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IBM Security QRadar vs IBM X-Force Exchange comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
218
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (5th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (2nd), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (3rd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (11th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (8th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (9th)
IBM X-Force Exchange
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) (30th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Security QRadar is designed for Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and holds a mindshare of 5.6%, down 7.5% compared to last year.
IBM X-Force Exchange, on the other hand, focuses on Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP), holds 1.4% mindshare, down 1.6% since last year.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Security QRadar5.6%
Splunk Enterprise Security8.0%
Wazuh3.9%
Other82.5%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM X-Force Exchange1.4%
Recorded Future6.0%
Anomali3.9%
Other88.7%
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP)
 

Featured Reviews

HarshBhardiya - PeerSpot reviewer
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Have managed daily asset and alert monitoring effectively but have encountered limitations with manual processes and interface usability
It's still very manual and doesn't work on its own. It's still in an early stage and not on par where we can consider it a really successful detection system. The accuracy is not there. The UI could be better when compared to Sentinels where we can use flags and tagging. It could be much more user-friendly. IBM Security QRadar has all features and is fully competitive with other SIEM tools, but when it comes to user-friendliness, a new user takes time to get used to it. More intuitive, user-friendly interfaces and more helpful documentation would be beneficial. The query searching and data fetching could be faster. In large to very large organizations with around 5,000 or 6,000 assets or beyond, even with proper configurations and RAM and hardware backing up, the query is fairly slow.
JohnTamakloe - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at ostec
A threat intelligence platform aiming to enhance its intelligence
It falls under the category of AI-embedded threat intelligence, which makes detection more efficient by reducing the rate of false positives and improving the overall detection rate. When the threat intelligence alone doesn’t provide enough information, we use other methods to verify the threat. For example, IBM has its threat intelligence team and tools. If the threat intelligence doesn’t yield much information, the tool has a framework that can identify suspicious activity. We then use our judgment and experience to implement compensating controls, whether for a potentially malicious patch, IP address, or any other threat. Customers benefit from it, even if they’re not directly integrating it. Through our service, they receive the benefits of the integration. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall, aside from support issues, we've been happy with the solution."
"The main tool for this operation center for collecting events from different devices, whatever server or network devices, such as switches and routers, it handles anything related to data that can be harmful related to security."
"The simplicity of the solution is the best feature."
"The IBM QRadar Licensing for the core Events(EPS) and Flows(FPS) is per second based, the licensing is perpetual and surely expensive but the output of the product makes it worth your money."
"Vulnerability detection is the most valuable feature. It's the tool that finds the threats."
"From an analytics perspective, it's a good tool."
"The product is great; it does good correlation for events, it does good general analysis, and it has good apps as well."
"The threat hunting capabilities in general are great."
"This product has helped to increase staff productivity."
"It's quite integratable so you can actually integrate and get IP malware and URL information. It also gives you some form of intelligence into what you're trying to investigate or what you're trying to understand."
"IBM X-Force has shortened our lifecycle for cyber security investigations, allowing me to quickly leverage a tool that gives quick visibility, quick understanding, quick investigation, quick drill down, and the ability to close offenses and issues as fast as I can."
"The most valuable feature is you have the expertise of human experience directly involved. There is a team of experts."
"One of the fastest ways to cut costs is reducing staff, and this product can reduce staff by 70 percent."
 

Cons

"The product can be a bit complex."
"In a future release, the solution could provide malware analysis."
"Our consultants are taking too much time understanding the product's technical aspects."
"The initial setup was complex, and it took six months."
"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."
"Sometimes we get a really good response and at times, some of the issues have been floating around for a lot of time."
"We did encounter stability issues as IBM’s patches are not stable at all."
"The user interface is a bit clunky, a bit hard to find what you need."
"It is very expensive."
"I would like to see better integration with other systems, solutions, and vendors."
"You have to look for the new information from X-Force. X-Force will provide it but you have to look for it. We need clearer visibility."
"We would like to have more AI capabilities to detect threats and improve its productivity from a cybersecurity standpoint."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics is an application framework and you can install many applications without any additional costs."
"IBM's Qradar is not for small companie. Unfortunately, it would be 'overkill' to place it plainly. The pricing would be too much."
"The pricing is good."
"found other solutions, with more features at the same cost or less. You don’t have to leave the Gartner Magic Quadrant to beat their price."
"There are different types of subscriptions available. We were on an annual subscription, but our customers typically choose the two years subscription option."
"Pricing and licensing are competitive. Their new licensing options allow logs to bypass the correlation engine for a flat rate, which is also appealing for log data that is compliance-driven for a small amount of money."
"Most of the time, it is easier and cheaper to buy a new product or the QRadar box."
"The licensing is also overly complex, as there is a need to buy the work load performance monitoring separately."
"One of the fastest ways to cut costs is reducing staff, and this product can reduce staff by 70 percent."
"Cost is clearly a consideration, but the important thing is what we do with the data and how we protect it."
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Comparison Review

VS
Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business93
Midsize Enterprise39
Large Enterprise107
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?
I am overall satisfied with the licensing cost for IBM Security QRadar.
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Also Known As

IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
X-Force Exchange, X-Force
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
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