IBM Security QRadar SIEM vs. SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Security QRadar SIEM
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
IBM Security QRadar is security information and event management (SIEM) Software.N/A
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds LEM is security information and event management (SIEM) software.N/A
Pricing
IBM Security QRadar SIEMSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Security QRadar SIEMSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM Security QRadar SIEMSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Features
IBM Security QRadar SIEMSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
Comparison of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) features of Product A and Product B
IBM Security QRadar SIEM
8.5
Ratings
9% above category average
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
8.9
Ratings
13% above category average
Centralized event and log data collection9.90 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Correlation8.60 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Event and log normalization/management9.50 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Deployment flexibility7.80 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Integration with Identity and Access Management Tools8.90 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Custom dashboards and workspaces7.50 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Host and network-based intrusion detection9.70 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Data integration/API management9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Behavioral analytics and baselining7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Rules-based and algorithmic detection thresholds8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Response orchestration and automation7.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting and compliance management7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Incident indexing/searching8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
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IBM Security QRadar SIEMSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
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Medium-sized Companies
Sumo Logic
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Score 9.4 out of 10
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Score 9.4 out of 10
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Score 9.4 out of 10
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User Ratings
IBM Security QRadar SIEMSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.3
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(0 ratings)
7.5
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Security QRadar SIEMSolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
Likelihood to Recommend
QRadar is very well suited on environments where there are not multiple tenants or domains, we do have success on this kind of scenario. IBM Security QRadar SIEM is less appropriate for environments with multiple tenants, specially when each tenant represent a different End Costumer (such as for MSSP companies), those environments require a high amount of rules and building blocks replications, since each tenant will have its own "BB definitions", servers, rules exception, etc. Also, some information, such as EPS count or EPS dropped are generated by QRadar's own log sources, which takes place on default domain, therefore users associated with different domain can not have access to those logs, even when the information is related to other domain's environment. For example, even if Event Collector 1 is associated to Domain A, the log informing its dropped EPS is generated by System notification, log source that must be associated to Default domain.
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Solarwinds SEM is great for generating reports for investigation purposes. Once you set up the connectors you can walk away and the product runs without needing maintenance. It was however pretty difficult to create the reports and alerts when now starting out and it can be very intimidating for new users.
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Pros
  • Enables identification and prioritization of vulnerabilities in IT infrastructure for corrective action.
  • Facilitates security incident investigation and forensic analysis.
  • Provides a real-time view of security events, enabling immediate incident response.
  • Can integrate with external threat intelligence sources to enrich data and improve threat detection.
  • Enables the generation of detailed and customized reports.
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  • SolarWinds easily provides the much needed visibily into changes in an Active Directory (AD) environment. Email alerting can be configured to alert a team if an account is locked out, disabled by another users, or if users and/or computers accounts are created.
  • SolarWinds allowed a searchable audit feature. Microsoft Windows can be configured to log many different parts of a system, but search those logs can be difficult. SEM allows you to search for specific users or events.
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Cons
  • Need to spend more time configuring the system to properly interpret and normalize different type of data collected from multiple resources.
  • While Rule creation QRadar uses that rules to detect security threats and generate alerts, but to creating and managing rules is bit complex & tedious work to complete.
  • IBM Security QRadar SIEM is excellent in handling large & complex systems that requires in-depth knowledge and extensive training to configure and maintain the system which includes upgrading, optimization of performance & issue troubleshooting.
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  • Compared to other SIEMs, there are features that are missing. Machine learning, automatic event correlation, ability to correlate multiple sources together.
  • The UI is clunky, and the *New* event log analyzer page felt really disjointed from the rest of the product.
  • In my experience, the dashboards were almost unusable. They persisted across login per device, and even then they sometimes would reset and go back to the ''Getting Started'' look.
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Likelihood to Renew
With the arrival of IBM Security QRadar SIEM at our company, we have a better vision of all the security needs that may arise, it is a very safe software to use that prevents threats from damaging our IT environment, it is impossible to change it for another software.
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It is pretty likely that we will renew SEM when the time comes up. It is easy to use and maintain so there isn't much of a need to replace this product. It is also a pretty fair price for the capabilities provided by the SEM
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Usability
As a grade I give 8 as QRadar is not easy to learn. It requires some time to master it. It also needs a team of people actively working on the product. Once you learn to use it the software works very well and it is easy to correlate and understand detected threats. It only takes time to learn how to use it well and configure it properly.
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It is very good - but you get what you pay for. The intent is not for a Fortune 500 that needs more "heavy lifting" with SolarWinds Security Event Manager & for whom the price tag is not (much of) a consideration.
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Support Rating
Customer support is Good of IBM, While Using IBM QRadar its deployment is to slow and suddenly stop working and crashed we have contacted IBM Support and Rised a Ticket within a few minute we get call back from customer support and Query Resolved by them Fast And Rapid Support of Ibm
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The quality of support can vary depending on whom you end up speaking with. I was fortunate enough to work with a support representative who was very familiar with the product. He had even authored some of the support documentation on the website. On the flip side, I had two other experiences where I was simply directed to online training material.
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In-Person Training
The training was very useful and the people who taught us were very knowledgeable. Although the software may initially seem difficult to learn they made things much easier for us.
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
The training was very useful and the people who taught us were very knowledgeable. Although the software may initially seem difficult to learn they made things much easier for us.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Initial patience is required to learn how to use the product, and it takes a dedicated team to use it. One person is not enough, and it's not enough to just set it up and check it once in a while. It has to be used daily and kept under control to be used effectively
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Alternatives Considered
I would always recommend Splunk over IBM Security QRadar SIEM unless you're trying to save money or only onboarding and normalizing well known data sources. IBM Security QRadar SIEM doesn't seem to handle RBA and complicated, chaining correlation rules very effectively and if I had to write a custom add-on for custom data, I found it easier to do so in Splunk.
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The compare well against the others - the pricing models for all but Splunk (free version) are based on EPS/TB consumed... the problem they pose is guesstimating the price tag per month. SolarWinds Security Event Manager gets around that.
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Return on Investment
  • Like any cybersecurity product, any money you don't lose on a prevented attack is money that you saved
  • Most of the apps are free and provides great enrichment like User Behaviour Analytics
  • Top quality alerts gives enormous value to the "passive" data that flows into the infrastructure
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  • It saves a lot of time when we had issues trying to figure out where the user account lockout was coming from.
  • With it being an affordable SIEM, we are able to have the ability to do the actions associated with a SIEM and the advantages of not “breaking the bank account”.
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ScreenShots

IBM Security QRadar SIEM Screenshots

Screenshot of QRadar SIEM Cloud native- Threat intelligence preview

SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of