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CRITICALSTART vs Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Torq
Sponsored
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
AI-SOC (1st), AI-Powered Security Automation (1st)
CRITICALSTART
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
25th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (28th)
Palo Alto Networks Cortex X...
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
SOC as a Service (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category, the mindshare of Torq is 3.6%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 1.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is 8.9%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR8.9%
Torq3.6%
CRITICALSTART1.3%
Other86.2%
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
 

Featured Reviews

AD
Solutions Architect at ProArch
Automation has streamlined multi-tenant SOC workflows and improves alert handling efficiency
Although the reporting within Torq is not that great, we did ask for many features regarding reporting in Torq, but due to some platform constraints, they could not make the whole dataset available for us to be used in reporting. Except for that, we used some basic reporting. When I used Torq, it was indeed in the early stages of AI capabilities. Only a few customers were allowed to use it, and we were among them. It functioned well as long as we summarized the data properly. If you input garbage, you would get garbage out. Thus, we had to do significant fine-tuning regarding what data context we provided to the AI orchestrator to get meaningful results. In terms of Torq's unified platform approach to AI SOC automation and case management compared to managing multiple point solutions across my security stack, I find it case-centric. The unified view in case management is good since it provides clarity, although there are limitations regarding how many items in case management can be modified at once. Bulk operations are very limited, potentially due to their back-end database or data retrieval processes that can be improved. Regarding improvements for Torq, when we were onboarded, there were aspects we were uncertain about, such as the number of cases that could be generated, what data we could bring in, how many clients we could onboard, and similar concerns. Initially, we also lacked clarity about the number of playbooks or workflows we could build. Different triggers like system triggers, case-based triggers, and others can be employed without restrictions, but when it comes to on-demand and scheduled jobs, there is a limitation based on the subscription and pricing tier that notably caps the number of workflows we can create. No bulk editing across cases was one issue, along with limited filtering related to single grouping constraints. Additionally, the out-of-the-box case templates provided require substantial modifications before they become usable. There is also a feature in the cases for notes that cannot be searched. They are only visible through the UI, which is another area for improvement. The workflow and execution-based charges seem misleading as this was not discussed initially. I am not sure if new customers are made aware of this. It seems that workflows revolving around cases hinder functionality outside of case management, as we have many use cases needing on-demand triggers and schedules for functions like reporting or polling devices. Creating additional workflows to achieve basic functionalities raises costs significantly, which disadvantages customers. While they facilitate optimization and scaling, the support received tends to be very basic. Improvements can be made in that area as well.
JH
Sr. Manager, Security Engineering at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
The transparency of data in the platform is perfect: You see everything as they are seeing it
Their Zero Trust Analytics Platform (ZTAP) engine, which is kind of their correlation engine, is by far and away one of the best in the business. We can filter and utilize different lists to build out different alerts, such as, what to alert on and when not to alert. This engine helps reduce our number of alerts and false positives. The service's Trusted Behavior Registry helps the provider solve every alert. The way that they have it built out is very intelligent. The way every alert comes in, it gets triaged one direction or another. If it is already a false positive, then it is still getting addressed and reviewed on a regular cadence. Also, true positive alerts get escalated to the appropriate personnel. Its mobile app is great. The ability just to be able to quick reference and see what's coming in when you're on the move or go. You don't always need to have your computer or laptop handy, because you can operate it just from the mobile app. It can communicate with analysts, which is great. The mobile app is great at affecting the efficiency of our security operations. Those guys are using it throughout the day, whether that be at the office, home, or off hours. Typically, they triage from the mobile app. Then, if an escalation needs to be done on a computer, they will pull out a computer. We were on the original UI for a few years, so the updated UI has been a refreshing change. It has significantly more ability to filter and translate data, then load that data. It is rather intuitive to click through for some of our junior analysts or interns, especially as we are starting to onboard and teach them different aspects of the security operations team.
Sricharan R - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Application Security Engineer Iv at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Security automation has transformed incident workflows and now reduces response time dramatically
I think the areas of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR that could be improved are mainly in UX. We have communicated with the vendor team about this, but they are prioritizing product functionality over usability because most target customers are technical and understand a primitive UI. They face difficulties in implementing UI changes as their team is stretched. Thus, the UI/UX of the tool needs significant improvement. There are plans on their roadmap, but a lot remains to be done. Parts of the tool run on an older framework, causing slowness. Usability is a broader issue than features alone. This usability problem is common in many cybersecurity tools, unlike customer-facing applications. Some integrations have speed issues and might not function seamlessly with different upstream configurations, requiring manual updates. These are the main pain points we encountered, particularly with UI/UX, integration speed, and the usability of certain inbuilt playbooks.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"What I liked the most about Torq is the actual workflow builder, which is really great because they offer a lot of features and convenience features that are useful for any automation engineer."
"As an analyst, it has demonstrated potential to reduce workforce requirements and time needed for related activities."
"Torq's unified platform approach to AI, SOAR, automation, and case management is superior compared to my experience managing multiple point solutions."
"Torq has exceeded expectations by delivering workflows in a timely and lower effort manner than XSOAR, and it meets all my needs while saving a ton of time and targeting $600,000 saved this year, which is a substantial amount of money."
"Under one SOC tool in Torq, analysts get to know everything within the context of an alert or incident they are working on, and this ability to view the whole picture within Torq is one of the major breakthroughs and best offerings of Torq."
"What I appreciate most about Torq is that it is an essential part of our system."
"Since we started working with Torq, I am handling much fewer alerts, it is becoming really easy for me to handle an alert, I have all the information that I need, I do not need to connect to different vendors to receive this information, and the main thing I got from Torq is time, which now helps me to build another automated system and learn."
"Any request that comes in, regardless of how complex it is, I can accomplish it with Torq."
"It is a comfort to know that there is a team of professionals backing you up, especially in an area that you don't feel 100 percent comfortable."
"After a year of using the service, our expectations have been met in terms of services delivered on time, on budget, and on spec."
"This has been a positive experience and money well spent."
"The way that the user interface presents data enables our team to be able to make decisions significantly quicker, rather than have to dig into the details or go back to the original tools."
"Customer service and their response are phenomenal. I would give their customer support a nine point five (out of 10). Our easy access to their SOC analyst, sales team, and leadership team instills confidence in me that they are there for us 24/7."
"The main difference between the other options and this one is the quality of the personnel within the SOC. It's their knowledge and depth and the way they handle customers."
"When I start thinking about if I were to try to light up a SOC, which I've done before and I have no interest in doing, it could be a million dollars a year or more to do that, and for what I am paying them for the managed fees, it's a steal."
"CRITICALSTART makes us much more comfortable with knowing someone else is watching our data and our systems and knowing that professional security people are taking a look at any issues that do arise."
"It was useful as a ticketing tool."
"The automation part and the playbook creation part are awesome. The way it is responding to the customers and incidents is also very good. In the SOC environment, I guess it will carry out around 50% of the work."
"The solution has very good integration capabilities; it's really the best at integration, with commands inside every integration that make it very useful as a product, and the automation is excellent."
"I would rate the stability of Cortex XSOAR as nine out of ten."
"The biggest advantage in Cortex XSOAR that I see is its extensive AI capabilities, where it unifies all your log collection mechanisms and can ingest the logs from almost all of the end devices."
"In my opinion, the best features offered by Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR are the automation, the graphical incident interface, the assignment functionality, and automatically closing the incident with closure reasons."
"The most valuable features are simplicity and ease of integration."
"The repository of playbooks and the integration between Palo Alto and IBM QRadar are some useful features"
 

Cons

"The workflow and execution-based charges seem misleading as this was not discussed initially, and creating additional workflows to achieve basic functionalities raises costs significantly, which disadvantages customers."
"Torq can probably use more ML and look at what can be closed and what cannot be closed in terms of data classification."
"Regarding the pricing of Torq, I would say it is expensive."
"Regarding stability, I have noticed some lagging, crashing, and downtime, which is one of my largest gripes."
"I wish Torq's AI assistant for building templated workflows from scratch worked better; when you start with a blank slate, asking AI to help you build or template the workflow out does not go well."
"Even now, we have workflows that are in production that use AI steps and I get different results, making it unusable to some degree."
"Additionally, the documentation for Torq is not very clear. Most of the information is presented in videos, which are not ideal for reading; there are mostly paragraphs and other text-based content."
"The initial deployment of Torq was not easy."
"They just did a user interface overhaul to the website portal that you use for troubleshooting tickets. The old one was fine. The new one is not intuitive and I hate it."
"The updated UI is actually pretty bad. Regarding the intuitiveness, it is fairly easy to use, but the responsiveness, on a scale of one to 10, is a one. It's really poor performance."
"The biggest room for improvement is not necessarily in their service or offering, but in the products that they support."
"During the six-month integration and rollout, there were some bumpy roads along the way. There were communication breakdowns between the project manager, CRITICALSTART leadership, and us (as the customer). I expressed my displeasure during the integration in their inability to effectively communicate when there were holdups or issues. They were going through some growing pains at that time, but they have been right there for us ever since."
"They could dig a little bit deeper into the Splunk alerts when they feel like they need to be escalated to us."
"The UI has become slower but it's not something I would call them out on."
"It has frustrated us that they don't have a native Slack integration, because most things do now. That's something we've asked for, for years, and it just doesn't really seem like it's a priority."
"They could dig a little bit deeper into the Splunk alerts when they feel like they need to be escalated to us. For example, if a locked account shows up, they could do a little extra digging to verify that the locked account was due to a bad password on the local system. They could just do a little extra digging within the Splunk environment instead of pushing it onto us to go do that extra little digging."
"The price of the solution could be improved."
"It is not a very scalable solution."
"The configuration of the solution could improve it is difficult."
"There is room for improvement in terms of the pricing model."
"Another area I can suggest is the searching or reporting feature where you have to write a query, which is definitely good for searching your incidents."
"It is been decommissioned by Palo Alto."
"The solution’s price and technical support could be improved."
"There should be an on-premise version available for customers to have different choices."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I've told CRITICALSTART that I think the managed service they provide is cheaper than it should be. It's a really good deal."
"Overall, for what I'm paying for it, and the benefit I'm getting out of it, it is right where it needs to be, if not a little bit in my favor. For what it costs me to actually have this service, I could afford one internal person to do that job, but now I have a team of 10 or more who are doing that job, and they don't sleep because they work shifts."
"The pricing has always been competitive. They have always been good to us. They will make it a fight. They don't try to hide anything; it's always been fully transparent and well-worth what we pay for it."
"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"The pricing of other services was so insane that they weren't even an option."
"There are contractual penalties if their SLAs are not met. This commitment was very important in our decision to go with this service, because not having downtime is extremely important to us. The providers has not missed an SLA in the 18 months that I have worked with them."
"As far as the expense goes, it's very competitive pricing and the services you get are almost like you have a person on your team."
"The price of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR could be reduced. We are always looking for a discount. There is an annual license needed to use this solution."
"It is approx $10,000 or $20,000 per year for two user licenses."
"The pricing is fair. The pricing reflects the value and feature set it offers."
"Cortex XSOAR's price could be lower."
"When I first looked at Demisto, it had a price tag of $250,000 but when we finally purchased it, it was $345,000."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing a nine."
"There is a perception that it is priced very high compared to other solutions."
"From the cost perspective, I have heard that its price is a bit high as compared to other similar products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise32
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Torq?
The only thing is more out-of-the-box integrations. Torq already has a lot of supported integrations and adding new o...
What is your primary use case for Torq?
For Torq, first of all, it's a hyperautomation and AI assistant usage. Our EDR SentinelOne is integrated in Torq and ...
What advice do you have for others considering Torq?
I think I have told everything about Torq that I can share at this stage, but I am still in the process of learning t...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is that I was just a consum...
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR?
Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR can be improved if it can include AI modules within Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR a...
What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR?
My main use case for Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is that we use it as a SOAR platform, Security Orchestration and...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Critical Start, CriticalStart
Demisto Enterprise, Cortex XSOAR, Demisto
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Information Not Available
Cellcom Israel, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, esri, Cylance, Flatiron Health, Veeva, ADT Cybersecurity
Find out what your peers are saying about CRITICALSTART vs. Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.