Softwr

Cybersecurity · head to head

Frontegg vs IBM QRadar

Frontegg logo

Frontegg

Cybersecurity

Customer identity and access management platform for SaaS applications

From
Free
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

  • Only Frontegg has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Frontegg detailed per-unit pricing beyond the free tier is not published, requiring use of an online calculator or sales contact to estimate costs.; 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: Frontegg covers Hosted login, IBM QRadar covers Offence model.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Frontegg and IBM QRadar differ
AttributeFronteggIBM QRadar
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelusage-basedsubscription
Free tierYesNo
FoundedUnknown1911

Identical on both: platforms (web, api), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cybersecurity).

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 Frontegg

  • Hosted login
  • Enterprise SSO/SCIM
  • Multi-tenant organizations
  • Custom domains
  • M2M tokens
  • Fraud protection

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.

Frontegg

  • Adding enterprise SSO/SCIM to a B2B SaaS productnot IBM QRadar
  • Multi-tenant customer identity managementnot IBM QRadar
  • White-labeled, custom-domain login experiencesnot IBM QRadar
  • Securing AI agent access to a SaaS product via Agen.conot 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 Frontegg
  • A SOC that wants log correlation and network flow analysis in one platform rather than buying an NDR product separatelynot Frontegg
  • An existing QRadar estate deciding whether to stay on premises or accept the migration path to a different vendor's platformnot Frontegg
  • Compliance-driven log retention and reporting where the audit requirement is specific about collection, retention and reportingnot Frontegg

Where each one falls short

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

Frontegg

  • Detailed per-unit pricing beyond the free tier is not published, requiring use of an online calculator or sales contact to estimate costs.
  • Advanced fraud protection and multiple environments are Enterprise-only, unavailable on the Pay As You Go plan.
  • The 7,500 free monthly active users is comparatively modest next to some competitors' free tiers.
  • As a broader CIAM platform, it can be more complex to integrate than lighter-weight developer-first auth tools for smaller apps.

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

Frontegg

Free
  • Pay As You GoFree
    • 7,500 monthly active users included
    • 5 enterprise connections (SSO/SCIM)
    • Unlimited organizations
  • Enterprise$undefined/month
    • Custom pricing
    • Multiple environments
    • Advanced fraud protection

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 Frontegg if

  • You need hosted login.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on web, api.
  • You also want enterprise sso/scim.
Frontegg 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 Frontegg or IBM QRadar better?
Neither clearly leads. Frontegg starts at Free and IBM QRadar at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Frontegg or IBM QRadar?
Frontegg has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Frontegg and On request for IBM QRadar.
Does Frontegg or IBM QRadar run on more platforms?
Frontegg runs on web, api. IBM QRadar runs on Web, Api.
Can I use Frontegg for free?
Yes. Frontegg has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. IBM QRadar starts at On request.
What is Frontegg best used for?
Frontegg is most often used for adding enterprise sso/scim to a b2b saas product, multi-tenant customer identity management, white-labeled, custom-domain login experiences, securing ai agent access to a saas product via agen.co. Of those, adding enterprise sso/scim to a b2b saas product and multi-tenant customer identity management are not what IBM QRadar is typically brought in for.
What can Frontegg do that IBM QRadar cannot?
Frontegg covers Hosted login, Enterprise SSO/SCIM, Multi-tenant organizations, Custom domains. IBM QRadar covers Offence model, Network flow analysis, Device Support Modules, Ariel query language.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Frontegg: What does Frontegg cost?

Frontegg's Pay As You Go plan is free up to 7,500 monthly active users, after which pricing scales with users, enterprise connections and M2M tokens via an online calculator; Enterprise pricing is custom.

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.

Frontegg: Is there a free plan and what are its limits?

Yes, the free Pay As You Go plan includes 7,500 monthly active users, 5 enterprise SSO/SCIM connections, unlimited organizations, and a custom domain.

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.

Frontegg: How is usage metered?

Pricing is consumption-based, driven by monthly active users, monthly enterprise connections (SSO/SCIM), and monthly M2M tokens, with customers paying only for usage beyond the free 7,500-user threshold.

Source
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.

Share

Related pages

More on Frontegg

More on IBM QRadar

Keep looking

Other head to heads