We performed a comparison between IBM Security QRadar and Fortinet FortiSIEM based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: IBM Security QRadar users say the solution provides extensive information and helpful leads for locating pertinent data. QRadar stands out with its comprehensive network visibility and strong SIEM capabilities. Fortinet FortiSIEM is praised for its advanced agents and effective correlation capabilities. Reviews say FortiSIEM excels at anomaly reporting and threat hunting. IBM Security QRadar could improve its rule deployment and lower its false positive rate. Users would also like expanded storage capacity, streamlined user management, and a more mature architecture. Fortinet FortiSIEM could benefit from better integration guides, more flexible reporting, and reduced resource consumption. Users also suggest adding more AI capabilities and improving database monitoring.
Service and Support: Some customers of IBM Security QRadar have had trouble connecting with knowledgeable support staff and experienced delayed responses. Some FortiSIEM customers consider Fortinet support to be satisfactory and efficient, while others were unhappy and thought the engineers could be more knowledgeable.
Ease of Deployment: IBM Security QRadar's initial setup can be complex for users without expertise, and the difficulty may vary depending on the size of the data set. Some FortiSIEM users found it effortless to install within a day or two. Nonetheless, others encountered difficulties regarding CPU and memory requirements, as well as a lengthier deployment time.
Pricing: IBM Security QRadar can be costly because users need to buy new hardware to upgrade. FortiSIEM is generally regarded as reasonably priced and competitive. However, FortiSIEM may still be deemed costly in developing markets.
ROI: IBM Security QRadar delivers a high return on investment, improving security through its advanced user behavior analytics. Fortinet FortiSIEM has consistently delivered a positive return on investment for businesses.
Comparison Results: Our users prefer IBM Security QRadar over Fortinet FortiSIEM. The advanced security features and overall strength of QRadar make it the favored option. Users like QRadar's extensive and actionable insights, user-friendly interface, and adaptability. QRadar offers a comprehensive overview of network activity and risk management.
"The solution offers a lot of data on events. It helps us create specific detection strategies."
"The solution has features that helped improve the security posture of our clients. It provides the ability to correlate a large variety of log sources very cost-effectively, especially for Microsoft sources."
"I like the ability to run custom KQL queries. I don't know if that feature is specific to Sentinel. As far as I know, they are using technology built into Azure's Log Analytics app. Sentinel integrates with that, and we use this functionality heavily."
"Free ingestion for Azure logs (with E5 licence)"
"The most valuable feature is the UEBA. It's very easy for a security operations analyst. It has a one-touch analysis where you can search for a particular entity, and you can get a complete overview of that entity or user."
"The in-built SOAR of Sentinel is valuable. Kusto Query Language is also valuable for the ease of writing queries and ease of getting insights from the logs. Schedule-based queries within Sentinel are also valuable. I found these three features most useful for my projects."
"Sentinel has features that have helped improve our security poster. It helped us in going ahead and identifying the gaps via analysis and focusing on the key elements."
"The connectivity and analytics are great."
"We're able to get real-timec as well as our customer networks that we're monitoring at all times."
"The solution is very stable. It's run for years without the need to do anything except, add new patches when they are available, which are always a good idea to install."
"The seamless integration with FortiGate is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The most valuable features for us are the built-in reports and alerts, along with the extreme flexibility in reporting and rule generation."
"Fortinet FortiSIEM has its own validated and authentic IP database that marks malicious IP attacks against the firewall and generates an alert for the same."
"The most valuable feature is the anomaly-reporting alarms."
"The product is quite well-organized. The GUI makes it easy to navigate."
"It works well with medium to large-scale enterprises."
"What I like about IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics is that it uses machine learning algorithms to generate risk scoring for the user activity. I also like that it syncs with our Active Directory users, so it really has full coverage for all users in our environment."
"IBM QRadar is easy to scale, it doesn't affect the environment. In our office, we have around 40 - 50 users, but our clients have more users on their networks. Our organization has staff in the software department that manages IBM QRadar for us."
"The most valuable features of IBM Security QRadar are flexibility, IBM support, and scalability."
"I like that it's easy to use and the performance is good."
"The flexibility is good in terms of pulling log files."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the machine learning module."
"What's most valuable in IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics is its higher availability than other tools."
"I believe one of the challenges I encountered was the absence of live training sessions, even with the option to pay for them."
"Currently, the watchlist feature is being utilized, and although there have been improvements, it is still not fully optimized."
"The AI capabilities must be improved."
"If you're looking to use canned queries, the interface could be a little more straightforward. It's not immediately intuitive regarding how you use it. You have to take a canned query and paste it into an operational box and then you hit a button... They could improve the ease of deploying these queries."
"The built-in SOAR is not really good out-of-the-box. The SOAR relies on logic apps and you almost need to have some kind of developer background to be able to make these logic apps. Most security people cannot develop anything..."
"There is a wider thing called Jupyter Notebooks, which is around the automation side of things. It would be good if there are playbooks that you can utilize without having to have the developer experience to do it in-house. Microsoft could provide more playbooks or more Jupyter Notebooks around MITRE ATT&CK Framework."
"Its implementation could be simpler. It is not really simple or straightforward. It is in the middle. Sometimes, connectors are a little bit complex."
"There is room for improvement in entity behavior and the integration site."
"FortiSIEM needs to expand its integration with third-party vendors. I don't know if Forcepoint has been added, but there were limited resources for integrating Forcepoint solutions when we implemented FortiSIEM. It integrates well with other Fortinet products and solutions from established cybersecurity companies like Palo Alto but doesn't integrate with some of the newer vendors."
"Patching is not great - we're not getting the support we'd expect."
"Our customers are noticing configuration available in the GUI interface and I think that they should be equal."
"Not very good on non-API features, lacks that functionality."
"With FortiSIEM, the issue has to do with the ways we can generate a report. It's not as flexible compared to that with other SIEM tools, like Splunk."
"Fortinet FortiSIEM is a little out of sight and needs more marketing efforts to be popular in the market."
"I would like to see easier implementation in the future."
"The biggest thing that could be better is a quicker response to support cases."
"It is very difficult to activate all of the network equipment, and it would help if it were made easier."
"We would like to see better instrumentation for debugging changes in the log flow."
"Maybe there should be more custom rules in the exchange. Basically, we are using a lot of threat rules, so maybe they'll develop something like that."
"The user interface and configurability of IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics can be improved. It has a lot of pre-configured settings and not many things can be changed. It also needs more integrations. Currently, User Behavior Analytics is integrated only with IBM QRadar. It could have deeper integrations. It can also have more complicated scoring models. Currently, it has a very simple linear scoring model for users."
"Certain updates—especially when using Azure—don't apply directly. Our engineering team must invest additional effort to implement these updates. However, the tool's cloud-based version poses no issues. However, upgrading the product can sometimes be challenging for on-premises instances."
"They should speed up the incident response and also, at the same time, reduce the amount of manual effort that is required."
"The whole process for support is something that needs to be improved."
"The playbook guide which specifies the rules for security use cases needs to be provided to support in case the organization needs help."
Fortinet FortiSIEM is ranked 8th in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 63 reviews while IBM Security QRadar is ranked 4th in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 198 reviews. Fortinet FortiSIEM is rated 7.6, while IBM Security QRadar is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiSIEM writes "It's cheaper than other solutions with the same features but lacks integration with many third-party vendors". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Security QRadar writes "A highly stable and scalable solution that provides good technical support". Fortinet FortiSIEM is most compared with Splunk Enterprise Security, LogRhythm SIEM, Wazuh, ThousandEyes and PRTG Network Monitor, whereas IBM Security QRadar is most compared with Splunk Enterprise Security, Wazuh, LogRhythm SIEM, Elastic Security and Sentinel. See our Fortinet FortiSIEM vs. IBM Security QRadar report.
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