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CRITICALSTART vs Fortinet FortiSOAR comparison

 

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

CRITICALSTART
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
27th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (31st)
Fortinet FortiSOAR
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category, the mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 0.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiSOAR is 4.3%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiSOAR4.3%
CRITICALSTART0.3%
Other95.4%
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
 

Featured Reviews

JH
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.
Mahmoud Younes - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation streamlines workflow and integrates seamlessly with various applications
I serve as both a reseller and customer of Fortinet FortiSOAR. The solution is suitable for all types of businesses from small to enterprise. The integration capability of Fortinet FortiSOAR deserves a rating of 10. It can be integrated with any system, and we have the capability for custom connectors. Even if Fortinet FortiSOAR doesn't have a specific connector, you can easily create a custom connector using AI. Simply provide your requirements or solution needs, and Fortinet FortiSOAR will create the connector, enabling integration with any application. My final rating for Fortinet FortiSOAR would be 10 out of 10, where one is bad and ten is good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of their service is their tuning... If we were getting 1,000 alerts a day without them, they tune it until they know what to do for 999 of them, and one will make it through to us per day. That tuning is the most valuable part of their solution."
"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."
"There are two parts of CRITICALSTART's services that are most valuable to us. The MDR solution where they monitor our computers, laptops, and users across the board; and their knowledge of Palo Alto firewalls."
"The quick interaction between the agents is the most valuable feature. If we have questions, they're quick to answer. If we make a change to our system, they quickly make the changes that are necessary to filter the logs correctly."
"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."
"Generally, the tool helps just automating a lot of manual load or repetitive tasks."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiSOAR is the playbook, which has to be defined to apply the policies."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"It is a scalable solution...The implementation phase of the product was not tough or difficult."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiSOAR is the number of available connectors and the simplicity to start to automate."
"The solution is easy to implement and includes 450 built-in connectors."
"The good news is that FortiSOAR is not hard to maintain. If you prepared well and deployed strong initially, then maintenance will take half an hour every other week, not more than that. A single person can do it."
"The reputation of the brand is very good."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement with the new UI, and that's about it. I would like to see a more intuitive design."
"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 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."
"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..."
"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 UI has become slower but it's not something I would call them out on."
"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."
"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."
"I have found that Fortinet FortiSOAR needs a lot of improvement. The Orchestration needs to be improved."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"Fortinet FortiSOAR should add more documentation for some use cases."
"FortiSOAR needs to improve the response time for executing playbooks."
"The ease of playbook creation on FortiSOAR needs improvement."
"Fortinet FortiSOAR should improve its analysis."
"Fortinet FortiSOAR's dashboard is not easy to understand."
"We need more fine-tuning for ChatGPT, especially when creating connectors."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"Pricing is fine compared to other solutions."
"The solution offers both licensing and subscription models that are similar in price to other products."
"The price of the product should be lower. The brand value that Fortinet has, it has the reputation of being a reasonably priced product, and they have an enormous customer base in India. Most of the SME market is covered by FortiGate firewalls. It becomes an easy way for consultants, such as us, or even system integrators, to open the door with the Fortinet product lines."
"If you compare Fortinet FortiSOAR's price with the prices of the market leader, Palo Alto, then it can be considered a cheaper product."
"Since Africa is struggling with foreign exchange, the solution is pretty expensive there."
"Fortinet FortiSOAR is expensive."
"Fortinet FortiSOAR is an expensive solution."
"Considering all the features of Fortinet FortiSOAR, I think it has a good price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Real Estate/Law Firm
14%
Healthcare Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Healthcare Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiSOAR?
Fortinet FortiSOAR is a very interactive and user-friendly solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiSOAR?
Regarding pricing, licensing, and setup costs for Fortinet FortiSOAR, the value proposition depends on your business size. In a small business, it might be considered expensive, but for enterprise ...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiSOAR?
Additional fine-tuning on ChatGPT could be added. This is the only area requiring improvement, with no other concerns identified.
 

Also Known As

Critical Start, CriticalStart
CyberSponse, FortiSOAR
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about CRITICALSTART vs. Fortinet FortiSOAR and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.