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Insurance · head to head

Duck Creek Policy vs IBM QRadar

Duck Creek Policy logo

Duck Creek Policy

Insurance

Flexible policy administration for modern insurers

From
On request
Rated
-
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
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Duck Creek Policy no pricing published on vendor website; enterprise solution requires custom engagement; 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: Duck Creek Policy covers Policy lifecycle management, IBM QRadar covers Offence model.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Duck Creek Policy and IBM QRadar actually diverge.

Attributes where Duck Creek Policy and IBM QRadar differ
AttributeDuck Creek PolicyIBM QRadar
Pricing modelquotesubscription
PlatformsWebWeb, Api
CategoryInsuranceCybersecurity
Founded20001911

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 Duck Creek Policy

  • Policy lifecycle management
  • Product configuration
  • Rating engine
  • Underwriting workbench
  • Forms management
  • Billing integration
  • Multi-line support
  • Real-time quoting

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.

Duck Creek Policy

  • Policy administrationnot IBM QRadar
  • Underwriting workflowsnot IBM QRadar
  • Rating and pricingnot IBM QRadar
  • Claims managementnot IBM QRadar
  • Billing operationsnot 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 Duck Creek Policy
  • A SOC that wants log correlation and network flow analysis in one platform rather than buying an NDR product separatelynot Duck Creek Policy
  • An existing QRadar estate deciding whether to stay on premises or accept the migration path to a different vendor's platformnot Duck Creek Policy
  • Compliance-driven log retention and reporting where the audit requirement is specific about collection, retention and reportingnot Duck Creek Policy

Where each one falls short

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

Duck Creek Policy

  • No pricing published on vendor website; enterprise solution requires custom engagement
  • Modular product architecture means customers can mix/match components, making standard pricing impossible

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

Duck Creek Policy

On request

No published plan breakdown. See the Duck Creek Policy review.

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 Duck Creek Policy if

  • You need policy lifecycle management.
  • You also want product configuration.
Duck Creek Policy 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 Duck Creek Policy or IBM QRadar better?
Neither clearly leads. Duck Creek Policy 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, Duck Creek Policy or IBM QRadar?
Duck Creek Policy starts at On request and IBM QRadar at On request.
Does Duck Creek Policy or IBM QRadar run on more platforms?
Duck Creek Policy runs on Web. IBM QRadar runs on Web, Api.
What is Duck Creek Policy best used for?
Duck Creek Policy is most often used for policy administration, underwriting workflows, rating and pricing, claims management. Of those, policy administration and underwriting workflows are not what IBM QRadar is typically brought in for.
What can Duck Creek Policy do that IBM QRadar cannot?
Duck Creek Policy covers Policy lifecycle management, Product configuration, Rating engine, Underwriting workbench. IBM QRadar covers Offence model, Network flow analysis, Device Support Modules, Ariel query language.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Duck Creek Policy: How much does Duck Creek Policy cost?

Duck Creek does not publish pricing. Policy is an enterprise solution for insurance carriers where implementation scope, data migration complexity, and customization requirements determine total cost of ownership. Interested prospects must contact Duck Creek's sales team through their 'Talk to Sales' call-to-action.

Source
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.

Duck Creek Policy: Is Duck Creek Policy a modular system?

Yes, customers can adopt Duck Creek products individually (Policy, Rating, Billing, Claims, etc.) or in combination. This modularity means pricing varies based on which products and integration depth customers require.

Source
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.

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.

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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Related pages

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