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IBM Security QRadar vs Security Onion 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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
207
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (17th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (10th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (12th)
Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
18th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
AWS Marketplace (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 3.9%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Security Onion is 5.7%, up from 2.4% 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.
Jörg Kippe - PeerSpot reviewer
A mature and affordable solution that is easy to install and easy to update
The product takes time to learn, it's not that easy. In the beginning we had a lot of questions. If you want to use such a tool in an real (industrial) environment, you have to ask how to get the network data. Can we do a full packet capture? Can we provide agents to our end systems? There are no simple solutions to these questions. It's a general problem when running such systems in an industrial environment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It comes with many rules disabled. You can tune them and modify them according to your enterprise needs and avoid false positives."
"The most valuable feature is the searching capability and real-time operational use."
"Technical support is good overall."
"The most valuable feature is the DSM Editor. The custom parsing tool is very nice, outstanding."
"Providing real-time visibility for threat detection and prioritization - QRadar SIEM provides contextual and actionable surveillance across the entire IT infrastructure."
"Senses, tracks, and links significant incidents and threats."
"It is a bit easier to use than other products, such as Splunk or ELK Elasticsearch."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the integration capabilities on offer."
"Security Onion is the most mature solution in the market."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
"The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports."
 

Cons

"They should speed up the incident response and also, at the same time, reduce the amount of manual effort that is required."
"QRadar log integration of various applications can be a tough job at times. There may be occasions when you will not find any QRadar guide on adding logs of a particular application. Even if you come across one, adding a log process is not an easy one."
"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 technical support can be improved a little bit, and the price could be cheaper."
"This solution is on-premise and many customers are moving to the cloud base solution."
"The reporting system could use some upgrading."
"The Indian tech support is not helpful."
"There should be more opportunity for community kind of distribution where, for example, if there was a zero-day threat targeting companies."
"The product is not easy to learn."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's too expensive. The licensing is also a little bit difficult to understand because you have to license it per event and per number of flows."
"The license is not subscription-based."
"Our licensing costs for this solution is on a yearly basis."
"They can give us some scalability and flexibility on pricing. If its pricing can be reduced, it would help a lot of customers in bringing in a new SIEM environment and grow business in the market. If I start a license today and take around 10,000 EPS, and after a month, there is an increase in the number of clients on my platform, I can increase the number of licenses. I can add 5,000 EPS on a yearly basis."
"When it comes to the initial pricing there can be a huge discount from there side and also I think they are open to competing with other products."
"The product is expensive. We have purchased the perpetual license, but we pay for the support."
"QRadar UBA's price is a little more than street price and could be reduced."
"It would be great if this product were cheaper."
"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is a free solution."
"It is an open-source solution."
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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

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
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
11%
University
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 Security Onion?
The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Security Onion?
Security Onion is an open-source solution. On a scale from one to ten, where ten is expensive and one is cheap, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten.
What needs improvement with Security Onion?
The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. Security Onion and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
841,431 professionals have used our research since 2012.