We performed a comparison between IBM Security QRadar and IBM Watson for Cyber Security 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."What is most useful, is that it has a good connection to the Microsoft ecosystem, and I think that's the key part."
"The solution offers a lot of data on events. It helps us create specific detection strategies."
"The data connectors that Microsoft Sentinel provides are easy to integrate when we work with a Microsoft agent."
"If you know how to do KQL (kusto query language) queries, which are how you query the log data inside Sentinel, the information is pretty rich. You can get down to a good level of detail regarding event information or notifications."
"The automation rules and playbooks are the most useful that I've seen. A number of other places segregate the automation and playbook as separate tools, whereas Microsoft is a SIEM and SOAR tool in one."
"The native integration of the Microsoft security solution has been essential because it helps reduce some false positives, especially with some of the impossible travel rules that may be configured in Microsoft 365. For some organizations, that might be benign because they're using VPNs, etc."
"It's easy to use. It's a very good product. It can easily ingest data from anywhere. It has an easily understandable language to perform actions."
"The standout feature of Sentinel is that, because it's cloud-based and because it's from Microsoft, it integrates really well with all the other Microsoft products. It's really simple to set up and get going."
"The ability to add extensions is the most valuable feature. For example, extensions that provide valuable test ports."
"The interface is good."
"There are more than 120 extensions in QRadar, which are easy to install and configure. These can improve your analysis of events."
"The scalability is good."
"The most valuable feature currently is security behaviors and the pdf files."
"We can easily monitor many things using this tool."
"The playbook engine is flexible and allows for the graphical visualization of processes, enabling the implementation of dynamic playbooks for incident response or testing."
"There are other third-party plugins that we can use."
"The most valuable features of IBM Watson for Cyber Security are ease of use and out-of-the-box reports and compliance policies. Additionally, if there are aspects that are missing IBM add them in the next release."
"The customer support is very good."
"The most valuable feature of this product is innovation, where the research and upgrading of technology never ends."
"IBM Watson for Cyber Security is very stable."
"The solution could improve the playbooks."
"If Sentinel had a graphical user interface, it would be easier to use. I would also like it to be more customizable."
"The performance could be improved. If I create 15 to 20 lines for a single-use case in KQL, sometimes it takes more time to execute. If I create use cases within a certain timeline, the result will show in .01 seconds. A complex query takes more time to get results."
"Its implementation could be simpler. It is not really simple or straightforward. It is in the middle. Sometimes, connectors are a little bit complex."
"The solution could be more user-friendly; some query languages are required to operate it."
"They only classify alerts into three categories: high, medium, and low. So, from the user's point of view, having another critical category would be awesome."
"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."
"The data connectors for third-party tools could be improved, as some aren't available in Sentinel. They need to be available in the data connector panel."
"The playbook guide which specifies the rules for security use cases needs to be provided to support in case the organization needs help."
"The solution should include remote action capabilities."
"I would like the rule creation interface to be much more user-friendly in the next release."
"SOAR is what is expected the most from QRadar. They have something called SOAR Resilient, and it would be great if that gets induced in SIEM. IBM QRadar (as well as McAfee ESM) should have analytics platform integration. Currently, SIEMs don't have full-fledged integration with analytics where we are able to dump our data in SIEM, and the same data can be called from different analytics applications. We should be able to bring this data to a platform like Hadoop for big data and run the analytics there. Currently, people are seeing the past data and taking some actions in the present, but when it comes to analytics, there should be futuristic data where you can predict something out of your present and past data. Apart from that, I would like to see a full-fledged ITSM tool in QRadar. It sometimes has some technical issues that need to be checked. It requires a dedicated QRadar engineer to completely manage it. It has different module sets, such as event collector and event processor, and some technical glitches come in between. It takes the log but doesn't exactly process it in the way we want."
"In terms of additional features, a mobile app would be nice. Also, the reporting is definitely okay, but you have to make sure that everybody with different roles can understand it. There is room for improvement in the reporting."
"IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson could be more user-friendly. You need some skills and understanding of what you're looking at, especially if you're going to draw down specific information."
"The only challenge is that IBM has been a closed enterprise. It should be more open to integrating with other providers at an enterprise level. We're a bank and the core banking system integration is not way straightforward and there is no integration between IBM and these products. If IBM could open up and provide a way of integrating it seamlessly, without charging more for it, that would make a big difference."
"I would also like to see more integration with other vendors. IBM doesn't integrate well with products from China, like Huawei. Many Middle Eastern customers are switching to Huawei from American vendors like Cisco because of the price. In most RFPs, Huawei wins because it costs less."
"In the future, I would like to see threat intelligence included."
"The dashboard could improve in IBM Watson for Cyber Security."
"They need to continue to build the AI capabilities."
"This is an expensive product, so making it more cost-effective would be an improvement."
More IBM Watson for Cyber Security Pricing and Cost Advice →
IBM Security QRadar is ranked 4th in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 198 reviews while IBM Watson for Cyber Security is ranked 45th in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with 4 reviews. IBM Security QRadar is rated 8.0, while IBM Watson for Cyber Security is rated 8.0. 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 IBM Watson for Cyber Security writes "An innovative and stable product that is well maintained and always up-to-date". IBM Security QRadar is most compared with Splunk Enterprise Security, Wazuh, LogRhythm SIEM, Elastic Security and Sentinel, whereas IBM Watson for Cyber Security is most compared with Splunk Enterprise Security and i-SIEM. See our IBM Security QRadar vs. IBM Watson for Cyber Security report.
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