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CRITICALSTART vs Google Security Operations comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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
6.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
AI-SOC (2nd), AI-Powered Security Automation (2nd)
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)
Google Security Operations
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
14th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (27th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category, the mindshare of Torq is 3.7%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Security Operations is 3.8%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Torq3.7%
Google Security Operations3.8%
CRITICALSTART1.1%
Other91.4%
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
 

Featured Reviews

Nimrod Vardi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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.
CK
Technical Lead at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Simplified detection rules and SOAR workflows have improved compliance-focused operations
One improvement I am looking for is silent log source monitoring. If some feed or some host went offline or was not pulling any logs into Google Security Operations, I would want better visibility. Silent host monitoring would make a significant difference because it is very hard to track which host went down, and there are many false positives as a result. I think there is a lot of room for scalability improvements, particularly in the integration of third-party applications. Currently, I have to write a script and use a cloud run function to pull logs. If there were direct ingestion by simply providing an API key and some sort of client certificate, it would be much easier.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Torq's unified platform approach to AI, SOAR, automation, and case management is superior compared to my experience managing multiple point solutions."
"Torq has helped a lot regarding SOC analyst efficiency."
"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."
"Using that one piece of AI, we auto-closed 511 cases in quarter four alone."
"As an analyst, it has demonstrated potential to reduce workforce requirements and time needed for related activities."
"What I appreciate most about Torq is that it is an essential part of our system."
"Once I started to use the system and I saw the potential, it changed all of our work in IT."
"Any request that comes in, regardless of how complex it is, I can accomplish it with Torq."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Siemplify is the playbooks that can be created."
"Without hyperbole, I have never, in my entire career, encountered a vendor or a vendor community as awesome as Siemplify. Siemplify and the Siemplify Community quite literally made it possible for our SOC to increase almost five-fold in our number of clients and number of analysts and to go from a Monday to Friday 9-5 shop to a 24/7 shop all in the span of under a year and a half and all while continually adding capabilities and improving the services we offer to our clients."
"Google SecOps is extremely useful for threat detection and hunting."
"Overall, Google SecOps is a very useful service for security operations."
"The valuable parts of Google Security Operations include how easy it is to write parsers or detection rules, and it is well-advanced in the analytical part."
"The playbooks feature in Siemplify is crucial for automation. We've utilized both standard and custom integrations with other security operation solutions, enhancing our flexibility. The user interface is generally straightforward, although recent changes may require some adjustment and Siemplify's integrations and capabilities offer potential support for various compliance requirements."
 

Cons

"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."
"The initial deployment of Torq was not easy."
"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."
"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 stability, I have noticed some lagging, crashing, and downtime, which is one of my largest gripes."
"Regarding the pricing of Torq, I would say it is expensive."
"There is room for improvement with the new UI, and that's about it. I would like to see a more intuitive design."
"The UI has become slower but it's not something I would call them out on."
"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..."
"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"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."
"The UI has become slower but it's not something I would call them out on."
"They could dig a little bit deeper into the Splunk alerts when they feel like they need to be escalated to us."
"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."
"I'm inclined to say that I'd love to see some Machine Learning capabilities integrated into the platform, however, I just attended a demo this morning where Siemplify gave a sneak peek into some Machine Learning capabilities that they are currently developing and have roadmapped for release soon."
"I can give customer service a rating of six because it is very hard sometimes to keep up with the support."
"Building the playbooks could be easier and the integration could improve. It is a difficult process, such as what API connections need to be made."
"We often encounter minor issues that could be improved, but we maintain communication with the developers and submit feature requests. Recently, I requested enhancements such as improved search functionality within playbooks and expanded options for exporting case data."
"The main improvement could be in the accuracy and detail provided in threat descriptions."
"The main improvement could be in the accuracy and detail provided in threat descriptions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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 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."
"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"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 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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Real Estate/Law Firm
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Torq?
This is exactly what we discussed two days ago with the Torq team. We told them where we want to see improvements. Fo...
What is your primary use case for Torq?
I use Torq as my case management and alert system. Working as a SOC analyst, the first thing I do every morning is ge...
What advice do you have for others considering Torq?
I would definitely recommend Torq. I have no doubt, really. When we looked for another vendor, Torq really answered a...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Siemplify?
The pricing for Google SecOps and Microsoft Sentinel is almost the same, with no significant differences.
What needs improvement with Siemplify?
One improvement I am looking for is silent log source monitoring. If some feed or some host went offline or was not p...
What is your primary use case for Siemplify?
I'm working with Google Security Operations. There is a product called Chronicle SecOps, which is a SOC tool and a SI...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Critical Start, CriticalStart
Siemplify ThreatNexus
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Information Not Available
FedEx Mondelez Intenrational Check Point Trustwave Atos Cyberint Bae Systems Crowe Longwall Security Telefonica Nordea HCL
Find out what your peers are saying about CRITICALSTART vs. Google Security Operations and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.