SIEM vs SOAR: Security Monitoring and Automation Compared

A SIEM (security information and event management) collects logs from across your systems, correlates them and raises alerts. A SOAR (security orchestration, automation and response) platform takes alerts from the SIEM and other tools and runs playbooks on them: gather context, open a ticket, disable an account, isolate a device. The SIEM decides what deserves attention and SOAR does the repeatable work that follows; many products now ship both, as Microsoft Sentinel does.

For a small business the practical question is less SIEM or SOAR than how much automation it already owns in XDR, and who handles what automation cannot. Our comparison of XDR vs SIEM covers the first purchase; for the team that runs these tools, see SOC vs NOC vs SIEM.

What is the difference between SIEM and SOAR?

XDR belongs in the same table, because for many small businesses it covers part of both jobs:

What is SOAR vs SIEM, step by step?

The clearest way to see the split is one alert, end to end. This is an illustrative playbook, not a client incident:

1. A user reports a phishing email, and the SIEM matches it with a sign-in to that user's account from an unfamiliar location minutes later. That correlation is SIEM work.
2. A SOAR playbook starts: it pulls the message headers, checks the link's reputation, searches other mailboxes for the same message, removes it and opens a ticket.
3. Because the user entered a password, the playbook revokes the user's sessions and forces a password reset, actions the business approved in advance.
4. An analyst reviews what the playbook did, checks the mailbox for new forwarding rules, and closes or escalates the case.

Microsoft describes Sentinel as both a SIEM and a SOAR platform: its automation rules and playbooks handle recurring enrichment, response and remediation tasks, and the playbooks are built on Azure Logic Apps.

Does SOAR need a SIEM?

Not strictly. SOAR can act on alerts from email security, EDR or a ticketing system, but the SIEM is usually where cross-source alerts come from, and a playbook built on noisy alerts automates noise. That is why guidance treats the two together: CISA and the Australian Cyber Security Centre published joint guidance for organizations procuring SIEM and SOAR platforms in May 2025, with separate documents for executives, practitioners and the logs to prioritize.

On the Splunk side, Splunk SOAR lists integrations with more than 300 third-party tools and more than 2,800 automated actions, and can run in the cloud, on premises or hybrid. Splunk describes SOAR as a native capability within Enterprise Security, while noting that SOAR used with Enterprise Security requires a Splunk SOAR subscription.

Where does XDR fit next to SIEM and SOAR?

XDR products now do part of SOAR's job for their own data. Microsoft Defender XDR, for example, correlates high-confidence signals across workloads and automatically applies containment to stop attacks in progress, which Microsoft calls automatic attack disruption, and uses automated actions to return affected devices, identities and mailboxes to a secure state. When a malicious file turns up on one device, it can have Defender for Office 365 remove that file from every mailbox. For a business that runs mostly on Microsoft 365, that built-in automation covers the common cases. A separate SOAR earns its place when you need playbooks across tools from several vendors, such as a firewall, a ticketing system and a non-Microsoft identity provider.

What should a small team automate first?

Start with the steps that are safe to repeat and easy to undo. In Sentinel, Microsoft lists what automation rules can do without any playbook: tag, assign or close incidents, and attach a list of tasks for the analyst. That is a sensible first step before playbooks start taking actions in other systems.

• Enrichment: look up the reputation of an address, a link or a file hash and attach the result to the alert.
• Routing: open the ticket, assign it and notify whoever is on call.
• Known noise: close alerts that match a documented false positive, and keep a record of each one.
• Containment last: disabling an account or isolating a device only after the business has approved that action for that kind of alert.

SIEM vs SOC vs SOAR: who does the work?

A SOC, or security operations center, is the team. The SIEM is where it looks, and SOAR is how it automates the repeatable parts. Buying the tools without the team gives you alerts and playbooks that nobody reviews; buying the team as a managed service gives you the tools and someone accountable for what they find.

Which fits a small team?

Illustrative situations, not client stories:

• A 30-person firm on Microsoft 365, no regulator asking for logs. XDR with its built-in automation, watched by a managed service. No SIEM or SOAR yet.
• A regulated firm that must keep a year of logs. A SIEM run by a managed SOC, using the SIEM's own automation rules for routine tasks before buying a separate SOAR.
• An IT team handling the same handful of alert types every day. That is the case for playbooks, after tuning out the noise so automation acts on real alerts.
• A mixed environment with a non-Microsoft firewall, identity provider and ticketing system. SOAR becomes useful for connecting actions across them.

What do SIEM and SOAR cost?

As of October 2026, Microsoft Sentinel's analytics tier lists at $4.30 per GB on pay-as-you-go in East US, with the first 90 days of retention included, and its playbooks run on Azure Logic Apps, which Microsoft lists as a separate cost in its Sentinel billing guide. Splunk publishes no prices for Enterprise Security or SOAR: Enterprise Security is priced by activity, workload or ingest on a quote, and SOAR offers a free trial. Beyond licenses, the cost drivers are the same on every platform:

• Data volume and retention for the SIEM.
• Building and testing playbooks, and maintaining each integration when a vendor changes its interface.
• Analyst time to review what automation did and to handle what it could not.

How does NetSys help?

Automation is only as safe as the rules behind it, so our SOC monitoring service starts with those decisions: which sources are connected, what counts as critical, who we call, and which containment actions we may take without asking, all written into the agreement. On the endpoint side, automated remediation is tuned to act on obvious threats and hand ambiguous ones to a person, and NetSys engineers review what it did. Tune the alerts first; automate them second.

Book a call with a NetSys engineer to see which response actions your current tools already automate.

Frequently asked questions

What is SOAR vs SIEM?

A SIEM collects and correlates logs to find what deserves attention. SOAR acts on those findings with playbooks that enrich alerts, open tickets and take approved containment steps. The SIEM detects; SOAR responds to the repeatable cases.

Is SOAR part of SIEM?

Sometimes. Microsoft Sentinel includes SOAR through automation rules and Logic Apps playbooks. Splunk sells Splunk SOAR as its own product that works with Enterprise Security. Standalone SOAR platforms also exist for teams with tools from many vendors.

XDR vs SIEM vs SOAR: which comes first?

For a typical small business, XDR comes first, because it detects and contains attacks on the endpoints, email and identities you already use. A SIEM comes next if a regulation or insurer requires centralized logs. A separate SOAR comes last, when alert volume across several vendors justifies building playbooks.

What affects cost, implementation and support?

For a SIEM, data volume and retention; for SOAR, the platform license and the work of building and maintaining playbooks. Implementation means connecting sources and testing each automated action against real alerts. Support is the analyst time to review results and to keep integrations working.

Can a small business use SOAR without a security team?

Not safely on its own. Playbooks need someone to design them, approve what they may do and review their results. A small business usually gets the benefit through the automation built into XDR or through a managed SOC that runs the playbooks.