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IBM Security QRadar vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 29, 2024
 

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
204
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) (14th)
Splunk Enterprise Security
Ranking in Log Management
1st
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
301
Ranking in other categories
IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 10.2%, up from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Enterprise Security is 11.2%, down from 15.0% 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

Muzzamil Hussain - PeerSpot reviewer
Is easy to integrate and doesn't require maintenance
One major drawback we are facing is in the area of IBM Security QRadar integration with flat file databases. IBM Security QRadar does not support flat file database integration. We are currently facing an issue with respect to the database, which you normally call a NoSQL database. There is no direct integration mechanism available with IBM Security QRadar. We have to approach IBM and generate a ticket so that they can develop a custom method for the integration. In database integration, we are facing issues with IBM Security QRadar. The solution does not support the integration of flat file databases. Certain organizations have flat file databases. IBM does not support direct integration with some databases. We had to create a plug, and we requested IBM to develop a parser, but it is taking IBM a couple of months to develop it. I think a flat-file database should be supported directly instead of developing a parser plugin. There should be a more refined threat intelligence platform, and cross-integration should be possible with locally available threat intelligence platforms.
Avinash Gopu. - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good visibility into multiple environments, significantly reduces our alert volume, and speeds up our security investigations
There are limitations with Splunk not detecting all user activity, especially on mainframes and network devices. This is because Splunk relies on agents, which cannot access certain workstations. In these cases, we have to rely on application data. For example, with mainframes, manual reports are generated and sent to Splunk, limiting visibility to what's manually reported. This lack of automation for specific platforms needs improvement from Splunk. Additionally, API access is limited for other applications that rely on API calls and requests. This requires heavy customization on Splunk's end. These are the main challenges we've encountered. Monitoring multiple cloud platforms, like Azure, GCP, and AWS, with Splunk Enterprise Security presents some challenges. While Splunk provides different connectors for each provider, consolidating data from two domains across distinct cloud environments can be complex. However, leveraging pre-built templates and Splunk's data collation capabilities can help overcome these hurdles. Despite initial difficulties, I believe Splunk can effectively address this task, earning it an eight out of ten rating for its multi-cloud monitoring capabilities. While Splunk Enterprise Security offers insider threat detection capabilities, its effectiveness could be enhanced by integrating with additional tools, such as endpoint security solutions. This integrated approach is particularly crucial for financial institutions, which often require dedicated endpoint security teams. While using multiple tools is valuable, further improvements within Splunk itself are also necessary. Considering both external integration and internal development, I would rate its current insider threat detection capabilities as three out of ten. Threat detection is where Splunk falls behind. While it offers tools, other use cases require additional work. PAM is an enterprise tool that centralizes information about users, servers, and everything else. It needs real-time monitoring, which I haven't seen in any of the companies I've worked for. They only rely on Splunk for alerting, but real-time monitoring should be handled by the endpoint security team's tools. This means there's no detection or analysis at the machine or endpoint level. Additionally, threat analysis reporting is also absent.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Senses, tracks, and links significant incidents and threats."
"I think the QDI is very good."
"This solution provides me with various alarms, and I have found security issues with some of my other products."
"The most valuable feature is the machine learning module."
"There are a lot of features in QRadar. App Exchange is the most valuable feature. User behavior analytics (UBA) is also a very good feature. Watson is also there, but we are not currently using Watson. It is versatile and quite easy. It also has an all-in-one-box feature and good integration with AWS."
"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."
"Provided that the report is prebuilt and I can find what I am looking for, the reporting is the most valuable feature in this solution."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with the GRD, for banking."
"To get visibility from your network devices, servers, and security devices is a great feature."
"Three features stand out for me: the SDK for writing Python, the customizable and adaptable diagnostic dashboard, and the optimizer for collecting data."
"Alerts when a server is malfunctioning, monitors external attacks, and takes action to stop spreading viruses."
"The product provides visibility and enables us to correlate data and generate alerts."
"The ability to digest any information and then correlate it in accordance with what you need is valuable. The ability to connect to pretty much everything and bring the information in the same format is also valuable. On top of that, we can use their language in order to create and customize the dashboards, correlations, or analytics that we want to incorporate."
"Splunk has significantly helped with aggregation and correlation of critical logs. Not having to grep on each individual server has made everyone more efficient."
"The Splunk user community and forum are most valuable."
"The solution's most valuable feature is risk-based alerting, focusing on building out user risks for individuals throughout the enterprise."
 

Cons

"I would also like to see more integration with other vendors. IBM doesn't integrate well with products from China, like Huawei. Many Middle Eastern customers are switching to Huawei from American vendors like Cisco because of the price. In most RFPs, Huawei wins because it costs less."
"It's resource-intensive."
"SOAR is what is expected the most from QRadar. They have something called SOAR Resilient, and it would be great if that gets induced in SIEM. IBM QRadar (as well as McAfee ESM) should have analytics platform integration. Currently, SIEMs don't have full-fledged integration with analytics where we are able to dump our data in SIEM, and the same data can be called from different analytics applications. We should be able to bring this data to a platform like Hadoop for big data and run the analytics there. Currently, people are seeing the past data and taking some actions in the present, but when it comes to analytics, there should be futuristic data where you can predict something out of your present and past data. Apart from that, I would like to see a full-fledged ITSM tool in QRadar. It sometimes has some technical issues that need to be checked. It requires a dedicated QRadar engineer to completely manage it. It has different module sets, such as event collector and event processor, and some technical glitches come in between. It takes the log but doesn't exactly process it in the way we want."
"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."
"QRadar UBA only keeps the data for a short while (it's refreshed every five minutes) and would be improved if this were extended to a week or month."
"They need to improve their threat intelligence feed and they need to improve their user behavior analytics modules."
"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."
"IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics could improve machine learning use cases because they are limited and most of the use cases are rule-based. They should develop more use cases, such as in Securonix or Exabeam because they will detect a threat. Using machine learning is mainly on the correlation rules, but if you think about Exabeam or Securonix, they detect using machine learning or machine learning-based algorithms."
"Some of the queries are difficult to run and have room for improvement."
"Could be more user friendly."
"There are a lot of competitive products that are doing better than what Splunk is doing on the analytics side."
"Spam has different plugins but by default, the logs are not organized, it shows that there are roll-ups that are out of the box. I saw many plugins that can help improve or extend Splunk's functionality but I haven't tried any of them."
"The UI can be difficult to understand for non-technical people."
"When we do a rollout from the server or host or anything, we'd like to see more automation. It would save us time."
"The complexity could be worked on so that it's even easier and faster."
"The GUI can be improved to include some of the capabilities that other BI solutions have."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM QRadar is a little bit expensive compared to other products."
"IBM Security QRadar is a very expensive tool."
"In terms of additional costs, it depends on the subscription that you choose. There are plenty of options to choose from."
"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."
"I would like for them to lower the price."
"IBM's Qradar is not for small companie. Unfortunately, it would be 'overkill' to place it plainly. The pricing would be too much."
"It would be great if this product were cheaper."
"QRadar is quite expensive. It wouldn't be worth it for a small business..."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is expensive. I would rate the cost an eight out of ten with ten being the most expensive."
"In addition to the licensing fee, there is also a support and maintenance charge."
"It is expensive, but it is a good tool. It is worth the cost."
"Splunk licensing model might seem expensive but with all the gain in functionalities you will have compared to traditional SIEM solutions I think it’s worth the price."
"The solution is a little expensive."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is expensive."
"Splunk is not free."
"Splunk Enterprise Security is affordable."
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Comparison Review

VS
Feb 26, 2015
HP ArcSight vs. IBM QRadar vs. ​McAfee Nitro vs. Splunk vs. RSA Security vs. LogRhythm
We at Infosecnirvana.com have done several posts on SIEM. After the Dummies Guide on SIEM, we are following it up with a SIEM Product Comparison – 101 deck. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Let me know what you think by posting your comments below. The key products compared here are…
 

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
23%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?
It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingestion of anything, but the charge per GB/Day Indexed and it gets expensive as log ...
How does Splunk compare with Azure Monitor?
Splunk handles a high amount of data very well. We use Splunk to capture information and as an aggregator for monitoring information from different sources. Splunk is very good at alerting us if we...
What do you like most about Splunk?
There are a lot of third-party applications that can be installed.
 

Also Known As

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

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Splunk has more than 7,000 customers spread across over 90 countries. These customers include Telenor, UniCredit, ideeli, McKenney's, Tesco, and SurveyMonkey.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security QRadar vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
823,795 professionals have used our research since 2012.