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IBM Security QRadar vs Sophos MDR 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Security QRadar is praised for efficiency, affordability, and high ROI, acting as essential protection against security threats.
Sentiment score
7.7
Sophos MDR delivers 24/7 threat protection with cost savings by reducing the need for additional IT specialists and minimizing staffing expenses.
Investing this amount was very much worth it for my organization.
It allows them to have access to a SOC-like service without the associated costs.
 

Customer Service

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
7.2
Sophos MDR customer service is highly rated for responsiveness, 24/7 availability, and technical expertise, despite occasional delays.
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.
Sophos offers different support levels depending on the severity of the issues, which ensures timely assistance.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Security QRadar is renowned for its scalability, smoothly managing large loads with hardware integration and license upgrades.
Sentiment score
7.8
Sophos MDR offers strong scalability and easy expansion, appealing to both small and large enterprises despite minor integration challenges.
Sophos MDR seems to have no limitations on scalability.
 

Stability Issues

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
8.2
Sophos MDR is generally rated highly for stability, despite some concerns about update failures and RAM usage.
I think QRadar is stable and currently satisfies my needs.
The product has been stable so far.
I would rate the stability as very reliable.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Security QRadar requires enhanced UI, integration, and AI, as it's complex, costly, and has suboptimal support and dashboard features.
Sophos MDR offers enhanced features but needs improvements in integration, reporting, customer support, pricing flexibility, and advanced AI capabilities.
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.
 

Setup Cost

IBM Security QRadar is a high-cost SIEM solution ideal for large enterprises, offering strong features and negotiable pricing.
Sophos MDR offers competitive subscription-based pricing with flexible negotiations, balancing cost with comprehensive 24/7 security features.
The solution is cost-efficient, especially for small customers who cannot justify the expense of setting up an internal SOC.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Security QRadar excels in scalability, integration, real-time threat detection, and supports diverse environments with customizable dashboards and analytics.
Sophos MDR provides advanced threat hunting, integration, rapid response, and comprehensive cybersecurity, acting as a mini SOC.
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.
The most valuable feature of Sophos MDR is that it offers a monitoring service directly from the OEM, which is beneficial for SMB customers who cannot afford a SOC.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
208
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (6th), 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), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (11th)
Sophos MDR
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos MDR is 6.1%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
 

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.
Shaun Gordon - PeerSpot reviewer
Extensive data lake, ease of use is great and you can really get started very quickly
Sophos MDR is a service. MDR is managed detection and response. It's a managed security service. So instead of having an anti-malware, which in Sophos' case would be Intercept X, with MDR, they add human-led threat hunting. It's a managed service. So it's not a product that you sell the client per se. You're selling them a service, which is almost like an SLA, and that includes Cloud MDR. MDR is not a product. It's a service. The reality is that when it comes to the likes of SentinelOne, McAfee, CrowdStrike, ESET, and all the other players out there, they're single-product security companies. CrowdStrike is an anti-malware. That's one thing. ESET, same thing. But if you look at the other vendors, within the appliances, you're looking at Fortinet, Palo Alto, and Checkpoint. They only sell firewalls. That's all they do. When you deal with Sophos, they are the entire product suite. They sell firewalls. They sell Intercept X, which is their anti-malware, Intercept X for Server with anti-malware, email protection with ties into Office 365, and Sophos Plus encryption. All of these security products pull telemetry. So every time somebody hits a firewall, it's called, for argument's sake, that goes into their central data lake. All the firewalls around the world add that information to a data lake. Now, when you're dealing with Sophos, because of their exposure, because they've got so many different products, their data lake is a lot more extensive than competing vendors because they're not relying on one threat factor. They're not relying on one area of expertise. They're a global company. So, I can't compare their telemetry, for instance, to the likes of CrowdStrike. If CrowdStrike has probably started doing appliances, then the users will get that benefit as well. Sophos is the only vendor that does do that. It's like hiring a security team. Sophos do things differently in that they've got more telemetry and more insight into a network because they offer a variety of products. The other part about it is Sophos MDR; the service, unlike other vendors like CrowdStrike, is not limited to their products. If you are running CrowdStrike in your company, for instance, you can get their integration packs, in which case Sophos will manage your CrowdStrike system for you. Whereas with CrowdStrike, it's only CrowdStrike. You are locked into that vendor. So Sophos offers that flexibility. It's a multi-vendor service as opposed to SentinelOne or CrowdStrike, which is a single-vendor service. For instance, if I'm running Sophos, I would like to go with CrowdStrike MDR. I would have to remove my entire security investment, in this case, Sophos, and reinstall CrowdStrike in order to use their service. Sophos doesn't have that problem. If you've got CrowdStrike and you've already invested in CrowdStrike, cool. You stay on CrowdStrike. They will still manage it for you.
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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
23%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

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 Sophos MDR?
The user doesn't need a technician; it offers 24/7 support to identify and manage your infrastructure and take complete care of any technological incidents.
What needs improvement with Sophos MDR?
There could be improvement in features like more detailed reporting for the end customer. For example, reports should be in simple language that is easy to read and understand for management level ...
What advice do you have for others considering Sophos MDR?
I would absolutely recommend Sophos MDR to other organizations. It is rated ten out of ten overall, with a deduction of one point only due to the commercial cost. I'd rate the solution nine out of ...
 

Also Known As

IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
Sophos Managed Threat Response
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
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Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. Sophos MDR and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
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