As a security professional, I rely on IBM Security QRadar for a variety of use cases tailored to our security needs. With over 200 implemented, these range from real-time threat detection and incident response to compliance reporting and user behavior analytics.
IBM Security QRadar Suite Software: SIEM & SOAR
IBM SecurityExternal reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Saves time and enhances our detection and response capabilities
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
IBM Security QRadar has significantly improved our incident response procedures. We have implemented a structured plan within the system, ensuring adherence and minimizing human error.
What needs improvement?
There is room for improvement in IBM QRadar in integrating features for SOC maturity and security levels directly into QRadar. That would enhance its effectiveness. Additionally, incorporating features for assessing and improving SOC maturity within QRadar itself would be beneficial, eliminating the need to rely on separate tools for this purpose.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with IBM Security QRadar for over two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have not had any stability issues with QRadar.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
IBM QRadar is scalable to meet the growing needs of our business. As our network expands with additional devices and log sources, QRadar can easily accommodate them. We can also create specific use cases tailored to the nature of each log source.
How was the initial setup?
Our experience with the initial setup of QRadar was smooth because we opted for a managed security solution through our service providers. The installation itself took about one to two hours but integrating various sources, creating use cases, fine-tuning, and enabling logs could take up to two to three months. However, in our enterprise network deployment, we managed to accomplish it within six months.
What was our ROI?
Implementing IBM QRadar is similar to investing in insurance for our organization's security. While the return on investment may not be immediately tangible, it is crucial for mitigating potential disasters and ensuring our organization's resilience against security threats in the long run.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Overall, I'm satisfied with the value IBM QRadar provides for its price. However, there is room for improvement in terms of including more features with the base license instead of requiring additional licensing fees for each feature or application.
What other advice do I have?
We chose to work with IBM QRadar mainly because it was widely deployed in our country, Pakistan, with no significant presence of alternatives like Splunk or LogRhythm.
IBM Security QRadar has enhanced our threat detection and management processes by providing comprehensive visibility into network traffic and events. With QRadar, we have end-to-end visibility across our network, enabling us to monitor traffic from origin to destination and analyze all relevant logs and events.
IBM Security QRadar stands out with features like advanced analytics and customizable dashboards, making it effective for our security needs. While it shares common features with other SIEM solutions, these unique capabilities have been instrumental in improving our security.
Integration capabilities play a crucial role in enhancing the overall security posture of IBM QRadar. By integrating with various tools like Active Directory, privilege access management, firewalls, and email security appliances, QRadar aggregates logs from different sources. It then utilizes machine learning, artificial intelligence, and custom rules to analyze this data, helping our security operations center make informed decisions and respond effectively to potential threats.
Overall, I would rate IBM QRadar as a seven out of ten. It is a great tool but operating IBM QRadar requires a higher level of technical expertise.
A highly scalable and stable tool with a responsive support team
What is our primary use case?
I use IBM Security QRadar in my company as it provides features like SIEM, SOAR, and QNI.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of IBM Security QRadar stems from the fact that it is a product that is like a complete suite.
What needs improvement?
The price of IBM Security QRadar is an area of concern where improvements are required. IBM is never known to provide products at a cheap price.
IBM Security QRadar's UI is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are needed.
In the future, I would like IBM Security QRadar to have a library of adapters or APIs.
The area around recovery time is an aspect of IBM's technical support where improvements are required.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using IBM Security QRadar for more than a year. I use the solution's latest version. My company is in the process of being declared as a golden partner of IBM.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
My company currently deals with around four to five organizations comprising medium to large companies where IBM Security QRadar is used.
How are customer service and support?
The solution's technical support is responsive. The only area where I don't agree with IBM Security QRadar's technical support stems from the lack of proper or defined recovery time, even though their response time is good.
I rate the technical support a seven out of ten.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have experience with Splunk. My company deals with Splunk since we had no choice owing to the fact that one or two customers wanted it.
In the past, I was using open-source products, including solutions like Elastic Security and Wazuh.
My company decided to switch from Wazuh to IBM Security QRadar.
How was the initial setup?
The product's deployment phase can be described as an average one.
I rate the deployment process of IBM Security QRadar a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.
The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
On a scale of one to ten, I rate the price a one, where one is an extremely expensive product, and ten is a cheap product. IBM Security QRadar is an expensive product. A customer gets discounts only when they ask for them from IBM.
The challenge is that if someone submits a request or proposal and finds that the prices of the products our company deals with are too high, we may not even be shortlisted for negotiations. If my company gets shortlisted for the next round, then we get questioned over the high prices.
What other advice do I have?
My company takes care of the maintenance part of the solution for our clients who use IBM Security QRadar in their environments. Nine engineers and one manager take care of the maintenance process of IBM Security QRadar. My company has a lot of certified employees to take care of IBM Security QRadar's maintenance. My company can be considered a powerhouse when it comes to products from IBM.
I recommend the solution to those who plan to use it.
Splunk and IBM are leaders as per Gartner Magic Quadrant. I believe that IBM Security QRadar should be fairly priced for SMEs.
I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.
A highly stable and scalable solution that provides good technical support
What is our primary use case?
I've got use cases where we monitor positive controls wherein something doesn't allow something to happen. It alarms when somebody changes the control.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of IBM Security QRadar are flexibility, IBM support, and scalability.
What needs improvement?
IBM Security QRadar’s GUI could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using IBM Security QRadar for 12 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate IBM Security QRadar ten out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Around five to ten users are using the solution in our organization.
I rate IBM Security QRadar ten out of ten for scalability.
How was the initial setup?
The solution's initial setup is pretty difficult. I rate IBM Security QRadar a four or five out of ten for the ease of its initial setup.
What about the implementation team?
Based on the size and the number of use cases, the solution's deployment can take three or four days to a few months.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
IBM Security QRadar is about 50% less expensive than Splunk. SIEM solutions charge by the amount of data, whether EPS or gigabytes. They directly incentivize you not to put things in it, which doesn't make sense since the goal is to put everything in it. They'd make it where you can't afford to do it.
On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate IBM Security QRadar's pricing a five out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I rate IBM Security QRadar a nine out of ten.
A scalable tool useful for authentication purposes but needs to provide more product training to its users
What is our primary use case?
I use IBM Security QRadar in my company for authentication of users and to block the access of a user to the internet. In my company, we have only used the basic version of the solution, and currently, we don't have a license for the product since we didn't renew it. The basic version of the solution fits my company's basic requirements.
What needs improvement?
IBM Security QRadar is not hard to implement and administrate. To serve new use cases or do the tuning and allow correlation rules, you may need training since it is necessary to know the solution. With IBM solutions, you need training to know how to use the different features of the solution. IBM needs to provide training to its users to teach them how to use the case manager and how to tune rules.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using IBM Security QRadar since 2020, so I have experience with it for three years. I am a customer of IBM.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable solution.
How are customer service and support?
With IBM Security QRadar, my company faced issues with the support we received for the product. Basically, my company faced problems due to the delays or mistakes made by IBM's support team.
I rate the technical support a six out of ten.
How was the initial setup?
The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.
For the product's implementation, my company took two months. To implement all log sources, my company took somewhere between three to five months.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
IBM Security QRadar is a very expensive tool.
What other advice do I have?
In the future, my company would want the cloud version of the solution and not its on-prem version.
I rate the overall tool a seven out of ten.
Excellent IBM software does everything we need.
A scalable and easy-to-deploy incident management tool that provides good support
What is our primary use case?
The product is a threat detection and response solution. It is useful for consultants or security analysts. It is an incident management tool.
What is most valuable?
We had enabled federated search. It allows us to search data both on-premises and on the cloud. We can check the functional insights. We use keywords for threat investigation. We use the product mostly for AWS delivery models.
What needs improvement?
Most people handling QRadar in organizations are IT engineers. They do not have experience with the tool. They read from manual documentation. If there is an emergency to search for details about malware, we need a response team’s help. Sophos has a team called Managed Threat Response. The team conducts investigations in our network. This feature is not available in IBM Security QRadar. They only provide technical support. The product does not have a team for investigating malware.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The tool is stable. SIEM is important for every company. It is needed if any attack occurs.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We deployed the solution for an enterprise business. I rate the scalability of the tool an eight out of ten.
How was the initial setup?
I rate the ease of setup an eight out of ten.
What about the implementation team?
The deployment takes almost half a day. If the environment is good, we can deploy the solution in 25 to 30 minutes. It will be helpful to have people who have knowledge of malware analysis and know specific languages that are relevant to the domain to deploy the tool.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
In India, the solution is expensive. Only enterprise businesses can afford the tool. We need more than 3000 people in the organization to use it. We might have to pay for technical support separately.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We use Sophos now. Sophos provides us with a team called MTR. The team analyzes the vulnerabilities in our network. We need to pay separately for it. However, compared to us, they have better product knowledge. This kind of support is not available in QRadar. It will be great if IBM adds these features.
What other advice do I have?
I am using the current version of the solution. We do not have a team to analyze malware. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.
I'm have working with IBM SOAR since February 2023
my experiences.
Some of the features on the appreciation surface are the ability to maintain and analyze security protections, automate incident response business processes and integrate them with various security tools.
It manages to increase the protections of security operations and help respond effectively to threats.