IBM QRadar vs. Splunk: Comparison of the best SIEM solutions | ENG (2023)

IBM QRadar and Splunk are the first twoSecurity Information and Event Management (SIEM)solutions, but each offers unique benefits to potential buyers.

Both SIEM solutions are inelectronic security planetlist ofTop 10 SIEM ProductsBoth companies offer powerful core SIEM products, but differ in smart features and integrations with third-party and other security tools. Below are some key features and an analysis of each solution.

(Video) QRadar vs Splunk vs Sentinel vs LogRhythm | SOC SIEM SOAR | Gartner Forrester

QRadar and Splunk features and options

IBM QRadar SIEMLeverage automation to discover security log sources and new network traffic generated by other assets appearing on the network. It also uses advanced association rule engines and behavior analysis techniques to reduce millions or billions of data points into a manageable list of required studies. The solution comes with more than 400 support modules and dozens more are available on the IBM Security App Exchange.

“By associating multiple security events with known patterns of malicious behavior, QRadar can identify cyber breaches, data breaches and anomalies in an organization's network,” said Patric Vandenberg, director of security programs at IBM.electronic security planet"This core capability is strongly supported by vulnerability management, network forensics tools, and an integrated incident response solution right on the bench."

Splunk Enterprise Security (EN)It provides a clear visual image of the organization.security posture, with the ability to customize the view and zoom in on raw events as needed. Ongoing safety monitoring and case management andincident responseThe capabilities allow users to rapidly conduct investigations to detect threats using ad-hoc search and static, dynamic, and visual correlation.

The Splunkbase App Store provides access to over 600 apps that work with Splunk security solutions, including Splunk Security Essentials fordata hijacking, Splunk Security Essentials for fraud detection, the Cisco Networks app for Splunk, and the Splunk app for PCI compliance. The Splunk Adaptive Response Initiative, a security collective of more than 30 partners, also helps integrate technologies likenext generation firewall,Security end postInthreat intelligence.

Recent SIEM Product Enhancements

Last year, IBM enhanced QRadar with the addition of IBM QRadar with Watson, which combines the power of Watson with the QRadar security analytics platform; IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics, which analyzes user behavior to detect malicious activity; and IBM QRadar Network Insights, a real-time analysis of network data to detect attacks and security threats. IBM QRadar Cloud Security has also been enhanced to protect cloud services from AWS, Azure and O365.

New additions to Splunk products over the past year include Splunk ES Content Updates, a subscription service that provides prepackaged security content to help customers detect, investigate, and manage specific threats, and Booz Allen Hamilton Cyber4Sight for Splunk, which provides clients with access to actionable security intelligence from Booz Allen's Threat Intelligence Service. The company has also releasedSplunk User Behavior Analysis (UBA) 4.0, allowing customers to create and upload their own machine learning models to identify custom threats and anomalies.

Strengths and Weaknesses: IBM

QRadar is ideal for medium to large enterprises that require basic SIEM capabilities,knuthand those looking for a unified platform that can manage a wide variety of security monitoring and operational technologies.

(Video) Best SIEM Products: SIEM Explained And Top 5 Tools

Still, there are some drawbacks. While IBM offers a BigFix solution for endpoint monitoring, Gartner says its clients have shown little interest and are turning to third-party solutions. The company also reported that QRadar's UBA capabilities lagged behind other vendors and that the IBM Resilient incident response tool did not offer native integration with the QRadar platform.

Gartner claims better-than-average incident management and response capabilities and workflow, but full orchestration and automation can only be achieved through IBM's advanced Resilient Incident Response Platform solution. Threat hunting is also very important with i2 Analyst's Notebook from IBM.

Pros y contras: Splunk

Splunk offers a comprehensive solution that allows users to customize the solution over time and provides advanced analytics across the platform. Integration services are provided by a wide range of partners and apps are available through the Splunkbase app store.

However, Gartner reports that some of its clients are concerned about the licensing model and overall implementation costs. Splunk has introduced new licensing options to address these issues. Since Splunk does not offer an appliance version of the solution, companies that require on-premises appliances must turn to third-party providers.

Gartner says that Splunk focuses primarily on basic SIEM capabilities and does not have specific advanced threat detection solutions. Splunk Stream (included with Splunk Enterprise) can collect network traffic for analysis, while Splunk Universal Forwarder can be used as a lightweight proxy for endpoint analysis, the company said.

SIEM User Considerations

Users of both SIEM products have their own opinion.

Colt Rogers, an infrastructure engineer at IT services company Zirous,wroteSplunk has been "very helpful in proactively monitoring client hardware, network, and security activities."

(Video) What Is SIEM?

Zirous uses Splunk, among other things, to proactively lock accounts based on machine learning of the average number of failed login attempts for the average person. This is useful when a network breach is contained almost immediately thanks to an automatic logoff policy.

A Director of Engineering and Security Operationsthe lawIBM QRadar can correlate global business data, third-party solution integrations, and machine learning capabilities like Watson integrations and near real-time indicators of compromise. He pointed out that the incident was detected in real time.

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Compare IBM QRadar and Splunk SIEM solutions
ProductExampletable of Contentsintelligencedeliver goodsPrecio
Splunk Enterprise Securityhighly regulated industryMost users ingest petabytes of data per dayIntegration with Splunk UBA and Machine Learning Toolkitcloud programBased on maximum daily data volume; from $1,800/GB/day
IBM
security cameras
Corporate and Regulated Industries4oo+ source, scalable to millions of events per secondUBA, forensics, packet inspection, Watson integrationCloud or hardware, software or virtual devicesCloud starts at $800/mo; on premises at $10,400
Compare IBM QRadar and Splunk SIEM solutions
ProductExampletable of Contentsintelligencedeliver goodsPrecio
Splunk Enterprise Securityhighly regulated industryMost users ingest petabytes of data per dayIntegration with Splunk UBA and Machine Learning Toolkitcloud programBased on maximum daily data volume; from $1,800/GB/day
IBM
security cameras
Corporate and Regulated Industries4oo+ source, scalable to millions of events per secondUBA, forensics, packet inspection, Watson integrationCloud or hardware, software or virtual devicesCloud starts at $800/mo; on premises at $10,400
(Video) SIEM or XDR

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QRadar is available as on-premises hardware or software or in the cloud. Smaller clients can offload all implementation and maintenance to IBM's cloud-based solution, while larger enterprises can choose to go on-premises or take a hybrid approach to collect data from on-premises and application-based applications. cloud, Vandenberg said.

Splunk ES can be deployed as on-premises software in public or private clouds or in hybrid deployments through the Splunk Cloud SaaS solution. "Many of Splunk's customers are becoming more interested in using Splunk ES in the cloud," said Girish Bhat, Splunk's director of product marketing.electronic security planetvia email. "Today, many customers are shifting their overall security model from an on-premises model to a hybrid model that allows them to perform security analytics both on-premises and in the cloud."

pricing structure

IBM QRadar pricing is based on events per second (EPS) and traffic per second (FPS). On-premises solutions start at $10,400 including 12 months of support, while cloud-based solutions start at $800/month/year. IBM QRadar Community Edition is a low memory, low EPS version of QRadar that is available for free.

Splunk pricing is based on the number of users and the amount of data ingested per day. The free version is available for a single user with a maximum of 500 MB of data per day. Splunk Light, for up to 5 users with up to 20 GB of data per day, starts at $75 per month billed annually. Splunk Enterprise, for unlimited users and up to unlimited data per day, starts at $150 per month for 1 GB of data per day, with discounts per GB as data grows: $83 per GB for 10 GB of data per day USD For example , 100 GB of data per month costs USD 50 per GB per month.

With machine data growing 50 times faster than traditional enterprise data, Splunk has seen customer data ingestion rise significantly to double-digit terabytes, Bhat said. “It also means absorbing more data sources, giving security analysts a more complete picture of your security posture,” he said.

(Video) IBM QRadar Review: Features, Pros And Cons, And Similar Products

See for a comparison of other SIEM productsArcSight on IBM QRadar,ArcSight y Splunk,AlienVault y Splunk,SolarWinds en SplunkInLogRhythm y Splunk.

FAQs

IBM QRadar vs. Splunk: Comparison of the best SIEM solutions | ENG? ›

Specialization: QRadar specializes mostly in Security-related tools and is deep-rooted in monitoring the cyber activities of an organization. Splunk has multiple products that manage Application performance monitoring, provide hosted services, deals with Hadoop Big data analytics and handle security-related subjects.

Which is better Splunk or QRadar? ›

Specialization: QRadar specializes mostly in Security-related tools and is deep-rooted in monitoring the cyber activities of an organization. Splunk has multiple products that manage Application performance monitoring, provide hosted services, deals with Hadoop Big data analytics and handle security-related subjects.

What is the market share of Splunk vs QRadar? ›

Comparing the market share of Splunk and IBM QRadar

Splunk has a 63.72% market share in the Security Information And Event Management (SIEM) category, while IBM QRadar has a 4.82% market share in the same space.

Why choose IBM QRadar? ›

QRadar SIEM seamlessly incorporates network behavior data into threat analysis to correlate and detect threats. Gain greater visibility into insider threats, uncover anomalous behavior, quickly identify risky users and generate meaningful insights.

What is the difference between Splunk and SIEM? ›

Most people have a common question: Is Splunk a SIEM? Splunk is not a SIEM but you can use it for similar purposes. It is mainly for log management and stores the real-time data as events in the form of indexers. It helps to visualize data in the form of dashboards.

Why is Splunk the best? ›

Splunk is a powerful tool for analyzing data that can help organizations make better decisions, improve operations, and reduce costs. By collecting and indexing data from across an organization, Splunk provides a centralized view of all the data that an organization must work with.

Why is QRadar so slow? ›

A slow search happens when QRadar has to many files to read or values to return. Event or Flow searching is limited by disk read rate on the Ariel Servers. If the search is targeting many files, this can increase the time for a search to be completed.

What is the top market share of SIEM? ›

The top three of LogRhythm's competitors in the Security Information And Event Management (SIEM) category are Splunk with 63.72%, Azure Sentinel with 7.81%, Splunk Enterprise Security with 5.52% market share.

Does the government use Splunk? ›

Confident decisions and actions at mission speeds

Thousands of U.S. public sector organizations use Splunk's security, IT and observability solutions, including: All three branches of the federal government and more than a dozen cabinet-level departments.

Who is Splunk main competitor? ›

Question: Who is Splunk's biggest competitor? Answer: Splunk competes in a wide range of markets. However, the company's main competitors are IBM Security (QRadar), McAfee SIEM, AlienVault, LogRhythm, CA Technologies, HPE ArcSight, and SolarWinds.

What are the 3 types of rules that can be enabled in QRadar? ›

QRadar rules
  • Custom rules perform tests on events, flows, and offenses to detect unusual activity in your network.
  • Anomaly detection rules perform tests on the results of saved flow or event searches to detect when unusual traffic patterns occur in your network.

What database does IBM QRadar use? ›

QRadar uses a PostgreSQL database as a data store.

What query language does QRadar use? ›

Use Ariel Query Language (AQL) to extract, filter, and perform actions on event and flow data that you extract from the Ariel database in IBM QRadar.

Which SIEM solution is the best? ›

5 Best SIEM Tools & Software for 2023
  • Splunk Enterprise Security: Best for IT Observability.
  • IBM Security QRadar SIEM: Best for Global Reach.
  • Securonix Unified Defense SIEM: Best for Future-Looking Vision.
  • Exabeam Fusion: Best for Log Storage and Searchability.
  • LogRhythm SIEM Platform: Best for On-Premises SIEM.
May 2, 2023

How do I choose a SIEM solution? ›

Consider the following eight criteria when looking at different options in order to find a solution that meets your specific needs.
  1. Real-Time Monitoring and Alerting. ...
  2. User Activity Monitoring. ...
  3. Use Case Investigations. ...
  4. Threat Detection Across the Environment. ...
  5. Long Term Event Storage. ...
  6. Scalability. ...
  7. Integrations. ...
  8. Reporting.

What is SIEM most suitable for? ›

SIEM solutions are ideal for conducting digital forensic investigations once a security incident occurs. SIEM solutions allow organizations to efficiently collect and analyze log data from all of their digital assets in one place.

What are the 3 main default roles in Splunk? ›

The predefined roles are: admin : This role has the most capabilities. power : This role can edit all shared objects and alerts, tag events, and other similar tasks. user : This role can create and edit its own saved searches, run searches, edit preferences, create and edit event types, and other similar tasks.

Why not to use Splunk? ›

Splunk is a proprietary tool and their pricing is based on how much data you ingest into Splunk. This means that the more data you use, the more it will cost you. This is directly antithetical to how data scientists think.

Is IBM QRadar easy to use? ›

Be its stand alone or distributed architecture, IBM Qradar makes it very easy to understand it push-pull mechanism , log source agents configuration , log management or putting queries to find actionable incidents.

What is the benefit of QRadar? ›

Powerful Threat Detection Capable Platform

Qradar provides powerful investigation and forensics capabilities, By using it, I can drill down into security breach events and identify the root cause the scope of attack.

What is recorded future for QRadar? ›

Recorded Future's intelligence reduces security risk by automatically positioning threat data in your IBM Security QRadar environment. This empowers analysts to identify and triage alerts faster, proactively block threats, and reduce time spent on false positives to improve analyst efficiency.

Is SIEM outdated? ›

Security Information Event Management (SIEM) systems are an outdated technology. It's no longer enough to just manage information – today's organizations need technology that can proactively detect and respond to dynamic threats as well.

Who has the most market share in cybersecurity? ›

Cisco, Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet are the leading cybersecurity vendors worldwide. In the first quarter of 2020, Cisco accounted for 9.1 percent of the market share in the cybersecurity industry, while Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet accounted for 7.8 and 5.9 percent respectively.

How many SIEM solutions are there? ›

SIEM tools provide real-time analysis of security alerts generated by applications and network hardware. There are 50+ SIEM solutions on the market and this guide will help you identify the right one for your organization.

Does Google use Splunk? ›

Enhancing data security with Splunk and Google Cloud

Learn how Splunk enhances Google Cloud's extensive security measures by providing additional analysis and automated response to improve IT security efficiency.

Does Verizon use Splunk? ›

Splunk transforms traditional ways of working by allowing colleagues to collaborate from far-flung locations, correlate events and outages to specific assets to better service events, and enable actionable intelligence in near real time - all powered by Verizon 5G UWB.

What big companies use Splunk? ›

Companies Currently Using Splunk Enterprise
Company NameWebsiteZip
Wells Fargowellsfargo.com94104-1298
BAE Systemsbaesystems.comSW1Y 5AD
SunTrust Bankstruist.com28202-1078
Northrop Grummannorthropgrumman.com22042-4511
2 more rows

What is Microsoft alternative to Splunk? ›

Microsoft Sentinel

Why does Cisco want Splunk? ›

Cisco has, historically, occupied the network layer. Splunk understands network data and can offer many benefits to Cisco clients. Splunk is an enterprise software vendor that can scale in a non-linear way if Cisco can add stability to Splunk's leadership and vision.

Does the military use Splunk? ›

All four branches of the U.S. military and many agencies in the intelligence community already rely on Splunk to make confident decisions and take decisive action at mission speeds.

What protocols are used in QRadar? ›

QRadar uses the JDBC protocol to collect information from tables or views that contain event data from several database types. You can configure log sources to use the Java™ Database Connectivity (JDBC) - SiteProtector protocol to remotely poll IBM Proventia® Management SiteProtector® databases for events.

What is QRadar architecture? ›

IBM QRadar SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) is a modular architecture that provides real-time visibility of your IT infrastructure, which you can use for threat detection and prioritization. You can scale QRadar to meet your log and flow collection, and analysis needs.

What are the type of flows in QRadar? ›

QRadar flows represent network activity by normalizing IP addresses, ports, byte and packet counts, and other data, into flow records, which effectively are records of network sessions between two hosts. The component in QRadar that collects and creates flow information is known as QFlow.

Is QRadar software or hardware? ›

IBM Security QRadar is primarily software. However, IBM also sells pre-configured hardware appliances optimized to run QRadar SIEM.

Where are QRadar logs stored? ›

/var/log/qradar.

Which three log sources are supported by QRadar? ›

QRadar shows events from log sources in the Log Activity tab. To receive raw events from log sources, QRadar supports several protocols, including syslog from OS, applications, firewalls, IPS/IDS, SNMP, SOAP, JDBC for data from database tables and views.

Is QRadar data encrypted? ›

To provide secure data transfer between each of the appliances in your environment, IBM® QRadar® has integrated encryption support that uses OpenSSH. Encryption occurs between managed hosts, and is enabled by default when you add a managed host.

Is QRadar cloud based? ›

With QRadar on Cloud, you can protect your network and meet compliance monitoring and reporting requirements, with reduced total cost of ownership. Other than a data gateway appliance, which is used to connect to QRadar, you do not need to install any extra hardware on your premises.

Does QRadar use machine learning? ›

The IBM® QRadar User Behavior Analytics (UBA) app with Machine Learning Analytics includes the Machine Learning model status and additional details for the selected user.

Which SIEM tool does AWS use? ›

IBM Security QRadar SIEM provides centralized visibility and insights to quickly detect and prioritize threats across networks, users, and cloud.

Does Microsoft have a SIEM solution? ›

Microsoft Sentinel is the cloud-native SIEM solution that brings together data, analytics, and workflows to unify and accelerate threat detection and response across your entire digital estate.

Which two problems does SIEM solve? ›

The SIEM solutions work on part of intelligence for detecting any kind of potential threat and creating an alert for the teams to investigate. It is the work of the IT teams to investigate into the matter properly so that the rules of correlation make sense altogether.

Which Azure service can you use as a SIEM solution? ›

Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM) platform that uses built-in AI to help analyze large volumes of data across an enterprise—fast.

How much does a SIEM solution cost? ›

Generally, a managed SIEM will cost between $5,000 and $10,000 per month. However, this is just a rough estimate, and the actual cost will vary depending on the various factors: The size of the business. The amount of data that needs to be monitored.

What are the principal questions to ask when selecting a SIEM solution? ›

Here are some of the important questions and answers you'll need to find the right SIEM solution for your organization.
  • What's the end goal of our SIEM deployment? ...
  • Who will support and manage the SIEM solution? ...
  • Do we need a third-party for managed SIEM? ...
  • How do we simplify our SIEM deployment?

What is Splunk SIEM used for? ›

Splunk Enterprise Security:

it is a SIEM system that makes use of machine-generated data to get operational insights into threats, vulnerabilities, security technologies, and identity information.

What are two examples of SIEM? ›

Top 10 SIEM Solutions
  • Splunk. Splunk has a popular SIEM solution. ...
  • LogRhythm. LogRhythm is a pioneer of SIEM and earned itself a solid reputation. ...
  • IBM QRadar SIEM. ...
  • Microsoft Azure Sentinel. ...
  • Securonix. ...
  • McAfee Enterprise Security Manager. ...
  • LogPoint. ...
  • ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager.

What is Splunk used for? ›

Splunk Enterprise lets you search, analyze and visualize all of your data, providing insights you can act on. Splunk Cloud Platform which offers data search, analysis and visualization in the cloud (SaaS). Our Universal Forwader is the most popular way of getting data into Splunk Enterprise and Splunk Cloud Platform.

Who are competitors to Splunk? ›

Top 10 Alternatives & Competitors to Splunk Enterprise
  • Datadog. (415)4.3 out of 5.
  • Dynatrace. (1,102)4.5 out of 5.
  • LogicMonitor. (471)4.5 out of 5.
  • AppDynamics. (367)4.3 out of 5.
  • Sumo Logic. (271)4.3 out of 5.
  • Mezmo Log Analysis. (212)4.6 out of 5.
  • Zabbix. (177)4.3 out of 5.
  • New Relic. (364)4.3 out of 5.

What are the limitations of Splunk? ›

Data ingestion limits
Limit nameDefault limit value
New dimension or property key name limit40 per week
Events per minuteDetermined by your subscription
MTS creations per minute limit6,000 or determined by your subscription
MTS creations per hour limit60 times your MTS per minute limit
2 more rows

Where does Splunk rank? ›

According to the Gartner Market Share: All Software Markets, Worldwide, 2021 report, Splunk is ranked No. 1 with 8.19% market share growing 19.32% year over year. This is the third year in a row Splunk ranked No. 1.

What is the future of Splunk? ›

In the coming months, new Splunk innovation will focus on adding more machine learning (ML) to its tools for advanced threat detection. That's according to Jane Wong, Splunk's vice president of security products.

Why Splunk is better than other tools? ›

Splunk Advantages

Splunk is more than just a logging platform. It's costly because it's feature-rich for enterprise-level organizations. The Splunk tool ingests, parses, and indexes all kinds of machine data, including event logs, server logs, files, and network events.

Who uses IBM QRadar? ›

Customers of IBM QRadar
CustomersEmployee RangeCountry
VMware, Inc.10,000+United States
HCL Technologies Ltd10,000+India
Tech Mahindra Ltd10,000+India
Atos SE10,000+France
6 more rows

Videos

1. Splunk For Security Vs. SIEM
(Splunk)
2. Best Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
(Experts Academy)
3. QRadar SIEM
(Loi Liang Yang)
4. SIEM, EDR, XDR, SOAR Explained in 7 Minutes
(Tech With Ab)
5. Demo Video: Demonstrating Infoblox NIOS & Cloud Data Integration with IBM QRadar SIEM
(Infoblox Community)
6. Incident detection and Analysis for SOC- Cyber Security IBM QRADAR
(Umaz Jalal)

References

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