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Blink Ops vs CRITICALSTART comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
AI-SOC (1st), AI-Powered Security Automation (1st)
Blink Ops
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
19th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
AI-SOC (9th), AI-Powered Security Automation (4th)
CRITICALSTART
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
26th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (30th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category, the mindshare of Torq is 3.8%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Blink Ops is 1.4%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 1.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Torq3.8%
Blink Ops1.4%
CRITICALSTART1.2%
Other93.6%
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.
AH
CEO at cybovate
Workflow automation has transformed SOC decisions and now manages security workload effectively
At the moment, I have no idea what an improvement can be because my feeling is Blink Ops can be deployed on-site in a hybrid mode or in the cloud. Hybrid mode means more or less the cloud environment running within the cloud. In Switzerland, I have seen quite a few clients where discussions happened and they said they do not want to go to cloud and want to run it on-premises. But the solution is just too big to run on-premises. Having a smaller version on-premises would be helpful, but my feeling is that is hard to achieve because the solution is just too big and too diverse to run on-premises. The other thing is also the support model. Support models normally work if platforms are accessible from outside, but if I need to go within the company and do some modifications on the platform within the company, it is normally just time-consuming. This limits some of the use cases in some clients if they say, okay, we are a nuclear power plant and we do not want anyone coming from outside. At the moment, nothing else comes to my mind because I would say Blink Ops is a comprehensive platform and sometimes I feel people are overwhelmed. Maybe one thing I have had twice now, and I am not sure if this would be a Blink Ops topic or also one of the competitors. On CRM platforms, if someone changes from one CRM platform to the other CRM platform, there are always converters. From one music platform to the other music platform, there are converters. I think that is quite often missing. People struggle and said they had an automation platform or quite often they have seven or several automation platforms and say they want to reduce to, for example, two different platforms and want to get rid of the other ones. But then sometimes it is quite often a redevelopment, especially if it was a no-coding platform and everything is in code. Then normally it requires a huge transformation project. I think really helping the clients understand what the other platform does and then maybe on this level, just having the wizard would be fine. But my feeling is that migrating from one platform to the other is quite difficult.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"According to positive outcomes, Torq reduced manual work and made incident response more efficient."
"If I review about 100 vendors that I might work with, Torq is definitely in the top five that gave me personally investment back, just because every bit of effort I put into Torq eventually became a workflow that gave it back to me."
"Almost four or five hours of work is now completed in four or five minutes."
"Torq's unified platform approach to AI, SOAR, automation, and case management is superior compared to my experience managing multiple point solutions."
"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."
"We have seen fewer failures of automations from the time Torq came into the picture, we've had a more streamlined process of handling incidents, and at the same time, we've learned to embed the AI into our incident types, and that is how it has helped us in the automation."
"As an analyst, it has demonstrated potential to reduce workforce requirements and time needed for related activities."
"Once I started to use the system and I saw the potential, it changed all of our work in IT."
"I would say Blink Ops has probably the best technical support of all my vendors."
"I really appreciate the accuracy of prompt engineering and the GUI that Blink offers, as it allows us to evaluate before testing exactly how the workflow will look."
"We are absolutely seeing return on our investment from CRITICALSTART's services, as they're doing the job of a 24/7 SOC at a fraction of the price that it would cost me to run it myself."
"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."
"Outside of using the platform to manage alerts, the feature of the service that we get the most value from is being able to reach out to them and say, "Hey, we might go buy a SIEM," for example. They give us their overview of what's out there, what they've dealt with, what they integrate with, and what that looks like. That's been pretty powerful over the years for us."
"Out of all the service providers I've had to work with over the years—I've been here six years—CRITICALSTART is my favorite to work with."
"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."
"There is a team of people who monitor our traffic and processes 24/7, so if anything raises a flag or alert, it will escalate back to me right away. That's the most incredible part: Humans working behind the scenes 24/7 to monitor our networks."
"From where we were prior to going into them, the service has increased our analysts’ efficiency to the point that they can focus on other areas of the business. It gives me the ability to allow analysts to do Level 3 and 4 work and stay out of the weeds of the alerts, where you tend to get alert fatigue. The service takes care of much of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 triage. It is more effective than what we had been used to, because it allows the filtering of Level 1 and Level 2 type alerts to be taken care of. This leaves less for us to handle, which is a good thing."
 

Cons

"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."
"It was able to capture data but was unable to differentiate between the agent hostname we are using and the hostname that resides on the back end of the Internet."
"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."
"Torq does extensive marketing saying that SOAR is dead and markets itself as an all-in-one solution, but this is not actually true."
"The initial deployment of Torq was not easy."
"We have MCP that we are working with our cloud security platform, and we wanted to connect this MCP to the case management."
"Regarding the pricing of Torq, I would say it is expensive."
"The current LLM in Blink is quite accurate, but it still requires a lot of optimization because after a few prompts, it starts creating random responses, which sometimes is problematic."
"At the moment, nothing else comes to my mind because I would say Blink Ops is a comprehensive platform and sometimes I feel people are overwhelmed."
"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."
"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 only thing I can think of that I would like to see, and I'm sure they could work this into a service pretty easily, is not only alerts on issues that are affecting my company, but some threat intelligence of a general nature on what's out there in the environment. That might be a nice add-in."
"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"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."
"The biggest room for improvement is not necessarily in their service or offering, but in the products that they support."
"In terms of responsiveness, when I open up an alert, sometimes it takes a bit of time to load. However, it only happened once or twice."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
Information not available
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing of other services was so insane that they weren't even an option."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Insurance Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise6
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Torq?
I do not dislike anything about Torq because it has satisfied all of our use cases and requirements. We contacted sup...
What is your primary use case for Torq?
Initially, we were using Slack for small automations, such as creating pipelines or shutting down servers. For exampl...
What advice do you have for others considering Torq?
I have been working for five years with experience in the IT field. Torq is very good. It manages everything. I would...
What needs improvement with Blink Ops?
At the moment, I have no idea what an improvement can be because my feeling is Blink Ops can be deployed on-site in a...
What is your primary use case for Blink Ops?
I have several use cases rather than a single one. When we start engagements, it is often for the SOC team on the SOA...
What advice do you have for others considering Blink Ops?
I would say also on automation, there is a need to have the least privilege or a zero trust approach because the agen...
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Also Known As

No data available
No data available
Critical Start, CriticalStart
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Blink Ops vs. CRITICALSTART and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.