Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR vs Splunk SOAR comparison

Palo Alto Networks and Splunk are both solutions in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category. Palo Alto Networks is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.2, while Splunk is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2. Palo Alto Networks holds a 9.0% mindshare in SOAR, compared to Splunk’s 8.0% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Palo Alto Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR and Splunk SOAR compete in the SOAR market category. Cortex XSOAR typically has the upper hand in automation and orchestration due to its extensive playbooks and integration capabilities, while Splunk SOAR is preferred for intuitive playbook creation and integration flexibility.

Features: Cortex XSOAR excels with its automation, vast repository of playbooks, and seamless integration with third-party systems. It offers robust playbooks and ease of customization. Splunk SOAR is noted for flexible integration capabilities, intuitive playbook creation, and multi-platform integration, aiding workflow facilitation.

Room for Improvement: Cortex XSOAR users face licensing complexities, high pricing, and limited on-premise options, calling for integration and UI improvements. Splunk SOAR has high costs, limitations in case management, and integration challenges, with users urging for better API documentation and comprehensive training materials.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cortex XSOAR deploys on public and on-premise clouds but receives mixed reviews for customer service, particularly in remote support. Splunk SOAR is seen as more responsive, with its deployment options spanning public and hybrid clouds, supported by a strong service framework. Both can improve in support response time and issue resolution.

Pricing and ROI: Cortex XSOAR is considered expensive, though many justify the ROI due to its comprehensive features and automation. Splunk SOAR also has a high cost, which may deter smaller organizations, but its value and efficiency are noted. Mature SOC processes are crucial for achieving optimal ROI with both platforms.

To learn more, read our detailed Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR vs. Splunk SOAR Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR vs. Splunk SOAR

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 February 2026, in the Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) category, the mindshare of Torq is 4.5%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is 9.0%, down from 11.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk SOAR is 8.0%, up from 7.3% 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 (%)
Splunk SOAR	8.0%
Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR	9.0%
Torq	4.5%
Other	78.5%

Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)

Q&A Highlights

it_user870255

Works at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Jun 15, 2018

Which Do You Recommend, Phantom or Demisto?

I would not recommend Phantom or Demisto, but rather JASK! JASK is modernizing security operations to reduce organizational risk and improve human efficiency through technology consolidation, enhanced AI and machine learning. We are empowering the SOC analyst to focus on investigative and response work, rather than the onerous data ingestion, normalization, parsing, and alert discrimination that is required to simply determine what is important. Purpose-built by the JASK team, proven in solving real-world SOC issues, the JASK Autonomous Security Operations Center (ASOC) Platform enhances threat detection and orchestration to improve contextual visibility, expose blind spots and initiate faster response times with advanced insights.

See all answers

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.

Read full review

ChrisCollins

Enterprise Security Architect V at FirstEnergy

Customization supports seamless workflow while data influx challenges response time

What I appreciate most about Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is that it is very open, even more so than Anomali. I can create various custom automations and custom fields. There is significant customization ability in this platform. If I already have an established process, I do not have to change my process to fit into the tool. I can modify the tool to fit into my process, which makes things considerably easier. All of our alerts from different tools come into this central place as we have multiple SIEMs. We have items coming from Anomali and other platforms that are not SIEM tools. This serves as our central location where our SOC analysts can work and determine if incident response is needed. The platform provides data enrichment capabilities, offering information upfront so analysts do not have to search for it. They can access details such as username, phone number, email address, and workplace information. For malware files, they can retrieve details from VirusTotal, including file names and environment presence. We have built substantial automation around these features, which also helps us track case metrics, investigation time, and threat mitigation duration.

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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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

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

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

"Any request that comes in, regardless of how complex it is, I can accomplish it with Torq."

"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."

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

"What I like most about Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is how user-friendly it is for development. It is much simpler to work with compared to similar tools I've used."

"I chose Cortex XSOAR because the client also has Palo Alto firewalls. I can incorporate the data from the Palo Alto firewalls into Cortex and send it into the same data lake to manipulate that data. It lets me manage and monitor the data in one place."

"We use the solution to automate our SIEM tools and incidents."

"The Palo Alto ecosystem has a marketplace offering integration with Sentinel or other products."

"The repository of playbooks and the integration between Palo Alto and IBM QRadar are some useful features"

"The most valuable feature is its capability to automate responses and collect information for any security event before you even delve into the details. It's a vast product with an active roadmap, so I'm satisfied with it for now. It's very efficient at data collection and correlation."

"The most valuable features of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR are its overall track record and features that fit our use case."

"What I appreciate most about Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is that it is very open, even more so than Anomali."

More Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR pros

"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."

"Surprisingly, the mobile app is valuable because it is very convenient for our on-call analysts to respond and get alerted to security alerts and events wherever they are. We are able to harness the power of Splunk SOAR and everything that we are doing, and we are also able to alert our on-call analysts 24/7. From their mobile phone, they can respond to those alerts."

"When you design a playbook, you can integrate multiple log sources and define rules... After that, the platform automatically compiles all these activities and, based on the results, the analyst only has to indicate whether the result is a true or false positive. That reduces the time and effort involved."

"The playbooks are valuable. They are the core component. Being able to implement and build a code process to work through and scale out what we want to do is valuable."

"The most valuable feature is the API connector, depending on how it's formatted and who made the actual app offering for it. The REST API is my favorite component. It's very easy to use. The filters are also really valuable. Those are the two primary features but I enjoy using the rest of it."

"The most valuable feature is the risk-based access control."

"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."

"The best feature is the integration and the custom Python code that we can write. Splunk SOAR provides us with both of these capabilities, allowing us to integrate different security solutions with Splunk SOAR and take remediation actions directly on those security tools."

More Splunk SOAR pros

Cons

"Even now, we have workflows that are in production that use AI steps and I get different results, making it unusable to some degree."

"Regarding the pricing of Torq, I would say it is expensive."

"The initial deployment of Torq was not easy."

"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."

"The integration could be better. Cortex, for example, does not work with iPhone."

"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."

"Palo Alto needs to develop more AI-centric products."

"With Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR, managing its setup phase can be a complicated task."

"XSOAR could have more integration options."

"The solution is complicated to learn."

"Implementing this solution requires a lot of involvement from the vendor and it should be made easier for the partners."

"Its dashboard features need improvement."

More Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR cons

"I haven't used it fully, but based on my usage, I could not find simulation tools and features. It currently lacks simulation features, which are important for me for creating a playbook. It is also very expensive for my region."

"In my opinion, the focus should be on improving its simplicity, specifically the interface, and configuration."

"While support is available, the resources around Splunk SOAR are more homegrown by other users, and discovering different troubleshooting methods is harder to do with Splunk SOAR than with Enterprise Security or other Splunk services."

"The font used in the interface could be changed and made easier to read."

"The scalability could be better."

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

"The application does not work properly and does not pass the log-based configuration. I feel that some kind of review should happen in the application. This review should validate things so that we can get the right information. Splunk does not tell us where the IP address is associated with."

"Unfortunately, not all of our analysts are iPhone users or iOS users. The mobile app is only supported on iOS. Our analysts who have Android do not have that benefit. That would be a nice thing to have so that we can have it across the board and not just for iOS."

More Splunk SOAR cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The price of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is expensive."

"There is a yearly license required for this solution and it is expensive."

"Palo Alto offers significant discounts to customers who purchase the products repeatedly."

"It is expensive."

"It's cheaper compared to its competitors."

"The solution is expensive."

"The solution's pricing needs improvement."

"From the cost perspective, I have heard that its price is a bit high as compared to other similar products."

More Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

"Splunk is a fast enterprise tool, but it costs too much. At the same time, it's worth what we pay, in my opinion. We can efficiently perform all the functions and tie together the data. It's the perfect tool for our needs."

"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."

"The cost is high and the licensing is on an annual basis."

"We renewed it this year. This year was the first time there was a dramatic increase in the price. It was kind of non-negotiable. It was just a high increase. We had internal communications, and it was definitely a surprise to us. In a short time frame, we renewed it this year. Prices are going up everywhere, but they are not always justifiable, at least not to our eyes. The pricing this year was definitely a big shock."

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

More Splunk SOAR pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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Answers from the Community

it_user870255

Works at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Jun 15, 2018

Which Do You Recommend, Phantom or Demisto?

See 2 answers

Claudia Lorat

Consultant

May 23, 2018

Read full answer

it_user889167

Director Of Business Development at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

Jun 15, 2018

I would recommend CyberSponse. There is a reason why CyberSponse have been awarded Government and Military contracts over all the competition! Commerical customers need the same power and capability, why settle for anything less!

Read full answer

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	25

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	33

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Torq?

Regarding the downsides of Torq, one issue is that as a SaaS product, I sometimes encounter transparency issues about...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Torq?

My role is Cyber Security Engineer, and we use Torq for our case management platform, automating some of our phishing...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Torq?

Torq's maintenance requirements depend on how you define maintenance. While Torq handles the platform's overall relia...

See all answers

What do you like most about Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR?

The product can automate security tasks.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR?

I think Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR can be improved as it has a little bit higher cost than any other SOAR. I thi...

See all answers

What do you like most about Splunk Phantom?

Splunk SOAR's quick response to incidents is the most valuable part.

See all answers

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

I am familiar with the pricing aspect, setup cost, and licensing cost of Splunk SOAR, and it is pretty much similar t...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Splunk Phantom?

There are areas for improvement in Splunk SOAR, such as the need for more code-level customizations despite providing...

See all answers

Comparisons

Tines vs Torq

Compared 44% of the time

Blink Ops vs Torq

Compared 12% of the time

Swimlane vs Torq

Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiSOAR vs Torq

Compared 3% of the time

Cortex XSIAM vs Torq

Compared 3% of the time

More Torq Competitors

Cortex XSIAM vs Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR

Compared 24% of the time

Fortinet FortiSOAR vs Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR

Compared 7% of the time

ServiceNow Security Operations vs Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR

Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft Sentinel vs Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR

Compared 4% of the time

IBM Resilient vs Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR

Compared 3% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR Competitors

Fortinet FortiSOAR vs Splunk SOAR

Compared 12% of the time

Tines vs Splunk SOAR

Compared 9% of the time

ServiceNow Security Operations vs Splunk SOAR

Compared 7% of the time

Google Security Operations vs Splunk SOAR

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Sentinel vs Splunk SOAR

Compared 4% of the time

More Splunk SOAR Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Torq

January 2026

Download Torq product report

Buyer's Guide

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR

January 2026

Download Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk SOAR

January 2026

Download Splunk SOAR product report

Also Known As

No data available

Demisto Enterprise, Cortex XSOAR, Demisto

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

Palo Alto Networks delivers a complete solution that helps Tier-1 through Tier-3 analysts and SOC managers to optimize the entire incident life cycle while auto documenting and journaling all the evidence. More than 100+ integrations enable security orchestration workflows for incident management and other critical security operation tasks.

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is a piece of Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response software that redefines what it means for a program to orchestrate security in an automated manner. It is a next-generation solution that offers all of the features of dozens of siloed security operations center tools in one place. Cortex XSOAR combines case management, automation, real-time collaboration, and threat intelligence management to create a platform that can handle all aspects of system security. Teams that make use of Cortex XSOAR can expect to cut the number of issues that they will have to deal with by 75%. At the same time, the speed at which they resolve those issues that slip through will rise by 90%.

Cortex XSOAR ensures that all of the IT and security tools that you employ function as a unified system. It does this by employing hundreds of integrations that allow you to run a wide variety of programs at once without ever worrying about them interfering with each other. These integrations are limited only by your imagination. They can be used immediately as they are, if that is what you need. However, they can also be customized according to the requirements of your system. This approach provides you with the maximum levels of both flexibility and utility.

The model that this platform uses is based on a machine learning algorithm. The level of automation allows you to provide more than an unchanging and inflexible blanket of coverage. Cortex XSOAR takes all of the data that it gathers and uses it to expand its protective capabilities. This creates recommendations that you can use to create a threat playbook that can be deployed uniformly throughout your organization.

Benefits of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR

Some of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR’s benefits include:

The ability to have all of your data collected in a single location. Valuable time can be saved now that everything that security analysts need to know in order to diagnose and react to threats has been centralized.
Security operations center tasks can be automated. This allows you to assign management and analyst staff to the most essential tasks. The effectiveness of your organization will be increased, which will result in a rise in your company’s overall security and productivity.
Many kinds of data can be stitched together by this platform. Network, endpoint, cloud, and identity data can be combined to offer a more complete picture of the threats that are discovered.
Integrated threat intelligence management can notify you about threats in real time. Now you can diagnose and address issues as they arise. You can also assign values to the threats so that your resources are being used in the most effective manner possible.

Reviews from Real Users

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR’s centralized monitoring interface and automation are two features that help it stand out. This might help explain why one quarter of the Fortune 500 companies choose Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR over the competition.

Peerspot users note the effectiveness of these features. One user wrote, “We were looking for a single pane of glass type of solution that would allow us to physically be in one appliance - be able to work in concert with other servers that we have within our environment. We wanted orchestration and automation. The single pane of glass was the most important part.” Another noted, "The automation part and the playbook creation part are awesome. The way it is responding to the customers and incidents is also very good. In the SOC environment, I guess it will carry out around 50% of the work."

Palo Alto Networks

Splunk SOAR offers features like automation and orchestration of manual tasks, speeding up work, detection and response to advanced and emerging threats.

Go from overwhelmed to in-control

Automate manual tasks. Address every alert, every day. Establish repeatable procedures that allow security analysts to stop being reactive and focus on mission-critical objectives to protect your business.

Force multiply your team

Orchestrate and automate repetitive tasks, investigation and response to increase efficiency and productivity, and do more with the people you already have. Make a team of three feel like a team of 10.

From 30 minutes to 30 seconds

Work faster with Splunk SOAR. Respond to threats in seconds. Lower your mean time to respond (MTTR) by automating security tasks and workflows across all of your security tools.

End-to-end security operations made easy

Take advantage of Splunk Enterprise Security and Splunk SOAR joining forces to provide a seamless and intuitive SecOps platform to prevent, detect and respond to advanced and emerging threats.

Splunk

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Cellcom Israel, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, esri, Cylance, Flatiron Health, Veeva, ADT Cybersecurity

Recorded Future, Blackstone

Buyer's Guide

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR vs. Splunk SOAR

December 2025

Free Report: Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR vs. Splunk SOAR

Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR vs. Splunk SOAR and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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