CRITICALSTART vs NetWitness NDR comparison

Critical Start and NetWitness are both solutions in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category. Critical Start is ranked #27, while NetWitness is ranked #25. Critical Start holds a 0.6% mindshare in SOAR, compared to NetWitness’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Critical Start users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of NetWitness users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

NetWitness NDR and CRITICALSTART compete in the network detection and response category. NetWitness NDR has the upper hand in pricing and support, whereas CRITICALSTART is preferred for its advanced features and integration capabilities.

Features: NetWitness NDR provides detailed threat analysis, customizable alerts, and comprehensive network visibility. It integrates with third-party applications and includes a unified dashboard for management. CRITICALSTART offers seamless integration, managed detection and response services, and an intuitive mobile app for on-the-go access.

Room for Improvement: NetWitness NDR could enhance its flexibility in reporting and reduce configuration time. More user-friendly updates are needed for its interface and better third-party integration documentation. CRITICALSTART can improve by decreasing the learning curve for the new UI, enhancing the responsiveness of the mobile app, and integrating more data sources without additional costs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetWitness NDR features a straightforward deployment and reliable post-implementation support. CRITICALSTART excels with flexible deployment models, exceptional customer service, and an engaging experience that facilitates better customer interaction.

Pricing and ROI: NetWitness NDR offers competitive pricing with strong ROI due to extensive detection capabilities. CRITICALSTART, though higher in initial costs, provides rapid ROI through effective management and reduced alerts. Its value proposition makes the upfront cost worthwhile.

To learn more, read our detailed CRITICALSTART vs. NetWitness NDR Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART vs. NetWitness NDR

December 2025

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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 January 2026, in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category, the mindshare of Torq is 4.9%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetWitness NDR is 1.2%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Torq	4.9%
NetWitness NDR	1.2%
CRITICALSTART	0.6%
Other	93.3%

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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reviewer1799727

Manager, IT Security Operations at a non-profit with 11-50 employees

Reliable and good support but can be expensive

I have no real complaints about the solution. Threat detection could be better. They need to enhance their threat intelligence feeds. We would like to have more IOCs or more trade intelligence to not only rely on the intelligence of the engineer in charge but to have some threat intelligence and some seeds of IOCs and to have the host have some artificial intelligence to reduce the number of false positives. I don't see this solution being very scalable. The solution is pricey.

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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

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 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 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

"The most valuable feature is the way it captures the traffic, and it contains every detail of the communication."

"It's a scalable solution. We have around five to eight customers using RSA NetWitness Endpoint, and we hope to increase the number of users."

"NetWitness Endpoint's most valuable features are its interoperability across many different operating systems and the ease of pivoting from network to endpoint via a single console."

"They have recently updated the features and the most valuable ones are the instant threat response, ease of use, web interface, integration, and easy access. RSA NetWitness Endpoint is very compatible with other solutions and technologies. However, they do not rely on third-party solutions and have most features built-in."

"It helps our security team respond more accurately when there are threats, then we get less false positives or negatives."

"The stability of the RSA NetWitness Endpoint is very good."

"The most valuable feature of RSA NetWitness Network is the single unified dashboard from which you can manage all the different products of RSA. Additionally, the integration with native applications is good."

"The interface of this solution is very flexible and easy to use."

More NetWitness NDR pros

Cons

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

"The initial deployment of Torq was not easy."

"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 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 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 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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

"NetWitness Endpoint's blocking feature does not work properly - if there's a malicious process, it's not possible to kill it via a custom rule unless and until it's flagged as malicious."

"The initial setup requires a high level of skill."

"Its price could be improved. It is an expensive product. Its training is also too expensive. It would be great if they can have a better pricing scheme for the training."

"I would like to see Security Orchestration and Response Automation (SOAR) integration."

"This solution needs an upgrade in reporting. I have heard from RSA that they are working on this, but as of yet it is not available."

"The integration of the solution needs to be improved. The dashboard needs lots of updates as well. In the next release, we would like to see advanced fraud detection features."

"The solution is modular, for example you can buy the RSA ePack, which you buy as a module is not part of the conduit solution. They could include it and have it as an all-in-one solution."

"We would like to see the hunting and investigation features of this solution improved, in order to provide better visibility of issues."

More NetWitness NDR cons

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."

"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 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."

"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 cost depends on the number of endpoints that you want to monitor, but it is not expensive."

"With RSA, there is flexibility in choosing the service, products, and the range that meets your requirement, as well as they are flexible in terms of pricing."

"We are on a three-year contract to use RSA NetWitness Network."

"It is an expensive product."

"NetWitness Endpoint is less costly than its competitors, but it offers fewer features."

"The price of the solution depends on the environment. If the environment is large then it will cost more. However, the larger the environment with more endpoints, you will receive an increased discount. If the environment is very small, then you might think it is expensive. It is always better to buy in bulk to receive a discount. The minimum number of assets is usually 500, with discounts on 1000 and 2000."

"It is highly scalable. It can be bought based on your requirements."

"I do not have any opinion on the pricing or licensing of the product."

More NetWitness NDR pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

17%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Torq?

From our research and testing with the tool, we determined there need to be modifications and changes to train the LL...

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What is your primary use case for Torq?

I used Torq for conducting one of the proof of evaluations for a vendor we are connected with. I am currently working...

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What advice do you have for others considering Torq?

One of our members uses AWS, and we receive their feed. This involves triaging AWS-related logs. While I do not have ...

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Comparisons

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Compared 48% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

Swimlane vs Torq

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

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ExtraHop Reveal(x) vs NetWitness NDR

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Wazuh vs NetWitness NDR

Compared 5% of the time

Corelight vs NetWitness NDR

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Torq

January 2026

Download Torq product report

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART

January 2026

Download CRITICALSTART product report

Buyer's Guide

NetWitness NDR

January 2026

Download NetWitness NDR product report

Also Known As

No data available

Critical Start, CriticalStart

RSA ECAT, NetWitness Network

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

Using a centralized combination of network and endpoint analysis, behavioral analysis, data science techniques and threat intelligence, NetWitness NDR helps analysts detect and resolve known and unknown attacks while automating and orchestrating the incident response lifecycle. With these capabilities on one platform, security teams can collapse disparate tools and data into a powerful, blazingly fast user interface.

NetWitness

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

ADP, Ameritas, Partners Healthcare

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART vs. NetWitness NDR

December 2025

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