CRITICALSTART vs Splunk SOAR comparison

Critical Start and Splunk are both solutions in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category. Critical Start is ranked #26, while Splunk is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4. Critical Start holds a 1.2% mindshare in SOAR, compared to Splunk’s 7.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Critical Start users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Splunk SOAR and CRITICALSTART compete in the cybersecurity orchestration, automation, and response market. Splunk SOAR leads with extensive integrations and sophisticated feature sets, whereas CRITICALSTART is notable for its robust threat detection and response capabilities, making it highly valued for its perceived value and ease of use.

Features: Splunk SOAR offers automated workflows, customizable playbooks, and advanced integration capabilities, ideal for sophisticated threat management. CRITICALSTART excels with managed detection and response services, advanced threat analytics, and 24/7 security monitoring. While Splunk SOAR supports complex integration, CRITICALSTART focuses on effective real-time threat detection.

Room for Improvement: Splunk SOAR can improve in deployment complexity, user training, and simplifying integration processes. CRITICALSTART should focus on reducing upfront costs, enhancing mobile app features, and improving the intuitiveness of its user interface. Both solutions could enhance predictive analytics capabilities to match evolving cybersecurity threats.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CRITICALSTART offers a streamlined deployment process with quick onboarding and continuous customer support. Splunk SOAR requires detailed configuration to optimize its powerful tools, demanding more deployment time compared to CRITICALSTART’s seamless setup and supportive customer service approach.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk SOAR requires substantial setup investment for customization and scaling, promising a strong long-term ROI for complex environments. CRITICALSTART has higher upfront costs but offers immediate value in threat mitigation and operational efficiency. Buyers often find CRITICALSTART’s cost appealing due to its tangible returns, while Splunk SOAR provides robust ROI potential over time for larger enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed CRITICALSTART vs. Splunk SOAR Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART vs. Splunk SOAR

June 2026

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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 July 2026, in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category, the mindshare of Torq is 3.8%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 1.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk SOAR is 7.1%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Splunk SOAR	7.1%
Torq	3.8%
CRITICALSTART	1.2%
Other	87.9%

Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)

Featured Reviews

AdityaDesai

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.

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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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Shiboo Suren

Manager cybersecurity at Hexion Inc.

Automates threat response and reduces investigation time but needs better threat intelligence integration

One thing that we would like to see with Splunk SOAR is the expandability to the threat intelligence feed. Currently, we have limited ingestion to the threat intelligence feed for the correlation purpose. We would like to see it being integrated, with license cost or without license cost, to leading threat intelligence sources such as Recorded Future, Feedly, or Flare. That is something we would appreciate having integrated. The second thing on the improvement side is about exposed credential-related information. If we start ingesting those data to Splunk SOAR or SIEM with some sort of integration with threat intelligence feed, that will also improve our detection and prediction method or help us with the investigation.

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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

"As an analyst, it has demonstrated potential to reduce workforce requirements and time needed for related activities."

"Almost four or five hours of work is now completed in four or five minutes."

"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."

"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."

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

"What I appreciate most about Torq is that it is an essential part of our system."

"Under one SOC tool in Torq, analysts get to know everything within the context of an alert or incident they are working on, and this ability to view the whole picture within Torq is one of the major breakthroughs and best offerings of Torq."

More Torq pros

"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."

"My impression of the transparency of the data is that it has good detail. It allows you to see how many events have come in, how many of those events have made it down to their analysts to review, and then however many from their analysts to be able to close out, have been able to been escalated to us. It's a good metric that we can share with my management. They see the value of what the SOC is bringing on top of what my team is already doing."

"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."

"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."

"After a year of using the service, our expectations have been met in terms of services delivered on time, on budget, and on spec."

"When I start thinking about if I were to try to light up a SOC, which I've done before and I have no interest in doing, it could be a million dollars a year or more to do that, and for what I am paying them for the managed fees, it's a steal."

"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."

"This has been a positive experience and money well spent."

More CRITICALSTART pros

"SOAR allows custom code to be written and integrates with various technologies through pre-built apps like Windows Remote Management or custom apps we can build ourselves like a secret retrieval app from our vault."

"We decided to use Splunk SOAR because it's a powerful, reliable engine that has significantly improved our SOC operations, especially in terms of incident response time and scaling features."

"The most valuable features are the Splunk SOAR apps and playbooks."

"The solution allows us to customize playbooks and incorporate custom code, allowing us to drag and drop elements while still writing code to build the integrations we need."

"Splunk SOAR is more user-friendly than those tools and provides more precise and advanced information that we require to analyze whether a case is a true positive or false positive."

"The benefits were immediate when we started using Mission Control Splunk SOAR over a year ago; it has made it easier for our analysts to work on alerts using playbooks and forward them."

"Splunk SOAR has helped to improve my company's business resilience."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the playbook automation just because it allows us to reduce the manual actions that SOC has to handle."

More Splunk SOAR pros

Cons

"I wish Torq's AI assistant for building templated workflows from scratch worked better; when you start with a blank slate, asking AI to help you build or template the workflow out does not go well."

"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."

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

"Torq can probably use more ML and look at what can be closed and what cannot be closed in terms of data classification."

"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."

"Torq does extensive marketing saying that SOAR is dead and markets itself as an all-in-one solution, but this is not actually true."

"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."

More Torq 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."

"They could dig a little bit deeper into the Splunk alerts when they feel like they need to be escalated to us."

"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 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 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."

More CRITICALSTART cons

"While there have been improvements to the investigation process, particularly with the playbook data, the current log review method is cumbersome."

"We've run into a few minor issues. Some of the playbook writing is a bit complicated. We've had a few hiccups with the source control. We'd really like to use GitHub deployment keys for a dedicated account. We haven't been able to do that. I think those are some of the major ones."

"There are areas where Splunk SOAR can continue to improve, particularly regarding the synchronization of information, as sometimes it takes longer than other tools."

"have put a number of ideas on the ideas.splunk.com site for feature requests for the Splunk SOAR product. I posted one of them about three years ago, which finally got implemented in the latest release that just got announced, so the time to implement new features and things like that is a little bit concerning."

"It would be nice if we could put it on other search heads, not just Enterprise Security."

"Splunk SOAR does not help me reduce my security event volume; in fact, it makes them massive."

"What we have seen is if the workflow gets halted or if we want to halt a workflow, it cannot be resumed."

"I'd rate Splunk's technical support around five because compared to IBM QRadar, their support is much better. I feel Splunk should enhance their support, as it appears lacking, especially considering the costs associated with higher licenses."

More Splunk SOAR cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Splunk SOAR is moderately priced, neither cheap nor overly expensive."

"It's very overpriced because it is based on the number of users. There is no bulk licensing."

"The licensing cost is reasonable."

"In my opinion, the price is high, but if you want good products, you have to be willing to pay for them."

"While I can't confirm the exact pricing, some colleagues have mentioned that Splunk SOAR may be on the costlier side."

"I don't know the exact price, but for my region, it is very expensive."

"When we first purchased our Splunk SOAR license, it was based on an event-count model. It was based on the number of events. I had strong opinions at the time that automation should not be stifled by the amount of automation you can accomplish, so the previous structure was not as beneficial for us. Later that year, we got told or saw at a conference that they announced user-based pricing. We are now in a renewal period, so we migrated to a user-based license model, which is more appropriate for us so that we no longer have to worry about stifling our automation based on the quantity."

"The tool is not cheap."

More Splunk SOAR pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Construction Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Media Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	6

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	41

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Torq?

I do not dislike anything about Torq because it has satisfied all of our use cases and requirements. We contacted sup...

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What is your primary use case for Torq?

Initially, we were using Slack for small automations, such as creating pipelines or shutting down servers. For exampl...

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What advice do you have for others considering Torq?

I have been working for five years with experience in the IT field. Torq is very good. It manages everything. I would...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Splunk Phantom?

The pricing is quite high. Splunk SOAR is high priced, but their product is also a market leader, so that way it is g...

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What needs improvement with Splunk Phantom?

Splunk SOAR can use generative AI more extensively in terms of creating the reports which can be presented to the top...

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What is your primary use case for Splunk Phantom?

Splunk SOAR has been in use for almost seven or eight years.

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Comparisons

Tines vs Torq

Compared 25% of the time

Blink Ops vs Torq

Compared 11% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR vs Torq

Compared 10% of the time

Swimlane vs Torq

Compared 8% of the time

Dropzone AI vs Torq

Compared 8% of the time

More Torq Competitors

ServiceNow Security Operations vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 12% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 9% of the time

SentinelOne Wayfinder Threat Detection and Response vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 8% of the time

Binary Defense MDR vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 8% of the time

Expel vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 6% of the time

More CRITICALSTART Competitors

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR vs Splunk SOAR

Compared 11% of the time

Tines vs Splunk SOAR

Compared 9% of the time

Fortinet FortiSOAR vs Splunk SOAR

Compared 8% of the time

Google Security Operations vs Splunk SOAR

Compared 6% of the time

ServiceNow Security Operations vs Splunk SOAR

Compared 6% of the time

More Splunk SOAR Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Torq

June 2026

Download Torq product report

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART

June 2026

Download CRITICALSTART product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk SOAR

June 2026

Download Splunk SOAR product report

Also Known As

No data available

Critical Start, CriticalStart

Phantom

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

CRITICALSTART enhances cybersecurity through advanced alert management, expert guidance, and a user-friendly interface. It promotes efficient monitoring and response to alerts, utilizing a Zero Trust model for heightened security.

CRITICALSTART is designed for organizations seeking to manage security alerts and streamline monitoring processes. Known for its quick response times and efficient alert filtering, it integrates tools like Cylance and Carbon Black to offer managed detection and response services. Users experience enhanced security by focusing on critical threats while the platform's easy navigation aids in efficiently responding to alerts. Improvement areas include better alert prioritization, enhanced compliance disclosure, and smoother integration with third-party communication tools.

What are the key features of CRITICALSTART?

Alert Management: Efficient handling and filtering of alerts to minimize noise.
Expert Guidance: Insights for integrating SIEM and optimizing response strategies.
Mobile Access: Easy access through a mobile app to manage alerts on the go.
Zero Trust Model: Enhances security by minimizing unnecessary access and noise.
User-Friendly Interface: Seamless navigation enhances user interaction and response times.

What advantages and ROI should users consider?

Improved Security Confidence: Advanced alert handling promotes a secure environment.
Increased Efficiency: Streamlined monitoring allows focus on critical threats.
Expert Insight: Professional guidance enhances security strategies and operations.
Quick Response Times: Rapid handling of threats reduces potential impacts.

In industry applications, organizations use CRITICALSTART to bolster cybersecurity measures across finance, healthcare, and technology sectors. Managed detection services and third-party integration make it suitable for enterprises looking to optimize security operations and minimize alert fatigue while ensuring 24/7 monitoring and protection.

Critical Start

Splunk SOAR focuses on automating security operations with seamless third-party integrations and customizable workflows, enhancing incident response and threat management.

Splunk SOAR offers robust playbook automation and powerful API connectivity, allowing organizations to streamline workflows and integrate extensively with tools like Salesforce and ServiceNow. With its capabilities in real-time data visualization and automated threat responses, it significantly enhances security and reduces manual efforts. Users appreciate the ease of creating playbooks, which reduces mean time to detect and resolve. However, attention to its integration challenges with Microsoft products, the need for more playbooks, and improved customization tools is necessary. Enhancements in the development process, visibility, scalability, and case management options are also beneficial. Improving documentation and training resources would add more depth and accessibility.

What are the top features of Splunk SOAR?

Third-party integrations: Supports extensive integration with tools like Salesforce and ServiceNow.
Playbook automation: Facilitates easy creation and management of automated workflows.
Customizable workflows: Offers Python-based customization for tailored security operations.
API connectivity: Powerful API support for seamless tool consolidation and streamlined workflows.
Data visualization: Provides real-time data visualization for enhanced situational awareness.

What benefits or ROI users should consider?

Operational efficiency: Reduces mean time to detect and resolve incidents through automation.
Manual effort reduction: Automates threat responses, minimizing manual workload in security operations.
Enhanced security: Offers end-to-end visibility and automated threat mitigation processes.
Time savings: Optimizes processes and improves response efficiency in cybersecurity operations.

Organizations implement Splunk SOAR in industries to automate tasks in Security Operation Centers, addressing incidents such as phishing, brute force, and ransomware. It integrates with third-party applications for threat intelligence enrichment, commonly deployed both on-premise and cloud, enhancing cybersecurity efforts.

Splunk

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Recorded Future, Blackstone

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART vs. Splunk SOAR

June 2026

Free Report: CRITICALSTART vs. Splunk SOAR

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