We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks Cortez XSOAR and Splunk Phantom based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both solutions come across as reliable and powerful products. Cortex does slightly better in the Pricing category, however.
"Investigations are something really remarkable. We can drill down right to the raw logs by running different queries and getting those on the console itself."
"It is quite efficient. It helps our clients in identifying their security issues and respond quickly. Our clients want to automate incident response and all those things."
"Sentinel also enables you to ingest data from your entire ecosystem and not just from the Microsoft ecosystem. It can receive data from third-party vendors' products such firewalls, network devices, and antivirus solutions. It's not only a Microsoft solution, it's for everything."
"Sentinel is a Microsoft product, so they provide very robust use cases and analytic groups, which are very beneficial for the security team. I also like the ability to integrate data sources into the software for on-premise and cloud-based solutions."
"Mainly, this is a cloud-native product. So, there are zero concerns about managing the whole infrastructure on-premises."
"I like the ability to run custom KQL queries. I don't know if that feature is specific to Sentinel. As far as I know, they are using technology built into Azure's Log Analytics app. Sentinel integrates with that, and we use this functionality heavily."
"You can fine-tune the SOAR and you'll be charged only when your playbooks are triggered. That is the beauty of the solution because the SOAR is the costliest component in the market today... but with Sentinel it is upside-down: the SOAR is the lowest-hanging fruit. It's the least costly and it delivers more value to the customer."
"Free ingestion for Azure logs (with E5 licence)"
"It is a scalable solution."
"Palo Alto is easy to use."
"I am satisfied with the product overall."
"The most valuable features are the orchestration because of the way in which it coordinates the loss from all the devices and it provides us with a high-level overview of the critical log information."
"The most valuable features are simplicity and ease of integration."
"It is quite scalable. I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"It was useful as a ticketing tool."
"The solution is user-friendly and easy to configure."
"The solution’s dashboard is really good and customizable. It also has a good UI."
"The most valuable feature of Splunk SOAR that stands out is it has a great SOAR. The automation and orchestration module is highly mature. A lot of use cases are on user entity and behavioral analytics (UEBA), which is artificial intelligence and machine learning-based (AIML)."
"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 automation part of the product is great."
"Technical support is helpful."
"The most valuable features of Splunk SOAR are the easy integration with other solutions, including other Splunk solutions. The most important playbooks we need on the market come already on the Frontend. However, nowadays, Splunk changed its name, it's not Frontend anymore, it's Splunk Store. This is a very strong point."
"The customizable playbook is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"Our customers find it easy to conduct searches and consider it an excellent content management system."
"Sentinel still has some anomalies. For example, sometimes when we write a query for log analysis with KQL, it doesn't give us the data in a proper way... Also, the fields or columns could be improved. Sometimes, it is not giving the desired results and there is a blank field."
"I can't think of anything other than just getting the name out there. I think a lot of customers don't fully understand the full capabilities of Azure Sentinel yet. It is kind of like when they're first starting to use Azure, it might not be something they first think about. So, they should just kind of get to the point where it is more widely used."
"Its implementation could be simpler. It is not really simple or straightforward. It is in the middle. Sometimes, connectors are a little bit complex."
"Sentinel provides decent visibility, but it's sometimes a little cumbersome to get to the information I want because there is so much information. I would also like to see more seamless integration between Sentinel and third-party security products."
"We've seen delays in getting the logs from third-party solutions and sometimes Microsoft products as well. It would be helpful if Microsoft created a list of the delays. That would make things more transparent for customers."
"I would like to be able to monitor applications outside of the Azure Cloud."
"The product can be improved by reducing the cost to use AI machine learning."
"I would like to see more AI used in processes."
"Palo Alto needs to develop more AI-centric products."
"The price of the solution could be improved."
"When Palo Alto bought the solution, the pricing increased by 1.5 times. There's been a 50% increase, which is a lot."
"Previously, when Demisto was, there was a community edition; we could use it, reinstall it, and customize it. Since Palo Alto took over, it has become more financially oriented. It's business, but they could offer a pro model and a lighter model for different needs."
"Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR could improve the Panorama feature. We had to turn it off because it was not working properly."
"It is been decommissioned by Palo Alto."
"Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR could improve the look, feel, and management of the cloud console. Additionally, the user could be more easily integrated."
"The dashboard performance could be improved."
"Some of the training materials are on a basic level."
"The tool's response is slower because it has to search through a huge dataset, which can be improved for latency."
"Portability is one thing that is currently lacking. The open-source product that I evaluated had portability. It would require a lot of development effort, but it will save the cost of rewriting all the playbooks."
"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.."
"Creating playbooks using the solution’s playbook editor, for me, is very cumbersome. There have been instances where I have said to myself that I just don't want to use this editor. I might just use a code block and write my own code within it... The functionality in the playbook editor is 80 percent there, but that 20 percent is still lacking. They could make it more efficient."
"It could be easier to implement."
"And most of the challenges that I have faced with the solution can be found in the documentation itself."
"Splunk's support for integration is subpar and has room for improvement."
More Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR Pricing and Cost Advice →
Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is ranked 2nd in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) with 42 reviews while Splunk SOAR is ranked 3rd in Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) with 32 reviews. Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is rated 8.4, while Splunk SOAR is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR writes "Enables the investigators to go through the review process a lot quicker". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Splunk SOAR writes "Takes most of the work away, but the time they take to implement new features is a little bit of concern". Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is most compared with Cortex XSIAM, Fortinet FortiSOAR, Swimlane, ServiceNow Security Operations and IBM Resilient, whereas Splunk SOAR is most compared with Cortex XSIAM, ServiceNow Security Operations, Torq, Swimlane and Siemplify. See our Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR vs. Splunk SOAR report.
See our list of best Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) vendors.
We monitor all Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
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