SOAR vs SIEM: What's the Difference?
SIEM detects threats through log analysis while SOAR automates response—together they create a powerful defense that cuts incident response times from hours to minutes.
TL;DR
One important issue that SIEM addresses is detection and visibility—it does this by gathering and studying logs related to security. SOAR, on the other hand, focuses on response and automation by orchestrating workflows for incidents across various tools. When used together, these technologies can decrease mean time to respond (MTTR) by an impressive 45–55%.
Introduction
A financial institution's security operations team was overwhelmed, drowning in alerts. They were getting 15,000 security warnings every single hour, and most were just false alarms.
Because of this, analysts spent their days figuring out which alerts needed attention: they jumped between tools and had to write down everything they did.
As a result, important threats sometimes went unnoticed for hours—or even days. Then one of the managers had an idea: They connected their SIEM to a SOAR platform.
Incredible things happened. Response times changed dramatically: it was a matter of minutes, not hours. The team finally got to do some real threat hunting instead of endlessly chasing alerts.
This isn’t an isolated success story. More and more organizations around the world are realizing something key: SIEM and SOAR technologies together are better than apart. When combined, they create a truly powerful security operations capability.
What is SOAR?
An automation platform known as SOAR, which stands for Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response, automates tasks within security operations. Such a system links together various tools and data sources and then uses playbooks and workflows to determine how to respond. If given alerts from multiple sources, a SOAR platform can also take action using predefined patterns—and accomplish this without needing a person to intervene.
Key Capabilities:
- Automated playbook execution: Rapid automated responses with pre-programmed playbooks and workflows including faster containment of threats such as malware
- Case management: Complete integrated workspace allowing analysts to research threats, assess them, and respond via the same interface
- Threat intelligence enrichment: Improved alert prioritization using additional context pulled automatically from external feeds, OSINT sources, and threat databases
- Tool orchestration: Integration of over 500 security tools, enabling the coordination of actions across your entire infrastructure—from endpoints to firewalls and everything in between.
What is SIEM?
A SIEM system—or security information and event management system—is key to spotting cyber threats as they happen. It pulls together log data from devices and software on your network and in the cloud; correlates events; and provides real-time alerts along with compliance reports for regulators.
Core Functions:
- Log collection and normalization: Ingests data from firewalls, endpoints, cloud services, applications, and network devices into a unified format
- Event correlation: Uses rules and machine learning to identify patterns across disconnected events that indicate threats
- Real-time alerting: Generates notifications when predefined conditions or anomalies are detected, enabling rapid threat identification
- Compliance reporting: Maintains audit trails for regulatory frameworks like PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, and SOC2
Differences Between SOAR and SIEM
While both technologies strengthen security operations, they serve distinct purposes. SIEM tells you what's happening, while SOAR tells you what to do about it.
What are the Benefits of SOAR?
- Dramatically reduced response times: Automated playbooks compress incident handling from hours to minutes, with organizations reporting 45-55% reductions in MTTR
- Elimination of alert fatigue: Automated triage and enrichment filters false positives before they reach analysts, letting teams focus on genuine threats
- Consistent incident response: Playbooks ensure every analyst follows the same proven procedures, reducing errors and maintaining quality across shifts
- Freed analyst capacity: Automation handles routine investigations, giving senior analysts time for threat hunting and strategic security initiatives
- Seamless tool integration: SOAR orchestrates actions across your entire security stack, eliminating the need to manually jump between dozens of consoles
- Enhanced threat intelligence: Automatic enrichment with context from external feeds helps prioritize alerts based on real-world threat relevance
What are the Benefits of SIEM?
- Comprehensive threat visibility: Centralized log collection from every corner of your environment—endpoints, cloud services, applications, and network devices
- Real-time threat detection: Correlation engines spot suspicious patterns like impossible travel logins, unusual data transfers, or privilege escalations as they occur
- Simplified compliance: Automated audit trails and reporting for PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, and SOC2—turning two-week compliance reviews into single-click reports
- Historical investigation: Long-term log retention enables forensic analysis to understand attack timelines, identify patient zero, and prevent recurrence
- Advanced analytics: Machine learning and behavioral analysis detect anomalies that rule-based systems miss—catching insider threats and zero-day exploits
- Cross-environment correlation: Unified view across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid infrastructures reveals multi-stage attacks that span different environments
How Can Secure.com Enhance SOAR and SIEM
Secure.com addresses the critical gaps that traditional SIEM and SOAR solutions leave behind. While conventional platforms struggle with tool sprawl and manual processes, Secure.com delivers an AI-first, unified approach that optimizes both detection and response.
Native SIEM with Enhanced Intelligence
Secure.com includes a built-in SIEM module that aggregates and correlates events from endpoints, infrastructure, and integrated tools. Unlike legacy SIEM platforms that generate alert fatigue, Secure.com leverages AI-powered event correlation to dramatically reduce false positives while ensuring real threats rise to the top.
Automated Response Workflows
The platform features drag-and-drop workflow automation that rivals dedicated SOAR solutions. Security teams can build custom playbooks without coding—automating everything from identity control analysis to compliance case management. These workflows integrate with 500+ security tools through a modular, scalable architecture.
AI-Powered Digital Teammates
Secure.com deploys AI-powered Digital Security Teammates that handle real-time alerts, triage, investigation, and response—optimizing MTTD by 30-40% and MTTR by 45-55%. These Digital Security Teammates don't just automate tasks; they make intelligent decisions based on context, threat landscape, and business process workflows—always with human oversight for sensitive actions.
Unified Platform Advantage
Traditional approaches force teams to manage separate SIEM and SOAR products, creating integration headaches and visibility gaps. Secure.com reduces tool sprawl by 50% by combining real-time visibility, automated response, compliance automation, and vulnerability management into one context-aware platform.
Cloud-Native Design
Built on microservices architecture, Secure.com scales effortlessly across cloud, SaaS, and hybrid environments. The platform automatically discovers and classifies assets, builds knowledge graphs, and provides attack surface visibility with real-time visual updates—capabilities that extend far beyond traditional SIEM/SOAR limitations.
FAQs
How do SOAR and SIEM use threat intelligence differently? ▼
SIEM systems use threat intelligence mostly for matching and detecting known bad activity through indicators present in logs. SOAR platforms enrich this process with added context. When a notification is triggered, SOAR draws information from multiple threat intelligence feeds to assess the alert’s severity in real-time based on indicators such as IP addresses or domains being part of cybercrime campaigns— all without needing human input.
How scalable are SOAR and SIEM platforms? ▼
SIEMs can become less efficient when there are more logs to process than they were designed for—necessitating expensive upgrades or additional hardware. SOAR is much simpler to expand because it deals with alerts rather than raw data. Cloud-based variants for either kind of platform offer better scalability; nevertheless, it is still important for teams to account for SIEM ingestion costs as well as the complexities involved in automating with SOAR while they develop.
Do SIEM or SOAR tools offer compliance benefits? ▼
SIEM plays an integral role in fulfilling compliance requirements by providing all audit information, reports, and logs as mandated by laws such as GDPR or PCI DSS. SOAR enhances this aspect by systematically responding to incidents, keeping accurate records, and generating audit trails. You can think of these two technologies not as replacements for one another but rather as covering all bases when it comes to process as well as real-time operational insight.
How do SOAR and SIEM support threat intelligence management? ▼
SIEM uses threat intel to correlate external indicators with internal activity and flag known attack patterns. SOAR manages what happens next—updating playbooks, sharing indicators, and feeding investigation results back into intel systems. Used together, they continuously improve both detection and response.
Conclusion
And so the question facing security teams isn't whether they should invest in SIEM or SOAR technology (you need them both), but more how best to integrate the two seamlessly into a single, coherent whole.
Start simply by ensuring good SIEM coverage to provide that all-important threat visibility; then add SOAR automation atop this foundation in order to amplify and scale your human defenders' abilities.
For those teams seeking an integrated solution enabling close-knit cooperation between detection, analysis, and response, platforms such as Secure.com offer a compelling choice– one system combining native SIEM, AI-assisted playbooks, plus automated incident workflows.
