Sheet 27 / IBM QRadar SIEM vs Microsoft Sentinel
Digital Signet / SIEM Vendor Dossier 2026
Verified 2026-06-20
IBM QRadar SIEM vs Microsoft Sentinel
Decision pivot, not duplicate content. One paragraph per attribute the choice actually rests on.
IBM QRadar SIEM
- Owner
- IBM (on-prem) and Palo Alto Networks (SaaS, as Cortex XSIAM) (2024-09-04)
- Pricing model
- Events Per Second (EPS) plus Flows Per Minute (FPM). Managed Virtual Server (MVS) tier available. On-prem, QRadar on Cloud, or BYOC. Maintenance adds 20-25%/yr on perpetual licenses.
- Cheapest rate
- Quote-only. Channel reports a ~$10K/yr smallest 100-EPS commercial tier on-prem.[9]
- MITRE coverage
- 78%
- AI agent
- watsonx Assistant for SecOps (legacy)
Pivot
If you are an existing QRadar SaaS customer: Sentinel is usually cleaner than Cortex XSIAM. If on-prem QRadar with strict residency: stay.
Microsoft Sentinel
- Owner
- Microsoft
- Pricing model
- Per GB ingested (Pay-As-You-Go) or Commitment Tiers from 50 GB/day to 50,000 GB/day. Basic Logs $1/GB. Auxiliary / Data Lake $0.05/GB ingest.
- Cheapest rate
- Basic Logs $1.00/GB (East US). Analytics Logs PAYG $4.30/GB. Commitment Tier $2.05/GB effective at 50,000 GB/day.[3]
- MITRE coverage
- 88%
- AI agent
- Microsoft Security Copilot
Decision rule
QRadar SaaS customers are being migrated to Cortex XSIAM by IBM and Palo Alto. For Microsoft-aligned shops the Sentinel migration is usually cleaner because the destination is an Azure-native platform rather than a Palo Alto-platform consumption wrapper.
Content survival
QRadar AQL rules do not survive migration to KQL natively. Plan for a content rewrite, not a content port. Microsoft offers analytics rule templates that cover the common patterns.
Ingest TCO strip
Live calculator
| Vendor | Annual TCO | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Splunk Enterprise Security | Quote | Quote-only. Request an RFP-grade quote before benchmarking. |
| Microsoft Sentinel | $785K | Analytics Logs PAYG $4.30/GB times annual ingest with retention adjustment. |
| Google Chronicle Security Operations | $8K | Standard tier $0.65 per employee per month times headcount. 12-month retention included. |
| CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen SIEM | Quote | Quote-only. Request an RFP-grade quote before benchmarking. |
| IBM QRadar SIEM | Quote | Quote-only. Request an RFP-grade quote before benchmarking. |
| Exabeam New-Scale Fusion | Quote | Quote-only. Request an RFP-grade quote before benchmarking. |
| LogRhythm Axon | Quote | Quote-only. Request an RFP-grade quote before benchmarking. |
| Securonix Unified Defense SIEM | Quote | Quote-only. Request an RFP-grade quote before benchmarking. |
| Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM | $456K | Cloud Flex effective $2.50/GB at Enterprise Suite times annual ingest with retention. |
| Elastic Security | $173K | Serverless ingest $0.85/GB plus a baseline VCU/storage allocation. |
| Panther Cloud-Native SIEM | Quote | Quote-only. Request an RFP-grade quote before benchmarking. |
| Palo Alto Cortex XSIAM | Quote | Quote-only. Request an RFP-grade quote before benchmarking. |
| SentinelOne Singularity AI SIEM | Quote | Quote-only. Request an RFP-grade quote before benchmarking. |
| Rapid7 InsightIDR | $101K | Per-asset $5.62 per month at the entry tier (500-asset minimum). |
| Stellar Cyber Open XDR + SIEM | Quote | Quote-only. Request an RFP-grade quote before benchmarking. |
| Devo Platform | Quote | Quote-only. Request an RFP-grade quote before benchmarking. |
| Snowflake Cybersecurity Workload | $219K | Estimated $1.20 effective per ingested GB across credits and storage at standard tier (excludes detection layer). |
| Anvilogic | Quote | Quote-only. Request an RFP-grade quote before benchmarking. |
| Hunters SOC Platform | Quote | Quote-only. Request an RFP-grade quote before benchmarking. |
| Graylog Security | $274K | Cloud Security tier list approximately $1.50/GB times annual ingest with retention. |
You enter GB/day. You get an annual number per vendor that publishes a unit price. Quote-only vendors are blocked, not estimated.