a couple of modules involved, so it is not as easy as it could be. We are talking about a distributed module, not a single-module type. This is what makes things a bit complex, instead of easier. I rate it as a seven out of ten on its installation and configuration capabilities.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is user behavior analytics (UBA)."
"Integration is very easy and the reporting is good."
"The UBA feature is the most valuable because you can see everything about users' activities."
"QRadar shows very effective correlations. If you combine all the logins plus user behavior and the current intelligence, it gives a very good correlation for business. I think it reduces the false positives in user activity monitoring because there is a lot of social information to correlate with other data."
"When it comes to QRadar, they can do the correlation and not only in networks but also endpoints. This is one of the good features that we have noticed."
"The solution can scale."
"Senses, tracks, and links significant incidents and threats."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with the GRD, for banking."
"The product has a user-friendly interface and a valuable feature for threat intelligence integration."
"It's quite economical compared to other solutions in the market."
"Possibility to investigate incidents based on logs and raw packets, such as extracting files sent over the network"
"The most valuable feature is the ability to write rules and triggers for network communication, and then being able to investigate based on that."
"Their technical support responds quickly and are knowledgable."
"It gives the ability to investigate into network traffic in the Net and the organization what we couldn't do before."
"Offers a good wireless feature."
"The software is scalable to whatever is required, and you can also put a lot of resources in the cloud."
 

Cons

"Dashboards and reports could provide better visualization of SIEM activity."
"It's resource-intensive."
"There should be more opportunity for community kind of distribution where, for example, if there was a zero-day threat targeting companies."
"We need more features in order to create rules to detect or to meet some requirements for other areas, for example, catching the event from other authentication tools."
"Whenever we are upgrading or installing any type of patch, at that time we have some delays."
"It would be better if it were more stable and more secure. The price for maintenance could be better. It's too high. In the next release, I think they should focus on the price and the operation."
"The dashboard and reports are not user-friendly or efficient so are of little help with threat hunting activity."
"I think that the search speed of this solution could be improved."
"The user interface is a little bit difficult for new users and it needs to be improved."
"RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets can improve the threat level aspect, it is lacking compared to other solutions. Whenever any hacking activity or any other threat factor occurred they used to provide the coverages very fast when comparing RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets. I heard the other three solutions, from a discussion with my team members who had experience in other solutions, they used to say that. Whenever any issues happened across the globe RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets are a little bit slow improving those detection mechanisms."
"Nowadays, their support is a little subpar compared to other solutions. I rate RSA support six out of 10."
"They should implement algorithms to digest that data and produce additional, more advanced reporting, alerting and support of internal security teams."
"I'd like to see improvement in its ease of use. It's basically unusable. It's overly complex."
"It is not so easy to customize this product."
"We have encountered issues with unresolved crashes."
"The threat detection capability and centralizing and upgrading capability need to be improved. The threat alert capability needs to be improved as well because there is some lag time at present. They need to work on their database search too."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license required for this solution."
"There are additional costs, such as the cost associated with the different hardware required for implementation and deployment. Along with the add-on apps, these are all additional costs, and they require licensing as well."
"IBM QRadar is a little bit expensive compared to other products."
"The pricing is always fine."
"You have a one-time payment, and you also can purchase it for one year as a subscription. We have it on-premise, and we have a permanent license for it. We have to pay for the support on a yearly basis. If you compare its cost with Sentinel for one year, QRadar would seem more expensive, but if you compare its cost over five or ten years, Azure Sentinel will be more expensive than QRadar. If you compare its cost with Sentinel for one year, QRadar would seem more expensive, but if you compare its cost over five or 10 years, Azure Sentinel can be more expensive than QRadar."
"It's not expensive for the resources that it gives you."
"In terms of additional costs, it depends on the subscription that you choose. There are plenty of options to choose from."
"IBM's Qradar is not for small companie. Unfortunately, it would be 'overkill' to place it plainly. The pricing would be too much."
"It’s cheaper to run virtual machines in a VMware environment."
"RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets do not have a subscription model, it's a one-time purchase. There is only a perpetual license."
"We are on an annual license for the use of the solution."
"The new pricing and licensing mechanisms are fair. I would advise always to get the full solution (i.e., not only Logs)."
"Compared to the competition, the is price is not that high."
"The tool is very expensive, so I rate the pricing a ten out of ten. The solution has an annual subscription."
"The product price was reasonable for my region and the market."
"The product is expensive."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.
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Comparison Review

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Feb 26, 2015
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Insurance Company
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about IBM QRadar?
The event collector, flow collector, PCAP and SOAR are valuable.
What do you like most about NetWitness Platform?
The product's initial setup phase was not at all difficult.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetWitness Platform?
The product price was reasonable for my region and the market.
What needs improvement with NetWitness Platform?
From an improvement perspective, the NetWitness Platform needs to release new features and improve in areas like log correlation. The tool needs to have easier integrations with the cloud. Building...
 

Also Known As

IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, QRadar, IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
RSA Security Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. NetWitness Platform and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
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