We performed a comparison between IBM Security QRadar and SolarWinds Security Event Manager based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The scalability is great. You can put unlimited logs in, as long as you can pay for it. There are commitment tiers, up to six terabytes per day, which is nowhere close to what any one of our customers is running."
"The UI-based analytics are excellent."
"One of the most valuable features is that it creates a kind of a single pane of glass for organizations that already use Microsoft software. So, when they have things like Microsoft 365, it is very easy for them to kind of plug in or enroll those endpoints into the Azure Sentinel service."
"The solution offers a lot of data on events. It helps us create specific detection strategies."
"Microsoft Sentinel comes preloaded with templates for teaching and analytics rules."
"The most valuable features in my experience are the UEBA, LDAP, the threat scheduler, and integration with third-party straight perform like the MISP."
"The log query feature has been the most valuable because it's very good. You can put your data on the cloud and run queues from Sentinel. It will do it all very fast. I love that I don't have to upload it to an Excel file and then manually look for a piece of information. Sentinel is much faster and is good for big databases."
"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."
"Providing real-time visibility for threat detection and prioritization - QRadar SIEM provides contextual and actionable surveillance across the entire IT infrastructure."
"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."
"We run 65 servers globally with just two people: an engineering person and me."
"We find predictive analysis capabilities valuable."
"The most valuable features are log monitoring, easy-to-fix issues, and problem-solving."
"The solution is easy to use, manage, and review all incidents."
"The playbook engine is flexible and allows for the graphical visualization of processes, enabling the implementation of dynamic playbooks for incident response or testing."
"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."
"SolarWinds is easy to configure, and it provides timely alerts."
"The solution helps me to go back in time and search for different events. For example, if you wanted to know who activated an account; you could go back in time and find out."
"It supports high availability, which is very helpful."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the visibility into both attempted and failed logins."
"The solution helps you monitor database instances, application instances, other customer application things, Linux servers, IBM servers, and Oracle servers."
"SolarWinds Security Event Manager has been generally working well."
"SolarWinds is effective for server, network, and log monitoring. It's also good for IP address management. We also have a patch manager, but we're still working on getting that operational."
"The out of the box reports and dashboard. It was easy to trim down these windows to something we could quickly use."
"There is room for improvement in entity behavior and the integration site."
"Microsoft Defender has a built-in threat expert option that enables you to contact an expert. That feature isn't available in Sentinel because it's a huge product that integrates all the technologies. I would like Microsoft to add the threat expert option so we can contact them. There are a few other features, like threat assessment that the PG team is working on. I expect them to release this feature in the next quarter."
"I would like Sentinel to have more out-of-the-box analytics rules. There are already more than 400 rules, but they could add more industry-specific ones. For example, you could have sets of out-of-the-box rules for banking, financial sector, insurance, automotive, etc., so it's easier for people to use it out of the box. Structuring the rules according to industry might help us."
"It has been a challenge with Azure Sentinel to onboard the Syslog server from FortiGate. Azure Sentinel can work better on that shift between the Syslog server and a firewall."
"Sometimes, it is hard for us to estimate the costs of Microsoft Sentinel."
"The solution could improve the playbooks."
"Sentinel's reporting is complex and can be more user-friendly."
"We'd like to see more connectors."
"A lot of information that we receive for the devices is IP-based, but it would help if we could have a default dashboard in which we can add more details about the assets for which we are receiving the information. For example, if it is a Windows or Linux device, we only get the IP for that particular device. We don't really get the name and other details of that particular device. For that, you have to drill down into your own asset management system. It would be good to have a place where we can probably add this information so that we don't have to look into other tools."
"I would like to see a better GUI."
"Ideally we would like a mobile version so that any alert that comes in will notify us in a mobile app, or by using SMS integration."
"The dashboard and reports are not user-friendly or efficient so are of little help with threat hunting activity."
"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."
"What needs to be improved in IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics is the user experience. It's not optimal. Some screens are a bit clunky. The solution needs to be more user-friendly."
"When it comes to what could be better, it is always what others are trying to do and what is the roadmap. It can have more integration. It should have more flexible RESTful APIs for integration with applications. These are the things that are always in demand for any of the SIEM solutions, not only for QRadar. Integration is ever-evolving. Nowadays, different versions of mobile handsets are there and data is getting scattered. Users are using their personal handsets to keep the data of the organization. So, it should have a more flexible integration, irrespective of the flavor of the firmware and iOS or Android version. It should have an API that can seamlessly get integrated. It should also provide more flexible control and a more advanced or analytical view to see what exactly is happening across the globe or network. From wherever a user is connecting and accessing the enterprise data, it should give real-time visibility and predictive visibility about what exactly is happening. These things are already there, but there should be more advanced control in terms of managing the security."
"It can be difficult for users who are inexperienced with the solution."
"We used the support from SolarWinds Security Event Manager and they are knowledgeable but challenging to get in contact with them."
"I would like to be able to dig deeper into the visibility of events or incidents to determine whether they are malicious, such as by doing behavior analysis."
"There is no correlation made between log entries, so no threat information is presented."
"There are no multiple dashboards which would allow you to see information side-by-side."
"Training for this solution needs to be improved, as new employees are sometimes unfamiliar with the product."
"Under the new system, it is not upgradable the way they say. When you try to do an upgrade, it doesn't really work unless you dump everything and start from scratch. You lose a lot of your nodes. Whenever you set your nodes up and everything else, they don't want to bring those nodes back in, so you have to really go back and restructure all your nodes. I went from version 6.5 to version 6.6 and then to version 6.7. I then went to version 2019, and now it is version 2020. It would be good if we can upgrade without having to delete everything and start from scratch. They can maybe build more KPIs and other things for the dashboard. Some of the other systems already have built-in KPIs. SolarWinds is starting to catch up, but it is not there yet. They can include some of the business or industry standards for tracking the time, that is, the meantime to detect (MTTD) and the meantime to resolve (MTTR). They can also find a way to build a KPI that measures the number of instances of port scans experienced in a week or a month."
"I imagine we will have to develop our own reports soon, this seems to be more cumbersome."
More SolarWinds Security Event Manager Pricing and Cost Advice →
IBM Security QRadar is ranked 4th in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 198 reviews while SolarWinds Security Event Manager is ranked 21st in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 24 reviews. IBM Security QRadar is rated 8.0, while SolarWinds Security Event Manager is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of IBM Security QRadar writes "A highly stable and scalable solution that provides good technical support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds Security Event Manager writes "A comprehensive network security with robust technical capabilities, effective threat response, and centralized management". IBM Security QRadar is most compared with Splunk Enterprise Security, Wazuh, LogRhythm SIEM, Elastic Security and Fortinet FortiSIEM, whereas SolarWinds Security Event Manager is most compared with ManageEngine Log360, Splunk Enterprise Security, Microsoft Defender XDR, Wazuh and LogRhythm SIEM. See our IBM Security QRadar vs. SolarWinds Security Event Manager report.
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