No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

CRITICALSTART vs Microsoft Sentinel comparison

Sponsored
 

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

Torq
Sponsored
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
AI-SOC (1st), AI-Powered Security Automation (1st)
CRITICALSTART
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
25th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (28th)
Microsoft Sentinel
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (6th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category, the mindshare of Torq is 3.6%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 1.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Sentinel is 9.3%, down from 16.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Sentinel9.3%
Torq3.6%
CRITICALSTART1.3%
Other85.8%
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.
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.
Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at HR Software Solution
Centralized monitoring has improved threat response but cost control still needs refinement
Based on real operations used in our corporate IT environment, the key features include log correlation and incident view. Microsoft Sentinel's biggest strength is how it correlates multiple related alerts into a single incident. This significantly reduces alert noise and helps the SOC focus on real threats instead of isolated events. Another valuable feature is KQL-based threat hunting with Kusto Query Language. The flexibility of this language allows us to build custom hunting queries based on our environment's behavior. This is extremely useful for detecting low and slow threats or hidden threats that default rules may miss. Cloud-native scalability and stability is another important feature. Being cloud-native, Microsoft Sentinel scales well for medium to large corporate environments without infrastructure management. Stability has been solid in day-to-day production. SOAR automation using playbooks is a feature we highly recommend. Microsoft Sentinel's SOAR functionality helps automate repetitive SOC tasks like alert enrichment and notification. This saves analyst time and improves response consistency.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Torq has helped a lot regarding SOC analyst efficiency."
"Torq has exceeded expectations by delivering workflows in a timely and lower effort manner than XSOAR, and it meets all my needs while saving a ton of time and targeting $600,000 saved this year, which is a substantial amount of money."
"Using that one piece of AI, we auto-closed 511 cases in quarter four alone."
"Torq offers the best feature through integration with AI."
"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."
"What I liked the most about Torq is the actual workflow builder, which is really great because they offer a lot of features and convenience features that are useful for any automation engineer."
"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."
"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 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."
"This has been a positive experience and money well spent."
"After a year of using the service, our expectations have been met in terms of services delivered on time, on budget, and on spec."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"The Identity Behavior tab furnishes us with the entire history linked to each IP or domain that has either accessed or attempted to access our system."
"After two years, the return on investment has been absolutely staggering because by deploying Sentinel, we pretty much have a 24/7 AI that's looking at signals, metrics, and alerts, making decisions, applying automated actions, and saving us from having to double the amount of staff we have now with about a 40% reduction in costs."
"The main benefit is that as companies migrate their systems and services into the Cloud, especially if they're migrating into Azure, they've got a native SIEM available to them immediately."
"If you have cloud-based workloads and different cloud or cloud lookalike services that require security data, or if you are looking for SOAR functionalities, then it's a no brainer."
"It is quite efficient. It helps our clients in identifying their security issues and respond quickly. Our clients want to automate incident response and all those things."
"Sentinel has features that have helped improve our security poster. It helped us in going ahead and identifying the gaps via analysis and focusing on the key elements."
"The most valuable feature is the performance because unlike legacy SIEMs that were on-premises, it does not require as much maintenance."
"The most valuable features for us include threat collection, threat detection, response, and the knowledge base for investigation."
 

Cons

"The workflow and execution-based charges seem misleading as this was not discussed initially, and creating additional workflows to achieve basic functionalities raises costs significantly, which disadvantages customers."
"Torq does extensive marketing saying that SOAR is dead and markets itself as an all-in-one solution, but this is not actually true."
"Torq can be improved by adding some more features, such as adding more automation and providing a no-code option so I don't have to code for everything."
"Regarding the pricing of Torq, I would say it is expensive."
"We have MCP that we are working with our cloud security platform, and we wanted to connect this MCP to the case management."
"Even now, we have workflows that are in production that use AI steps and I get different results, making it unusable to some degree."
"Regarding stability, I have noticed some lagging, crashing, and downtime, which is one of my largest gripes."
"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."
"They could dig a little bit deeper into the Splunk alerts when they feel like they need to be escalated to us."
"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"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."
"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."
"There is room for improvement with the new UI, and that's about it. I would like to see a more intuitive design."
"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."
"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 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 solution should allow for a streamlined CI/CD procedure."
"Microsoft Sentinel can be improved in that the way it is built today means if you have a third party and you pay for ingestion, this is different than how some of the traditional SIEMs work."
"The product can be improved by reducing the cost to use AI machine learning."
"I'm not happy with the pricing on the integration with Defender for Endpoint."
"When it comes to ingesting Azure native log sources, some of the log sources are specific to the subscription, and it is not always very clear."
"It could have a better API to be able to automate many things more extensively and get more extensive data and more expensive deployment possibilities. It can gain some points on the automation part and the integration part. The API is very limited, and I would like to see it extended a bit more."
"They should integrate it with many other software-as-a-service providers and make connectors available so that you don't have to do any sort of log normalization."
"One key area that can be improved is by building a strong integration with our XDR platform."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"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."
"Microsoft is costlier. Some organizations may not be able to afford the cost of Sentinel orchestration and the Log Analytics workspace. The transaction hosting cost is also a little bit on the high side, compared to AWS and GCP."
"The combination of the ease of accessibility and the free cost of the service is great. But we buy storage based on our events per second and on how many sources are integrated into the solution."
"The pricing is fair... With a traditional SIEM, you pay a lump sum for licenses. But with Sentinel, it's pay-as-you-go according to the amount of data you inject."
"It is priced fairly given the value that you get from the use of the product. The biggest mistake people make with Microsoft Sentinel is not understanding the pricing model and the amount of data that they are going to be running through the tool because you are paying based on the flow. You are paying based on the amount of data that is moving through the tool. People do not plan, and therefore, they get surprised by the cost associated with using the tool. They connect everything because they want to know everything, but connecting everything is very expensive."
"I don't know yet because they gave us a 30-day test window for free."
"Sentinel is costly compared to other solutions, but it's fair. SIEM solutions like CrowdStrike charge based on daily log volume. They generally process a set number of logs for free before they start charging. Microsoft's pricing is clearer. It's free under five gigabytes. Some of these logs we ingest have a cost, so they don't hide it. I believe the tenant pays the price, and Microsoft helps create awareness of the cost."
"The are two native advantages for customers that use M365 Security and Sentinel. The first advantage is that the log or security-event ingestion into Sentinel is free. Cost-wise, they're saving a lot and that is a major advantage."
"It is consumption-based pricing. It is an affordable solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) solutions are best for your needs.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise46
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Torq?
Torq can be improved by adding some more features, such as adding more automation and providing a no-code option so I...
What is your primary use case for Torq?
My main use case for Torq is reviewing the incidents and responding to them. After that, I investigate them and take ...
What advice do you have for others considering Torq?
I would definitely recommend others to use Torq as it is an all-rounder tool which even integrates AI. As we all know...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Is there a common threat intelligence tool that aggregates multiple threat intelligence sources?
Yes, Azure Sentinel is a SIEM on the Cloud. Multiple data sources can be uploaded and analyzed with Azure Sentinel an...
What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?
It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingest...
Which is better - Azure Sentinel or AWS Security Hub?
We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Critical Start, CriticalStart
Azure Sentinel
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Information Not Available
Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about CRITICALSTART vs. Microsoft Sentinel and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.