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Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR 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
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
AI-SOC (2nd), AI-Powered Security Automation (2nd)
Palo Alto Networks Cortex X...
Ranking in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
SOC as a Service (2nd)
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 Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is 8.8%, down from 10.9% 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 (%)
Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR8.8%
Torq3.7%
ServiceNow Security Operations3.6%
Other83.9%
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)
 

Featured Reviews

AD
Solutions Architect at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
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.
Sricharan R - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Application Security Engineer Iv at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Security automation has transformed incident workflows and now reduces response time dramatically
I think the areas of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR that could be improved are mainly in UX. We have communicated with the vendor team about this, but they are prioritizing product functionality over usability because most target customers are technical and understand a primitive UI. They face difficulties in implementing UI changes as their team is stretched. Thus, the UI/UX of the tool needs significant improvement. There are plans on their roadmap, but a lot remains to be done. Parts of the tool run on an older framework, causing slowness. Usability is a broader issue than features alone. This usability problem is common in many cybersecurity tools, unlike customer-facing applications. Some integrations have speed issues and might not function seamlessly with different upstream configurations, requiring manual updates. These are the main pain points we encountered, particularly with UI/UX, integration speed, and the usability of certain inbuilt playbooks.
Kalyan Kothali - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at Wissen infotech
Effectively manages vulnerabilities and reduces false positives
ServiceNow Security Operations provides significant control over vulnerabilities, allowing users to mark false alarms as false positives and ignore them, which is important because many vulnerabilities are not real but appear as such. There are many aspects that we could handle. For certain vulnerabilities, remediation requires spending extra on hardware or OS upgrades, or purchasing new versions, which implies a cost. For that reason, we can take an exception for a couple of months or days, and once that exception expires, that vulnerability automatically reappears. These features help us ensure that everything is under control, and when we discuss vulnerabilities, we can consolidate them into one central category, which means working on one vulnerability automatically resolves the rest, making it efficient with the features provided.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Once I started to use the system and I saw the potential, it changed all of our work in IT."
"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 appreciate most about Torq is that it is an essential part of our system."
"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."
"Any request that comes in, regardless of how complex it is, I can accomplish it with Torq."
"Almost four or five hours of work is now completed in four or five minutes."
"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."
"For each SOC and MSS environment, I would recommend using Cortex XSOAR for better productivity, scalability, performance, and efficiency."
"It’s easy to install."
"Palo Alto has reduced the time that it takes to go through the process of investigating a reported abuse."
"The most valuable features of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR are its overall track record and features that fit our use case."
"Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR has had a positive impact on the mean time to resolution for incidents (MTTR), as it has significantly reduced noise."
"The most valuable features of Cortex XSOAR include its vast library of plugins, which allow us to integrate various tools and solutions seamlessly."
"Its agility and scalability are valuable."
"Cortex XSOAR's most valuable features are the playbooks, custom integration, the machine-learning model, and the layout, classifier, and mapper."
"It has helped optimize security costs by consolidating multiple tools into one platform."
"This product is a good value for the money."
"The solution is available over the cloud and is easy to manage."
"ServiceNow Security Operations also takes care of GRC, governance, risk and compliance, enabling it to provide risk assessment."
"ServiceNow is a convenient platform to raise tickets, and the respective support team will contact us to resolve any issues."
"ServiceNow Security Operations provides significant control over vulnerabilities, allowing users to mark false alarms as false positives and ignore them, which is important because many vulnerabilities are not real but appear as such."
"The SOAR module of ServiceNow Security Operations is the most valuable feature"
"The solution is stable."
 

Cons

"The initial deployment of Torq was not easy."
"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."
"We have MCP that we are working with our cloud security platform, and we wanted to connect this MCP to the case management."
"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."
"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."
"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 initial deployment of Torq was not easy."
"In terms of improvement, it needs to be more modular. It's not. When you're working in layouts and you create specific apps within layouts, there's no portability right now in order to reuse that code across multiple layouts. I can't take a tab and say I want to use this tab on these other layouts. I have to physically go in there and recreate it from scratch, which is maddening."
"The integration could be better. Cortex, for example, does not work with iPhone."
"XSOAR could have more integration options."
"The tool’s multi-tenancy feature must be improved."
"One of the significant issues we encounter is system slowdown when we receive an influx of alerts, which inhibits how quickly we can access the information needed for investigation."
"The formats are not compatible, are readily not available, and are not readable."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The price of the solution could be lower."
"They should stick to the roadmap and continue to build plugins and integrations with other third parties, enhance the UI, and enhance the reporting. It's all good. They should just continue enhancing the releases."
"Customer awareness and understanding of ServiceNow's SecOps capabilities could be improved."
"The dashboard and playbook creation will need to improve"
"A one-year delay from their go-live date is a bit too long."
"The solution needs to make customization easier. You cannot do much customization immediately. It requires an extensive workload. If the customization process was user-friendly, it would be much better."
"Visibility and transitions between teams present significant challenges in the SecOps space, indicating that substantial training and hand-holding are required to improve usability, which is one observation I have had."
"Report generation within ServiceNow can take some time."
"Report generation within ServiceNow can take some time. Additionally, there are occasional issues when raising a ticket, which can also consume time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Palo Alto offers significant discounts to customers who purchase the products repeatedly."
"The pricing is fair. The pricing reflects the value and feature set it offers."
"The price of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is expensive."
"The price of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is comparable to other solutions in the market."
"Cortex XSOAR's price could be lower."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing a nine."
"The solution is expensive."
"The solution's pricing needs improvement."
"The solution is more expensive than BMC Remedy, the other ITSM tool available in the market."
"The product is more expensive than other solutions."
"This product is a good value for the money."
"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."
"It is an expensive product."
"Compared to competitor tools, ServiceNow Security Operations is more affordable"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
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 Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise26
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR?
Comparing pricing to Micro Focus, they were offering bundles, making it free with their SIEM. For customers, it is ze...
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR?
Regarding areas for improvement in Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR, I want to highlight one concern about playbook cr...
What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR?
My primary use cases for Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR are malware incidents, specifically phishing-related inciden...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Security Operations?
In my opinion, the pricing is quite affordable considering the features, and I do not find it expensive. I would not ...
What needs improvement with ServiceNow Security Operations?
I would like to see new features added, particularly regarding the incident upgrading part. For instance, if you have...
What advice do you have for others considering ServiceNow Security Operations?
For someone looking to use ServiceNow Security Operations, I recommend that they read about the documentation and spe...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Demisto Enterprise, Cortex XSOAR, Demisto
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Cellcom Israel, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, esri, Cylance, Flatiron Health, Veeva, ADT Cybersecurity
DXC Technology, Freedom Security Alliance, Prime Therapeutics, Seton Hall University, York Risk Services
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR vs. ServiceNow Security Operations and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
896,467 professionals have used our research since 2012.