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Cortex XSIAM vs Splunk SOAR comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.4
Cortex XSIAM offers significant ROI and reduced staffing needs, though some businesses await full financial assessments.
Sentiment score
6.6
Splunk SOAR offers varied ROI, with notable time-saving but challenges in quantifying benefits and initial deployment for new users.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Cortex XSIAM customer support varies, with mixed reviews ranging from inadequate responses to helpful, efficient resolutions across different tiers.
Sentiment score
7.1
Splunk SOAR's improved customer service is praised for responsiveness and documentation, despite occasional slow telecom-related responses.
It is ineffective in terms of responding to basic queries and addressing future requirements.
The Palo Alto support team is fully responsive and helpful.
Splunk's technical support is very good and generally not needed often due to the stable environment.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cortex XSIAM scales easily for enterprises, rated highly for scalability, despite integration reliance concerns, supporting numerous assets and users.
Sentiment score
7.1
Splunk SOAR is scalable, flexible, and resource-efficient, but some users face hardware bottlenecks at larger scales.
Without proper integration, scaling up with more servers is meaningless.
Cortex XSIAM is highly scalable.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Cortex XSIAM is highly stable, cloud-based, and dependable, with minimal downtime, excellent reliability ratings, and rare intervention needs.
Sentiment score
7.5
Splunk SOAR is highly stable with minimal downtime, minor issues, and receives positive feedback for robust data performance.
The product was easy to install and set up and worked right.
Overall, Cortex XSIAM is stable.
Splunk SOAR provides a stable environment and technology.
 

Room For Improvement

Cortex XSIAM needs improvements in integration, performance, usability, and support services, with enhanced automation and developer-friendliness.
Splunk SOAR users desire improved integration, better documentation, and user-friendly features for enhanced efficiency and usability.
In terms of incident response automation, it is quite poor due to the lack of integration with all security tools, making manual intervention necessary.
Cortex XSIAM needs improvements in terms of data onboarding, parsers, and third-party integration supports.
Cortex XSIAM is pretty expensive, and the licensing process is not very comfortable compared to CrowdStrike.
Although it enhances alert handling, it still has a journey to compete with Palo Alto SOAR and FortiSOAR.
 

Setup Cost

Cortex XSIAM is competitively priced compared to Splunk and Microsoft Sentinel but involves complex licensing and additional costs.
Splunk SOAR's subscription pricing is seen as costly by some, but it offers valuable workflow automation and efficiency.
Cortex XSIAM is pretty expensive, and the licensing process is not very comfortable.
The licensing cost of Cortex XSIAM is more or less the same as Splunk, making it quite expensive compared to other tools.
The product is very expensive.
Splunk SOAR is affordable cost-wise only.
 

Valuable Features

Cortex XSIAM provides advanced threat detection with machine learning, seamless third-party integration, and comprehensive network and endpoint protection.
Splunk SOAR offers customizable playbooks, seamless integration, facilitates automation, enhances incident response, and improves user experience and efficiency.
The flexibility for creating manual workflows stands out.
One of the valued aspects of the product is its use of artificial intelligence to detect security vulnerabilities.
Cortex XSIAM allows us to onboard almost every device, whether they are on-prem or on SaaS.
The stable environment and the community provide strong support, reducing the need for technical support.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cortex XSIAM
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (17th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (6th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (7th)
Splunk SOAR
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Cortex XSIAM is designed for Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and holds a mindshare of 2.8%, up 0.6% compared to last year.
Splunk SOAR, on the other hand, focuses on Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR), holds 7.2% mindshare, down 8.7% since last year.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
 

Featured Reviews

Forrest Stevens - PeerSpot reviewer
A robust security operation that ensures achieving automation, stability, and scalability
There is room for improvement in some areas, and I would highlight three key aspects. Firstly, the Attack Surface Management (ASM) module could benefit from more contextual depth. Currently, it tends to provide a broad overview without enriched context, and there's room for enhancement in this regard. Secondly, further integration capabilities with various other software products that can seamlessly tie into Cortex XSIAM would be advantageous. This would enhance its versatility and interoperability within a broader ecosystem. Regarding performance, there's potential for optimization. When multiple tabs are open in Cortex XSIAM, it can experience slowdowns, leading to longer load times for web pages. It's worth noting that this isn't a severe issue, and it doesn't entail waiting for extended periods, but there is room for improvement in terms of performance optimization.
Shubham Sinha. - PeerSpot reviewer
Helped eliminate repetitive and redundant tasks, but custom functions and reporting need a lot of work
The visibility of the solution’s playbook viewer depends on the right you assign to the analyst. SOAR has the flexibility to distinguish between the roles of analyst and owner. If the analyst's role is to just work on a ticket, they cannot view the playbook design platform. That is limited to the owner. That can be both a good and bad thing. A major problem I have faced in SOAR's rights distribution is roles and responsibilities. Suppose I am initially granted user rights or analyst rights, but later on, I also get admin rights. SOAR is unable to amend the limitations of my role. I raised a support ticket with Splunk about this. They said it's a bug in their 5.3.5 version. To fix this, I had to reinstall the entire platform from scratch, just to amend the rights and responsibilities of one role. This bug was not fixed. Also, the latest GUI is terrible. The previous one was better. Another point is that while using Splunk SOAR in an investigation is not difficult, there are some complex parameters. We have SOAR case management, but the licensing is going to put a big hole in your pocket. Also, there is an issue with investigation node addition. When you are doing node additions you cannot grant the entire environment to have SOAR visibility into the incident. So when you integrate it with an ITSM tool, like ServiceNow or Jira for ticketing purposes, there is a challenge. When you do nodes for investigation on a regular basis, sometimes it does not update our ServiceNow platform, which is terrible. It is a redundant activity for an analyst to update that in the case management as well as in the ITSM tool. Although SOAR provides integration, the functionality of investigation and nodes is terrible when it comes to integration. An additional area for improvement is custom function creation. It's terrible. A newbie cannot create custom functions right away. They would require a solid understanding first. Also, the reporting is really awful. If I want to do a report for a customized time period, such as the last three days or the last four days, or from the 10th to the 12th of June, that is not available in SOAR at all. That kind of feature is available in Cortex XSOAR. Reporting is a real challenge.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cortex XSIAM?
It is an effective solution in terms of performance and functionalities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cortex XSIAM?
Cortex XSIAM is pretty expensive, and the licensing process is not very comfortable. CrowdStrike licensing is easier and follows an annual recurring revenue model, unlike Cortex XSIAM.
What needs improvement with Cortex XSIAM?
Cortex XSIAM is pretty expensive, and the licensing process is not very comfortable compared to CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike offers an annual recurring revenue option that Cortex XSIAM does not provide.
What do you like most about Splunk Phantom?
Splunk SOAR's quick response to incidents is the most valuable part.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Splunk Phantom?
Splunk SOAR is affordable cost-wise only, but not competitive from a technical perspective compared to Palo Alto SOAR and FortiSOAR.
What needs improvement with Splunk Phantom?
The creation of playbooks is complex in Splunk SOAR ( /categories/security-orchestration-automation-and-response-soar ), and the number of integrations needs enhancement. Although it enhances alert...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Phantom
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Recorded Future, Blackstone
Find out what your peers are saying about Splunk, Wazuh, Microsoft and others in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM). Updated: April 2025.
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