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Government · head to head

ArchiveSocial vs IBM QRadar

ArchiveSocial logo

ArchiveSocial

Government

Social media archiving that captures public agency accounts as legally defensible open records

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
IBM QRadar logo

IBM QRadar

Cybersecurity

Enterprise SIEM licensed by events per second, whose cloud business IBM sold to Palo Alto Networks in 2024.

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: ArchiveSocial coverage depends entirely on third party platform APIs, so when a network restricts or reprices its API the archive's completeness changes for reasons the vendor does not control.; IBM QRadar iBM sold the QRadar SaaS business to Palo Alto Networks in 2024 and those customers are being moved to Cortex XSIAM, so anyone buying today is choosing an on-premises product whose vendor has publicly moved the cloud future to a competitor, and the support horizon becomes a contract negotiation rather than an assumption.
  • They diverge on capability: ArchiveSocial covers Continuous capture, IBM QRadar covers Offence model.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which ArchiveSocial and IBM QRadar actually diverge.

Attributes where ArchiveSocial and IBM QRadar differ
AttributeArchiveSocialIBM QRadar
Pricing modelquotesubscription
PlatformsWebWeb, Api
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity
FoundedUnknown1911

Identical on both: starting price (On request), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in ArchiveSocial

  • Continuous capture
  • Deletion and edit capture
  • Authenticated records
  • Records request search
  • Litigation hold export
  • Multi platform coverage

Only in IBM QRadar

  • Offence model
  • Network flow analysis
  • Device Support Modules
  • Ariel query language
  • Rules and building blocks
  • Deployment topology
  • App Exchange
  • Use Case Manager

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

ArchiveSocial

  • A city whose legal department has flagged deleted social media comments as a records liabilitynot IBM QRadar
  • A police department that must produce social media records under an open records requestnot IBM QRadar
  • An agency under litigation hold needing authenticated social media evidence rather than screenshotsnot IBM QRadar
  • A communications team operating many accounts across departments with no consistent archivingnot IBM QRadar

IBM QRadar

  • A regulated enterprise that must keep log data on premises or in a specific jurisdiction and cannot use a shared SaaS SIEMnot ArchiveSocial
  • A SOC that wants log correlation and network flow analysis in one platform rather than buying an NDR product separatelynot ArchiveSocial
  • An existing QRadar estate deciding whether to stay on premises or accept the migration path to a different vendor's platformnot ArchiveSocial
  • Compliance-driven log retention and reporting where the audit requirement is specific about collection, retention and reportingnot ArchiveSocial

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

ArchiveSocial

  • Coverage depends entirely on third party platform APIs, so when a network restricts or reprices its API the archive's completeness changes for reasons the vendor does not control.
  • Pricing scales with the number of archived accounts, so an agency where every department runs its own page pays repeatedly for the same compliance obligation.
  • It archives rather than governs, so it will faithfully preserve a policy violation without preventing it, and agencies still need social media policy and training.
  • Since the 2021 CivicPlus acquisition the product is part of a municipal suite, so buyers avoiding that vendor for other reasons are still buying from them.
  • The value is entirely insurance shaped, which makes it a perennial target during budget cuts right up until the first records request it would have answered.

IBM QRadar

  • IBM sold the QRadar SaaS business to Palo Alto Networks in 2024 and those customers are being moved to Cortex XSIAM, so anyone buying today is choosing an on-premises product whose vendor has publicly moved the cloud future to a competitor, and the support horizon becomes a contract negotiation rather than an assumption.
  • Licensing is by events per second and flows per minute, so every additional log source raises the cost directly and teams routinely exclude verbose sources such as DNS, proxy, endpoint and cloud audit logs to stay under the licence, which strips out exactly the data an investigation later needs.
  • It needs a dedicated operator: rule tuning, parser work and offence triage are continuous jobs, and an organisation that deploys QRadar without at least one named engineer accumulates thousands of unreviewed offences and a false sense of coverage.
  • A log source without a matching Device Support Module arrives unparsed, and writing a custom parser with regular expressions against an unfamiliar payload format is specialist work that can take days per source, which quietly determines which systems ever get monitored.
  • On-premises capacity is planned across consoles, processors, collectors and data nodes, so outgrowing the sizing means procuring and racking more appliances rather than changing a subscription tier, and growth becomes a purchasing cycle measured in months.

Pricing, plan by plan

ArchiveSocial

On request
  • ArchiveSocial$undefined/year
    • Quoted annually, typically scaled by number of archived accounts
    • Additional accounts and platforms increase the subscription
    • Bundled pricing common for agencies already buying CivicPlus products

IBM QRadar

On request
  • QRadar SIEMFree
    • Event and flow processing
    • Offense management
    • Threat intelligence
  • QRadar CloudFree
    • Cloud-native deployment
    • Elastic scaling
    • Managed infrastructure
  • QRadar SuiteFree
    • SIEM + SOAR + XDR
    • Unified analyst experience
    • Federated search

Which should you pick?

Choose ArchiveSocial if

  • You need continuous capture.
  • You also want deletion and edit capture.
ArchiveSocial review

Choose IBM QRadar if

  • You need offence model.
  • You work on Web, Api.
  • You also want network flow analysis.
IBM QRadar review

Questions people ask

Is ArchiveSocial or IBM QRadar better?
Neither clearly leads. ArchiveSocial starts at On request and IBM QRadar at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, ArchiveSocial or IBM QRadar?
ArchiveSocial starts at On request and IBM QRadar at On request.
Does ArchiveSocial or IBM QRadar run on more platforms?
ArchiveSocial runs on Web. IBM QRadar runs on Web, Api.
What is ArchiveSocial best used for?
ArchiveSocial is most often used for a city whose legal department has flagged deleted social media comments as a records liability, a police department that must produce social media records under an open records request, an agency under litigation hold needing authenticated social media evidence rather than screenshots, a communications team operating many accounts across departments with no consistent archiving. Of those, a city whose legal department has flagged deleted social media comments as a records liability and a police department that must produce social media records under an open records request are not what IBM QRadar is typically brought in for.
What can ArchiveSocial do that IBM QRadar cannot?
ArchiveSocial covers Continuous capture, Deletion and edit capture, Authenticated records, Records request search. IBM QRadar covers Offence model, Network flow analysis, Device Support Modules, Ariel query language.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

ArchiveSocial: Why not just export data from the platforms?

Platform exports do not reliably capture deleted or edited content and carry no chain of custody, which is what makes an archive usable as evidence.

IBM QRadar: Who owns QRadar now?

It is split. IBM sold the QRadar SaaS assets to Palo Alto Networks in a deal announced in May 2024 and closed that September, and those customers are being migrated to Cortex XSIAM. IBM retains and supports the on-premises product.

ArchiveSocial: Are public comments on our posts records?

In many United States jurisdictions yes, and deleted comments have been the subject of litigation against agencies.

IBM QRadar: Is QRadar being discontinued?

IBM has committed to continuing support for on-premises customers, including security updates, while offering migration assistance. The cloud product's future belongs to Palo Alto. If you are signing a multi-year term, get the support horizon written into the contract.

ArchiveSocial: Who owns ArchiveSocial?

CivicPlus, which acquired it in 2021 and sells it alongside its municipal website and communications products.

IBM QRadar: How is it licensed?

By events per second for logs and flows per minute for network data, with the software or appliance sized to that rate. Add-on modules in the suite are licensed separately.

ArchiveSocial: How is it priced?

By archived accounts, quoted rather than published. Comparable agency contracts are public records.

IBM QRadar: What is an offence?

QRadar's term for a correlated case. Rules group related events and flows against a common indicator such as a host or user, so an analyst reviews one offence rather than the hundreds of events behind it.

IBM QRadar: Do I need a full-time engineer?

In practice yes for anything beyond a small deployment. Parser development, rule tuning and offence triage do not stop, and the most common failure mode is a well-installed QRadar that nobody has tuned since go-live.

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