Every year, Gartner releases a series of market research reports describing technology providers in different markets. The Magic Quadrant report compares the products and services these providers offer in a simple graph format. 

As of 2024, Gartner publishes a Market Guide for Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR), but there is no dedicated Magic Quadrant report for the technology.  

What makes the Magic Quadrant unique? 

Consulting is Gartner’s core business. To generate value for its customers, it must conduct research on a wide range of technology vendors. Its highly structured methodology sets it apart from other technology consultants and professional services firms.  

The Magic Quadrant is the result of Gartner’s unique methodology, designed specifically for technology providers in fast-growing markets. It gives decision-makers a wide perspective into how competing products match up to one another against a uniform set of evaluation criteria. 

There are more than 120 individual Magic Quadrant reports. Each one describes a specific technology or market sector, like Security Information and Event Management (SIEM). It divides several companies in that market subsector into four categories: 

• Leaders have excellent execution and are well-positioned to meet future market demands. 

• Challengers have excellent execution but may not be prepared for the future market demands that Gartner expects. 

• Visionaries understand market trends and are prepared for upcoming changes, but do not currently execute as consistently as others. 

• Niche Players often focus on a small segment of the market. They do not outperform competitors in execution, nor do they have a complete vision of future market demand. 

How does Gartner create the Magic Quadrant? 

Creating a Magic Quadrant report requires deep analysis into how different providers compete in real-world use cases. The process begins with a Gartner analyst contacting the vendors to inform them of the company’s market definition, inclusion criteria, and evaluation criteria. This typically happens 2-5 months before the report is due to be published.  

The analyst will then gather information from a variety of sources. The reports are informed by public information, interviews with customers, and direct contact with vendors. When researching the market, Gartner analysts may: 

• Attend product demonstrations and vendor briefings  

• Conduct surveys 

• Interview customers  

• Interview industry leaders and experts 

• Consult public resources, like earnings reports and published articles  

• Consult other Gartner analysts  

• Review social media contributions and interactions, including Gartner Peer Insights. 

Vendors can’t opt in or out of the reporting process, but Gartner does inform them of their placement in the quadrant and ask them to confirm the factual accuracy of the report. 

When will Gartner create a Magic Quadrant for SOAR? 

Not likely. On June 17th 2024, Gartner included SOAR in its IT Service Management Software (ITSM) Hype Cycle report. This is not a Magic Quadrant report, but it gives insight into what Gartner thinks about the technology.  

The report places SOAR at the bottom of a column called the “Trough of Disillusionment”. It says SOAR “requires both development and ongoing operational cycles to maintain,” and explains that justifying the expense of SOAR implementation “remains an obstacle for clients.” 

Gartner claims that SOAR has been made obsolete by modern security automations based on generative AI technology. It distinguishes between earlier generations of legacy SOAR platforms and new workflow automation tools that offer deeper integration with incident response operations. 

This means Gartner will probably not expend the resources needed to create a Magic Quadrant specifically for SOAR. But that doesn’t mean that SOAR no longer generates value for IT leaders and decision-makers. It only means Gartner feels that SOAR, as a standalone technology, has been surpassed. 

Identifying the road forward for SOAR 

SOAR is not dead. The bottom-line use case for SOAR is more relevant than ever. Orchestrating incident response using automation still addresses alert fatigue, reduces false positives, and enhances security performance. SOAR remains an important part of operational security excellence—just not as a standalone solution.  

Instead, SOAR capabilities are being integrated into other security products and tools. Next-generation SIEM platforms and cloud security solutions now support native integrations for automating third-party tools directly. That means enterprise security teams can leverage SOAR as a feature embedded in their tech stack. 

This closely mirrors the evolution of other high-profile security technologies over time. For example, User Entity and Behavior Analytics (UEBA) began as a cutting-edge technology delivered by pure-play vendors. It was so successful that today’s vendors have integrated UEBA into almost every advanced analytics tool.  

Now, security leaders expect behavioral analytics from most of their tools. Modern SIEMs perform behavioral analytics. Cloud security tools generate alerts based on behavioral analysis. Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tools look for behavioral indicators of compromise.  

The same thing is now happening for SOAR. Modern enterprise security teams may not need to implement standalone SOAR solutions, as they are using SOAR capabilities built into some X toolset they already possess. 

Orchestrate and automate incident response with Lumifi 

Cross-platform automation is more important than ever. SOAR technology continues to play a pivotal role in operational security excellence, but as a built-in feature of consolidated security platforms. 

The modern approach to security orchestration and automation goes beyond standalone SOAR solutions. Maximizing the efficiency of a Security Operations Center (SOC) is a people, process, and technology effort. It involves automating simple, repetitive tasks while writing, testing, and managing incident response playbooks proactively. 

Automating every single manual task in the SOC may not be feasible. Boosting operational performance with AI-powered automation enhanced with expert human insight is. Talk to an expert at Lumifi to learn more about how we can help you build intelligent automation into your security posture.