CRITICALSTART vs Exabeam comparison

Critical Start and Exabeam are both solutions in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category. Critical Start is ranked #26, while Exabeam is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.5. Critical Start holds a 0.8% mindshare in SOAR, compared to Exabeam’s 2.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Critical Start users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 75% of Exabeam users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Exabeam and CRITICALSTART are competing security solutions providing distinct advantages aligning with specific requirements. Data comparisons suggest Exabeam is favored in pricing and support, while CRITICALSTART offers exceptional features and is considered worth the investment.

Features:Exabeam offers advanced security analytics, automated threat detection, and a user-friendly interface. CRITICALSTART provides comprehensive incident response, managed detection service capabilities, and a mobile app for on-the-go management.

Room for Improvement:Exabeam could enhance its application logging capabilities, while improving training resources would benefit new users. CRITICALSTART might enhance integration with various data sources and speed up its UI responsiveness. The cost of integrating additional data sources can be a factor for improvement as well.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Exabeam simplifies deployment with a straightforward model and strong customer support for seamless system integration. CRITICALSTART offers a flexible and adaptable deployment process with a reputation for exceptional personalized customer service that stands out.

Pricing and ROI:Exabeam is known for competitive setup costs and promising ROI, making it attractive to budget-conscious buyers. CRITICALSTART has a higher initial cost but offers significant ROI through effective features and tailored services. The difference is Exabeam's affordability compared to CRITICALSTART's premium pricing for high-end features.

To learn more, read our detailed CRITICALSTART vs. Exabeam Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART vs. Exabeam

March 2026

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category, the mindshare of Torq is 4.2%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Exabeam is 2.9%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Torq	4.2%
Exabeam	2.9%
CRITICALSTART	0.8%
Other	92.1%

Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)

Featured Reviews

Nimrod Vardi

Global IT Director at OpenWeb

Automation workflows have transformed our IT, enabling secure just-in-time access control

We work with them quite often, so we have a direct line regarding areas in Torq that have room for improvement. If we have a feature request, we can request it. I do not have anything in mind at the moment. We were a design partner for a short while, so we feel that they listen and that users of the system have an impact on the way the system is designed for the better. They have a new community, which is something that I personally suggested years ago. There are many people like me in different places and they might have already built the workflow that I need. Having the option to share workflows or to jump on a thread and say I have this need, did anyone ever build a workflow for it, is amazing. Someone would jump in and say yes, sure, here, take this workflow. I think this is an amazing thing and I really hope that the community will come alive because I think this is really powerful. This is something that I already suggested and it did happen eventually, and I am quite happy with it. I do not have any specific feature in mind that I have a need for at the moment.

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Justin Hadley

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.

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Deepanshu Hans

Solution Architect at CTC

Improved threat detection has provided clear user risk insights and streamlined incident response

Exabeam's UEBA is the most valuable feature that I have found so far. Exabeam's UEBA displays the type of description that it could show in a console regarding one particular user, the rating that it shows, and how vulnerable the user is, which is very good. Exabeam's automation for incident response is very good. The machine learning capabilities of Exabeam are also good.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"Torq's unified platform approach to AI, SOAR, automation, and case management is superior compared to my experience managing multiple point solutions."

"Once I started to use the system and I saw the potential, it changed all of our work in IT."

"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."

"What I appreciate most about Torq is that it is an essential part of our system."

"As an analyst, it has demonstrated potential to reduce workforce requirements and time needed for related activities."

"Any request that comes in, regardless of how complex it is, I can accomplish it with Torq."

"Using that one piece of AI, we auto-closed 511 cases in quarter four alone."

"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."

"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."

"In a given quarter, I get 589,000 security events and 584,000 of those get reduced by the service before they even get to me, so the alerts that actually come through to me end up being about 1,400 in that quarter, which is a 99.7 percent efficiency rate."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"I also use their mobile app. It's very easy to use and very convenient to be able to respond to alerts wherever you are. I love the app. You can respond and communicate, per ticket, with their SOC in near real-time. The response is very quick."

"The new mobile app is awesome. It is one of the best I've ever seen. It's much better than its predecessor. It's more intuitive, a whole lot easier to navigate and get where you need to go. It's less repetitive and just generally easier to use. It allows me to not have to be sitting at my computer all the time. I can be on my phone or tablet or wherever I'm at. It makes it a lot easier to answer tickets and do that kind of thing."

More CRITICALSTART pros

"It's a very user-friendly product and it's a very comprehensive technology."

"Exabeam is very easy to use, with a straightforward platform and workflow, unlike other tools that require more expertise."

"The way it can connect with AWS is very useful, and the integrations are pretty good."

"The most valuable feature of Exabeam Fusion SIEM is the easy-to-use user interface."

"The user interface and the timelines they use are the most valuable features, and the price model is very simple so that one can understand it easily and there are no surprises within it."

"We evaluated LogRhythm and Splunk as possible options but in the end, we went with Exabeam - it was the right choice for us taking into account the needs of our customers and projected future needs."

"The most valuable feature of Exabeam Fusion SIEM is the easy-to-use user interface."

"Overall, this is a fantastic tool and it is one of the best SIEMs that I've come across."

More Exabeam pros

Cons

"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."

"The initial deployment of Torq was not easy."

"Regarding the pricing of Torq, I would say it is expensive."

"The initial deployment of Torq was not easy."

"Regarding stability, I have noticed some lagging, crashing, and downtime, which is one of my largest gripes."

"Even now, we have workflows that are in production that use AI steps and I get different results, making it unusable to some degree."

"We have MCP that we are working with our cloud security platform, and we wanted to connect this MCP to the case management."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"The biggest room for improvement is not necessarily in their service or offering, but in the products that they support. I would like them to further their knowledge and ability to integrate with those tools. They have base integrations with everything, and we haven't come across anything. They should just continue to build on that API interface between their applications and other third-party consoles."

"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."

More CRITICALSTART cons

"The product is good but the organization is rigid and not flexible in the way they operate."

"We had a large volume right from the beginning and they weren't quite prepared for that."

"The solution's reporting and dashboarding could be improved."

"We had a large volume right from the beginning and they weren't quite prepared for that. That's something that they should think about when it comes to customers that have a large volume to start off with."

"We still have questions surrounding hardware deployment."

"Exabeam's integration capabilities are not good, as Exabeam has a very limited number of integrations and no out-of-box integration, which is an area where Exabeam should improve."

"I believe if it were more flexible it would be a better product."

"Updating the new release of Exabeam Fusion SIEM takes time and slows our performance."

More Exabeam cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"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."

"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."

"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."

"I've told CRITICALSTART that I think the managed service they provide is cheaper than it should be. It's a really good deal."

"The pricing of other services was so insane that they weren't even an option."

"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."

"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."

"Exabeam Fusion SIEM's pricing is reasonable."

"The platform is not extremely expensive compared to its direct competitors; I would rate its pricing around six out of ten."

"They have a great model for pricing that can be based either on user count or gigabits per day."

"There is an annual license required to use Exabeam Fusion SIEM. The price of the solution should be reduced."

"The solution is expensive."

"Exabeam is not a cheap solution."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Real Estate/Law Firm

11%

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Marketing Services Firm

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Torq?

We do not utilize the AI features that much. When it comes to general AI features of Torq, we are just slowly startin...

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What is your primary use case for Torq?

Torq markets itself as a security tool, and we do use them for security, but not in the traditional sense they market...

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What advice do you have for others considering Torq?

I would rate Torq an eight overall. I feel that Torq is as good as the effort you put into it. The limitations are ve...

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What are the biggest differences between Securonix UEBA, Exabeam, and IBM QRadar?

It mostly depends on your use-cases and environment. Exabeam and Securonix have a stronger UEBA feature set, friendli...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Exabeam Fusion SIEM?

I do not have much information about the pricing. However, I am aware that Exabeam is cheaper than Palo Alto based on...

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What needs improvement with Exabeam Fusion SIEM?

Exabeam's integration capabilities are not good, as Exabeam has a very limited number of integrations and no out-of-b...

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Comparisons

Tines vs Torq

Compared 35% of the time

Splunk SOAR vs Torq

Compared 14% of the time

Blink Ops vs Torq

Compared 13% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR vs Torq

Compared 9% of the time

Swimlane vs Torq

Compared 7% of the time

More Torq Competitors

ServiceNow Security Operations vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 14% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 10% of the time

SentinelOne Vigilance vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 8% of the time

Red Canary vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 7% of the time

McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 7% of the time

More CRITICALSTART Competitors

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Exabeam

Compared 6% of the time

Securonix Next-Gen SIEM vs Exabeam

Compared 4% of the time

Dtex Systems vs Exabeam

Compared 4% of the time

Splunk User Behavior Analytics vs Exabeam

Compared 4% of the time

IBM Security QRadar vs Exabeam

Compared 4% of the time

More Exabeam Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Torq

March 2026

Download Torq product report

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART

March 2026

Download CRITICALSTART product report

Buyer's Guide

Exabeam

March 2026

Download Exabeam product report

Also Known As

No data available

Critical Start, CriticalStart

No data available

Overview

Torq is the enterprise AI SOC solution that effectively combines adaptive insights and automation to handle critical threats efficiently. It manages threat lifecycles, swiftly moving from triage to response, ensuring effective risk management.

Torq is designed to streamline security operations by aggregating telemetry across your security stack. It investigates significant risks and manages threats from triage to containment and remediation. This AI-driven tool enhances the capabilities of your SecOps team, allowing them to achieve more impactful results without introducing complicated processes.

What are the key features of Torq?

Adaptive Agentic Insights: Provides real-time threat intelligence tailored to specific security challenges.
Automation: Automates responses to security incidents, minimizing manual intervention requirements.
Threat Lifecycle Management: Comprehensive handling of threats from detection to remediation.
Telemetry Aggregation: Integrates data across platforms for a unified security overview.

Why consider Torq based on reviews?

Efficiency: Users notice significant reductions in time spent managing threats.
Risk Reduction: Enhanced ability to identify and address critical threats promptly.
Resource Optimization: Allows teams to allocate effort to other critical tasks by reducing manual security operations.
Scalability: Adaptable to meet the demands of growing or changing infrastructures.

In industries like finance and healthcare, Torq shows effectiveness by adapting to specific risk scenarios often encountered in these fields. Its integration with existing infrastructures makes it a valuable asset for maintaining stringent security standards, essential for protecting critical data and operations in diverse high-stakes environments.

Torq

The cybersecurity landscape is growing more complex by the day with the arrival of new threats and new tools supposedly designed for combating them. The problem is it’s all creating more noise and confusion for security professionals to sort through.

CRITICALSTART is the only MDR provider committed to eliminating acceptable risk and leaving nothing to chance. They believe that companies should never have to settle for “good enough.” Their award-winning portfolio includes end-to-end Professional Services and Managed Detection and Response (MDR). CRITICALSTART MDR puts a stop to alert fatigue by leveraging the Zero Trust Analytics Platform (ZTAP) plus the industry-leading Trusted Behavior Registry, which eliminates false positives at scale by resolving known-good behaviors. Driven by 24x7x365 human-led, end-to-end monitoring, investigation and remediation of alerts, their on-the-go threat detection and response capabilities are enabled via a fully interactive MOBILESOC app.

Critical Start

Exabeam Fusion is a cloud-delivered solution that that enables you to:

-Leverage turnkey threat detection, investigation, and response
-Collect, search and enhance data from anywhere
-Detect threats missed by other tools, using market-leading behavior analytics
-Achieve successful SecOps outcomes with prescriptive, threat-centric use case packages
-Enhance productivity and reduce response times with automation
-Meet regulatory compliance and audit requirements with ease

Exabeam

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Hulu, ADP, Safeway, BBCN Bank

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART vs. Exabeam

March 2026

Free Report: CRITICALSTART vs. Exabeam

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