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IBM Security QRadar vs Splunk SOAR 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Security QRadar provides cost-effective value with strong ROI, efficient resource use, and quick threat response for organizations.
Sentiment score
6.6
Splunk SOAR offers varied ROI, with notable time-saving but challenges in quantifying benefits and initial deployment for new users.
Investing this amount was very much worth it for my organization.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
IBM QRadar customer service is praised for availability, but technical support receives mixed reviews due to inconsistent service levels.
Sentiment score
7.1
Splunk SOAR's improved customer service is praised for responsiveness and documentation, despite occasional slow telecom-related responses.
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.
Splunk's technical support is very good and generally not needed often due to the stable environment.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Security QRadar excels in scalable adaptability, supporting diverse environments and expansion with cloud options enhancing seamless growth.
Sentiment score
7.1
Splunk SOAR is scalable, flexible, and resource-efficient, but some users face hardware bottlenecks at larger scales.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
IBM Security QRadar is stable if configured properly, with support praised, despite occasional issues during updates and high usage.
Sentiment score
7.5
Splunk SOAR is highly stable with minimal downtime, minor issues, and receives positive feedback for robust data performance.
The product has been stable so far.
I think QRadar is stable and currently satisfies my needs.
Splunk SOAR provides a stable environment and technology.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Security QRadar needs enhanced usability, integration, support, API access, automation, cost-efficiency, and customization to address user challenges.
Splunk SOAR users desire improved integration, better documentation, and user-friendly features for enhanced efficiency and usability.
If AI-related support can suggest rules and integrate with existing security devices like MD, IPS, this SIM can create more relevant rules.
We receive logs from different types of devices and need a way to correlate them effectively.
Improving the integration with IBM Server for MetaMask for correlation rules would be beneficial.
Although it enhances alert handling, it still has a journey to compete with Palo Alto SOAR and FortiSOAR.
 

Setup Cost

IBM Security QRadar provides competitive, negotiable pricing for enterprises, perceived as cost-effective compared to some competitors like Splunk.
Splunk SOAR's subscription pricing is seen as costly by some, but it offers valuable workflow automation and efficiency.
Splunk SOAR is affordable cost-wise only.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Security QRadar excels with scalable log management, threat detection, user analytics, customization, and seamless integration for enhanced monitoring.
Splunk SOAR offers customizable playbooks, seamless integration, facilitates automation, enhances incident response, and improves user experience and efficiency.
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 customization of the playbook in Splunk SOAR is very beneficial.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
207
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), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (9th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (11th)
Splunk SOAR
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category, the mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 8.1%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk SOAR is 7.2%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
 

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.
Shubham Sinha. - PeerSpot reviewer
Helped eliminate repetitive and redundant tasks, but custom functions and reporting need a lot of work
The visibility of the solution’s playbook viewer depends on the right you assign to the analyst. SOAR has the flexibility to distinguish between the roles of analyst and owner. If the analyst's role is to just work on a ticket, they cannot view the playbook design platform. That is limited to the owner. That can be both a good and bad thing. A major problem I have faced in SOAR's rights distribution is roles and responsibilities. Suppose I am initially granted user rights or analyst rights, but later on, I also get admin rights. SOAR is unable to amend the limitations of my role. I raised a support ticket with Splunk about this. They said it's a bug in their 5.3.5 version. To fix this, I had to reinstall the entire platform from scratch, just to amend the rights and responsibilities of one role. This bug was not fixed. Also, the latest GUI is terrible. The previous one was better. Another point is that while using Splunk SOAR in an investigation is not difficult, there are some complex parameters. We have SOAR case management, but the licensing is going to put a big hole in your pocket. Also, there is an issue with investigation node addition. When you are doing node additions you cannot grant the entire environment to have SOAR visibility into the incident. So when you integrate it with an ITSM tool, like ServiceNow or Jira for ticketing purposes, there is a challenge. When you do nodes for investigation on a regular basis, sometimes it does not update our ServiceNow platform, which is terrible. It is a redundant activity for an analyst to update that in the case management as well as in the ITSM tool. Although SOAR provides integration, the functionality of investigation and nodes is terrible when it comes to integration. An additional area for improvement is custom function creation. It's terrible. A newbie cannot create custom functions right away. They would require a solid understanding first. Also, the reporting is really awful. If I want to do a report for a customized time period, such as the last three days or the last four days, or from the 10th to the 12th of June, that is not available in SOAR at all. That kind of feature is available in Cortex XSOAR. Reporting is a real challenge.
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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
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
 

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 Splunk Phantom?
Splunk SOAR's quick response to incidents is the most valuable part.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Splunk Phantom?
Splunk SOAR is affordable cost-wise only, but not competitive from a technical perspective compared to Palo Alto SOAR and FortiSOAR.
What needs improvement with Splunk Phantom?
The creation of playbooks is complex in Splunk SOAR ( /categories/security-orchestration-automation-and-response-soar ), and the number of integrations needs enhancement. Although it enhances alert...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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