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Cybersecurity · head to head

IBM QRadar vs Periscope Holdings

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
Periscope Holdings logo

Periscope Holdings

Government

Statewide e-procurement systems and supplier networks for large public agencies

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: 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.; Periscope Holdings it is scaled and priced for statewide programmes, so a single city or county typically finds both the implementation effort and the cost out of proportion to its needs.
  • They diverge on capability: IBM QRadar covers Offence model, Periscope Holdings covers Sealed bid solicitation.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which IBM QRadar and Periscope Holdings actually diverge.

Attributes where IBM QRadar and Periscope Holdings differ
AttributeIBM QRadarPeriscope Holdings
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
PlatformsWeb, ApiWeb
CategoryCybersecurityGovernment
Founded1911Unknown

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 IBM QRadar

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

Only in Periscope Holdings

  • Sealed bid solicitation
  • Supplier registration network
  • Contract catalogues
  • Cooperative purchasing
  • Spend and compliance reporting
  • Supplier diversity tracking

What people use each for

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

IBM QRadar

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

Periscope Holdings

  • A state building a central procurement portal serving many agencies and local entitiesnot IBM QRadar
  • A large agency needing statutory sealed bidding with a public opening recordnot IBM QRadar
  • A purchasing programme that must report spend and supplier diversity across entitiesnot IBM QRadar
  • A state wanting local governments to buy from its awarded cooperative contractsnot IBM QRadar

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Periscope Holdings

  • It is scaled and priced for statewide programmes, so a single city or county typically finds both the implementation effort and the cost out of proportion to its needs.
  • The interface reflects the age and regulatory weight of the platform, and suppliers routinely describe registration and bidding as harder than on newer portals, which can suppress bid response.
  • Ownership has changed twice since 2021, from independent to mdf commerce to KKR, so roadmap and support continuity should be written into the contract rather than assumed.
  • Sibling products inside mdf commerce cover adjacent procurement ground, which means an apparently competitive shortlist may contain two products with the same owner.
  • Statewide implementations are multi year projects with heavy configuration and change management, and the professional services cost commonly exceeds the software over the contract term.

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Periscope Holdings

On request
  • BuySpeed$undefined/year
    • Quoted per programme, scaled to entities served and transaction volume
    • Multi year statewide contracts with implementation priced separately
    • Supplier side registration fees form part of the commercial model on some programmes

Which should you pick?

Choose IBM QRadar if

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

Choose Periscope Holdings if

  • You need sealed bid solicitation.
  • You also want supplier registration network.
Periscope Holdings review

Questions people ask

Is IBM QRadar or Periscope Holdings better?
Neither clearly leads. IBM QRadar starts at On request and Periscope Holdings at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, IBM QRadar or Periscope Holdings?
IBM QRadar starts at On request and Periscope Holdings at On request.
Does IBM QRadar or Periscope Holdings run on more platforms?
IBM QRadar runs on Web, Api. Periscope Holdings runs on Web.
What is IBM QRadar best used for?
IBM QRadar is most often used for a regulated enterprise that must keep log data on premises or in a specific jurisdiction and cannot use a shared saas siem, a soc that wants log correlation and network flow analysis in one platform rather than buying an ndr product separately, an existing qradar estate deciding whether to stay on premises or accept the migration path to a different vendor's platform, compliance-driven log retention and reporting where the audit requirement is specific about collection, retention and reporting. Of those, a regulated enterprise that must keep log data on premises or in a specific jurisdiction and cannot use a shared saas siem and a soc that wants log correlation and network flow analysis in one platform rather than buying an ndr product separately are not what Periscope Holdings is typically brought in for.
What can IBM QRadar do that Periscope Holdings cannot?
IBM QRadar covers Offence model, Network flow analysis, Device Support Modules, Ariel query language. Periscope Holdings covers Sealed bid solicitation, Supplier registration network, Contract catalogues, Cooperative purchasing.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Periscope Holdings: Who owns Periscope Holdings?

mdf commerce acquired it in 2021, and mdf commerce was itself acquired by KKR in 2024.

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.

Periscope Holdings: Is it suitable for a single city?

Usually not. It is built and priced for statewide or very large agency programmes.

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.

Periscope Holdings: What is BuySpeed?

The e-procurement platform behind its statewide deployments, covering solicitation through catalogue ordering and reporting.

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.

Periscope Holdings: Can we see what a state paid?

Yes. State procurement awards are public records and typically disclose the full multi year contract value.

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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