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CRITICALSTART vs IBM Resilient 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)
28th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (32nd)
IBM Resilient
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
11th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Security Incident Response (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category, the mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Resilient is 1.9%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
Usman Bhatti - PeerSpot reviewer
Simple deployment, scalable, but lacking third-party solution compatibility
Integrating IBM Resilient with other applications can be very difficult and technically challenging. Often, they use the excuse that you are using the latest version of an application, such as an endpoint security system, and they don't have an API or support for it at the moment. There is no automation in the SOAR solution. It's worth noting that many third-party add-on applications needed to be purchased separately to integrate with IBM Resilient. While there were built-in applications available for incident remediation, the selection was limited. Additionally, integrating third-party applications was often a difficult and time-consuming process due to the technical complexity involved.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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. 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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"The most valuable features of IBM Resilient are its flexibility and customization options for incident response."
"This is a good solution that we recommend for customers."
"It's really simple and has a flexible interface."
"The product is very good at incident response."
"The solution is reliable in our usage."
"The UBA, User Behavior Analytics, is very good."
"The solution is easy to use."
"What I like most about IBM Resilient is that it has a complete stack, which means you don't need to use different OEM products because you have all you need under the IBM Resilient umbrella. You don't need to worry much about integrations and components because you're working with tested and proven architecture."
 

Cons

"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."
"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. 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."
"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..."
"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 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."
"Integration with some devices, including Cisco PowerPower and certain antivirus products, has limitations."
"The response time of the support is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Integrating IBM Resilient with other applications can be very difficult and technically challenging. Often, they use the excuse that you are using the latest version of an application, such as an endpoint security system, and they don't have an API or support for it at the moment. There is no automation in the SOAR solution."
"IBM Resilient is quite complex, including its configuration."
"Its price needs improvement."
"What could make IBM Resilient better is if IBM increased the number of built-in integrations with different products from other vendors or third-party products."
"The product must provide more integration with other tools."
"This product could be improved with better customization. This product isn't the best on the market like QRadar, but it's actually a good solution. However, some competitors' solutions contain more integration, support, automation, or flexibility."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"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."
"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 licensing cost for IBM Resilient is not too expensive, but it's not affordable, so it's moderately expensive. Regarding price, I'm rating the solution seven out of ten. The company pays for the license yearly, based on the number of users. Apart from the cost of the license you need to pay for each user, you also need to spend an initial investment for the base platform. You also have to pay for IBM Resilient support."
"I would rate the tool’s pricing a three out of ten. The tool’s pricing is on a yearly basis."
"Pricing for the solution is good, in my opinion."
"We could create unlimited users using the license we had purchased."
"It is very expensive."
"There are no costs except for the support services that our company pays in addition to the licensing charges attached to the solution."
"The cost of the product is quite high."
"There is a license you need to pay for in order to use this product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
12%
Real Estate/Law Firm
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
33%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about IBM Resilient?
It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Resilient?
I am not the one in charge of pricing, so I am not sure about the costs.
What needs improvement with IBM Resilient?
Integration with some devices, including Cisco PowerPower and certain antivirus products, has limitations.
 

Also Known As

Critical Start, CriticalStart
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Golden Living, Health Equity, USA Funds
Find out what your peers are saying about CRITICALSTART vs. IBM Resilient and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.