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IBM Security QRadar vs Rapid7 InsightIDR comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 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 Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
4th
Ranking in User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA)
1st
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
17th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
208
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (6th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (9th)
Rapid7 InsightIDR
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
9th
Ranking in User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA)
2nd
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
18th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
14th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Threat Deception Platforms (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 8.7%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 InsightIDR is 2.5%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Q&A Highlights

Navin Rehnius - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 10, 2021
 

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.
Asim Naeem - PeerSpot reviewer
Providing comprehensive insight into alerts while working towards AI enhancement
I definitely recommend Rapid7 InsightIDR. It is becoming better, with improvements being continuously made to the product. Right now, I do not have any advice about Rapid7 for other users because every organization or user has different criteria or multiple use cases, so I refrain from commenting on that. I rate the overall solution seven 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

"The support is very good. We get support whenever we need it. Sometimes they respond immediately and sometimes it will be within 24 hours. We can ask them to please do it right away and they can get a request done within an hour or two."
"IBM QRadar is great help from its security event monitoring to data center and NOC troubleshooting of issues hard for other departments to spot."
"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."
"What's most valuable in IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics is its higher availability than other tools."
"Most of our clients are interested in automation. The automation part is good because they are able to detect threats and vulnerabilities in real time. It's very fast."
"The stability is good."
"The scalability is very good. It's not a problem."
"The scalability is good."
"I like that it's a cloud-based solution."
"Enables the use of honey pots, honey users, and honey files to monitor for suspicious patterns."
"Rapid7 is easy to use and deploy. It is a simple solution and has easy data pulling."
"It improved my organization by building a security alerting program."
"The solution is easy to use, and the interface is intuitive."
"If you were on other solutions, you would notice that they use agents from third-party, from open-source, from a native OS, or from other tools. Here, however, it is an agent from Rapid7 itself. This adds to the solution's overall capabilities."
"​​User behavioral analytics allows us to pinpoint abnormal or suspicious behavior among millions of events every day."
"During simulations or demonstrations, the tool generates alerts, providing details such as the specific application, its origin, and potential threats. For instance, it can identify if an application belongs to a known ransomware group. The system rates the threat, offering a clear detection ratio, such as 97 out of 100. It not only identifies threats but also illustrates the associated behaviors, helping us understand the potential risk to a particular endpoint."
 

Cons

"They should introduce some automation into the product."
"This solution is on-premise and many customers are moving to the cloud base solution."
"The playbook guide which specifies the rules for security use cases needs to be provided to support in case the organization needs help."
"The biggest problem was built on top of the QRadar in the executive operations center network. The integration was not using the network security specialist properly, and all the incidents were inferior with QRadar. Its compatibility is not really good."
"I would like to see some artificial intelligence and alternative solutions."
"I have noticed a few things while working on this. After the restart of the server, sometimes, the services misbehave, and you need to manually start or restart the service. I have seen that specifically with the Tomcat service. Sometimes, when you click on log sources, instead of opening the log source extension, it redirects you over the internet."
"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."
"The dashboard and reports are not user-friendly or efficient so are of little help with threat hunting activity."
"It takes time for the product's support team to resolve issues, making it an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Tenable Nessus is easier to deal with. It's more efficient and accurate. InsightIDR is heavier than Tenable in terms of performance and scanning. Rapid7 would be much easier to use if it had a network connector like Tenable. Tenable's connector allows continuous monitoring over the B caps."
"Sometimes, it is hard to get the right queries to use. Currently, the tool lacks a pre-made set of queries."
"InsightIDR's integration with other solutions could be improved. Also, I'd like more control from the portal over what's happening on the endpoint side. For example, when I see an attack on an endpoint, I want to be able to stop it from the portal."
"The reporting is the weakest aspect. There needs to be multi-level grouping for events (for example, group by user and destination). Right now, we can do a group by user and a separate table or group by destination. But I'd be more interested in where a person was logging into instead of who was logging in or where he was logging in."
"The interface for doing investigation needs to be enhanced with minor improvements that would make it more useful."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR is not intuitive to search for logs. It should be more user-friendly and improve the dashboards. We should be able to use ready-made templates instead of having to build one."
"There are certain limitations with Rapid7 that I am working on."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"IBM's Qradar is not for small companie. Unfortunately, it would be 'overkill' to place it plainly. The pricing would be too much."
"The price could be better. I bought a subscription for three years."
"It's free of charge."
"The solution's pricing is based on the EPS model."
"The pricing is good."
"The tool's price is high."
"Its price is good in terms of efficiency and the number of people required for implementing various things. You might pay more in terms of money, but you might save on the number of people. For example, if you are using Kibana, you have to pay more for people or experts, which is not the case with IBM QRadar."
"The pricing of the solution depends on the user. But there is a yearly licensing cost."
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"The solution has a mid-range price point in the market"
"The pricing is good, and it is not very expensive."
"It is more reasonably priced than other vendors."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR's pricing is reasonable but we have challenges with the Minimum Order Quantity. It is not reasonable for customers who have less than one hundred devices. If they can reduce Minimum Order Quantity, it is good. You have to pay around 5000-6000 dollars per year for the product. The pricing includes maintenance and support costs."
"Licensing is by endpoint and amount of retention time (at least ours is). Default retention was one year, but we are able to push the retention further if needed. There's also a provide-your-own-S3 option for longer retention if you don't want to pay for the additional retention years in your Rapid7 agreement."
"It is on a yearly basis. For our own company, for about 250 users, it was 16,000 euros a year."
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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…
 

Answers from the Community

Navin Rehnius - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 10, 2021
Aug 10, 2021
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, remember that any EDR/XDR should integrate to the SIEM/SOAR and a strong threat intel source. If you consider SOC outsourcing take your time and find one you can integrate like a virtual team member. They a...
2 out of 12 answers
KM
Jul 26, 2021
I haven't used these big-name ones like Splunk etc. but I feel they're overpriced. I think they charge an arm and a leg for each module. The ROI justification is not there. Why not try a cheaper and robust alternative like Elasticsearch?
KA
Jul 26, 2021
We are using LogRthythm SIEM complete case management and offer SIEM/SOC as service.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

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 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 ...
What do you like most about Rapid7 InsightIDR?
During simulations or demonstrations, the tool generates alerts, providing details such as the specific application, its origin, and potential threats. For instance, it can identify if an applicati...
What needs improvement with Rapid7 InsightIDR?
There is a future in AI with Rapid7, however, it is not fully operated. There are certain limitations with Rapid7 that I am working on. I have already opened a list of features with Rapid7, and the...
 

Also Known As

IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
InsightIDR
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Liberty Wines, Pioneer Telephone, Visier
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.