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CRITICALSTART vs ServiceNow Security Operations comparison

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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
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
AI-SOC (2nd), AI-Powered Security Automation (2nd)
CRITICALSTART
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
26th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (30th)
ServiceNow Security Operations
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Security Incident Response (1st), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category, the mindshare of Torq is 3.7%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow Security Operations is 3.6%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Torq3.7%
ServiceNow Security Operations3.6%
CRITICALSTART1.1%
Other91.6%
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
 

Featured Reviews

Nimrod Vardi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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.
SH
Freelancer at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Gaining unified control over vulnerabilities has improved governance but pricing and support need work
The market price is slightly high. The pricing should be a little lower because this is a SaaS-based product. Everyone using ServiceNow might be getting many modules, but the overall module cost becomes high with license consumption one by one. I personally see that if ServiceNow is to grow over the next decade, they need to work on the pricing part. Cheap providers are emerging, and in the age of AI, it is evident that the chatbot and the virtual agent features, which are prominent features of ServiceNow, could be completely compromised and replaced by people choosing other tools. If ServiceNow develops a strategy to lower the price and increase the customer base, it could help ServiceNow to grow for another decade. I encountered one issue in ServiceNow Security Operations. The different tools, for example, Tenable and TVM, discovered vulnerabilities that had very limited information when imported. However, the same vulnerabilities from different sources, the TVM and Tenable, had shorter descriptions than what was present in the common vulnerabilities or CVE. If this depends on the implementer, such as Tenable or how other security operations implement them, the text was very limited. Customers were asking questions about why this was happening and if ServiceNow was working properly. The vulnerability information should be updated and the common text should be displayed every time, regardless of how many different tools are used for integration. The vulnerability database should be consistent when it comes to the description to avoid confusion for customers implementing it for the first time. This is an improvement that ServiceNow can make.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Any request that comes in, regardless of how complex it is, I can accomplish it with Torq."
"Torq's unified platform approach to AI, SOAR, automation, and case management is superior compared to my experience managing multiple point solutions."
"Once I started to use the system and I saw the potential, it changed all of our work in IT."
"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."
"As an analyst, it has demonstrated potential to reduce workforce requirements and time needed for related activities."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"This has been a positive experience and money well spent."
"In a given quarter, I get 589,000 security events and 584,000 of those get reduced by the service before they even get to me, so the alerts that actually come through to me end up being about 1,400 in that quarter, which is a 99.7 percent efficiency rate."
"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."
"It is a comfort to know that there is a team of professionals backing you up, especially in an area that you don't feel 100 percent comfortable."
"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."
"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."
"It has helped optimize security costs by consolidating multiple tools into one platform."
"The solution is stable."
"My favorite feature is the application vulnerability scanner."
"The solution is available over the cloud and is easy to manage."
"What I found most valuable in ServiceNow Security Operations is that it's very useful for any incoming vulnerability. For example, if my team finds any vulnerability on servers such as the CA and CMDB integrated with ServiceNow Security Operations, my team can make some changes. My team can map the vulnerabilities found on the CA server, make the changes required, and resolve the vulnerabilities before the system is attacked. You can avoid vulnerability attacks through ServiceNow Security Operations, so this is the best feature of the solution. ServiceNow Security Operations is beneficial mainly for vulnerability response and engagement purposes."
"Multiple projects use the ServiceNow tool because it is a low-cost and open-source tool."
"The ServiceNow platform provides tremendous value to organizations that not only want to implement SecOps, but when integrated with IT Service Management, IT Operations Management, Software Asset Management, Governance Risk and Compliance, and into their overall strategy for digital and business transformation."
"The product has a very simple UI, I like the look and feel, and I find it very easy to navigate."
 

Cons

"Regarding the pricing of Torq, I would say it is expensive."
"Torq does extensive marketing saying that SOAR is dead and markets itself as an all-in-one solution, but this is not actually true."
"Regarding stability, I have noticed some lagging, crashing, and downtime, which is one of my largest gripes."
"Additionally, the documentation for Torq is not very clear. Most of the information is presented in videos, which are not ideal for reading; there are mostly paragraphs and other text-based content."
"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 initial deployment of Torq was not easy."
"The initial deployment of Torq was not easy."
"We have MCP that we are working with our cloud security platform, and we wanted to connect this MCP to the case management."
"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."
"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."
"It has frustrated us that they don't have a native Slack integration, because most things do now."
"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."
"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 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."
"There is room for improvement with the new UI, and that's about it. I would like to see a more intuitive design."
"The product is called SecOps, but it is not security operations in terms of SIEM solutions."
"Report generation within ServiceNow can take some time."
"There are limitations for the third-parties that are providing the inputs. They should increase the robustness of the solution."
"It doesn't interact with things very well."
"The initial setup is difficult."
"In future releases, I would like to add a follow-up and reminder feature. For the tickets in our queue, we could set reminders. This would help us prioritize older tickets before moving on to new ones."
"They should stick to the roadmap and continue to build plugins and integrations with other third parties, enhance the UI, and enhance the reporting."
"The solution needs to make customization easier. You cannot do much customization immediately. It requires an extensive workload."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"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."
"The pricing of other services was so insane that they weren't even an option."
"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."
"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."
"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"If you're going to implement it on your own, there would be internal costs. If you're going to implement it through a contractor or consultant, you have to pay for that."
"This product is a good value for the money."
"Compared to competitor tools, ServiceNow Security Operations is more affordable"
"The solution is more expensive than BMC Remedy, the other ITSM tool available in the market."
"It is an expensive product."
"The product is more expensive than other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Real Estate/Law Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
5%
Computer Software Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Torq?
To improve alert handling capability, there are ready-to-use playbooks available, but there are very few. Torq should...
What is your primary use case for Torq?
Torq is primarily used for security operations, mainly for the SOC team. I develop use cases based on requirements fr...
What advice do you have for others considering Torq?
The maintenance side is very good because we are using the product to reduce activities. For instance, sometimes ther...
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What needs improvement with ServiceNow Security Operations?
The market price is slightly high. The pricing should be a little lower because this is a SaaS-based product. Everyon...
What advice do you have for others considering ServiceNow Security Operations?
ServiceNow Security Operations integrates very easily with third-party security tools. I am involved mostly with Serv...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Critical Start, CriticalStart
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Information Not Available
DXC Technology, Freedom Security Alliance, Prime Therapeutics, Seton Hall University, York Risk Services
Find out what your peers are saying about CRITICALSTART vs. ServiceNow Security Operations and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
895,891 professionals have used our research since 2012.