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Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response vs CRITICALSTART comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

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

Arctic Wolf Managed Detecti...
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
5th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
SOC as a Service (1st)
CRITICALSTART
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
33rd
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response is 9.0%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
 

Featured Reviews

Kimberly Brock - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time threat detection has improved with comprehensive asset scanning
The threat intelligence feature is expected to be a significant advantage. However, a section for software inventory and real-time comparison with current CVEs would be beneficial. One can review an inventory of assets being scanned, including a software inventory along with CVE updates based on a company's software subscriptions, would be a game changer.
PB
Saves my team time and alert fatigue, allowing us to concentrate on more important things
The Trusted Behavior Registry helps resolve alerts in the sense that CRITICALSTART is doing a lot of that initial triage for me. Out of a given 500,000 events and alerts, for example, that come through, they're taking out 495,000 of them. That only leaves me with a subset of that to actually have to triage, and that's where it benefits us. They take care of Tier-1 and Tier-2 triage. And the new mobile app is awesome. It is one of the best I've ever seen. It's much better than its predecessor. It's more intuitive, a whole lot easier to navigate and get where you need to go. It's less repetitive and just generally easier to use. It allows me to not have to be sitting at my computer all the time. I can be on my phone or tablet or wherever I'm at. It makes it a lot easier to answer tickets and do that kind of thing. Also, the intuitiveness of the updated user interface for the service is spot-on. It is much easier to navigate, and know where to navigate, in the newer interface. I've never had an issue with responsiveness. It's very quick and doesn't sit there and chug on anything. It's fast, it's efficient. It has enabled our SecOps team to take action faster because if you have multiple ways of connecting to it and actually getting your alerts answered and taking care of things fast, it is extremely helpful. All the information that you need to make a determination is usually in the alert itself that comes through the Zero-Trust Analytics Platform (ZTAP). I don't find myself going back to the app itself very often. That still happens, but not as often. The ability to flow the information forward, from the alert standpoint, helps me because it saves me from running back to get the information. It's improved my efficiency. Finally, there haven't been any data sources that the service wasn't able to integrate with.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The asset scanning feature and the entire solution, especially their advanced threat protection recently released, are very effective."
"What's valuable about Arctic Wolf AWN CyberSOC is the cost savings it provides for companies that no longer have to hire a bunch of security people and pay for a SIM."
"Arctic Wolf is laser-focused on providing top-notch customer service."
"They provide useful quarterly updates."
"Security protection is the best feature of this product."
"This service makes answering audits much easier since it covers so many security best practices."
"Having quarterly meetings with the team to review the last 90 days and determine what if any changes need to be made."
"The tool definitely saves money for our company's customers."
"I also use their mobile app. It's very easy to use and very convenient to be able to respond to alerts wherever you are. I love the app. You can respond and communicate, per ticket, with their SOC in near real-time. The response is very quick."
"Customer service and their response are phenomenal. I would give their customer support a nine point five (out of 10). Our easy access to their SOC analyst, sales team, and leadership team instills confidence in me that they are there for us 24/7."
"My impression of the transparency of the data is that it has good detail. It allows you to see how many events have come in, how many of those events have made it down to their analysts to review, and then however many from their analysts to be able to close out, have been able to been escalated to us. It's a good metric that we can share with my management. They see the value of what the SOC is bringing on top of what my team is already doing."
"The most valuable feature of their service is their tuning... If we were getting 1,000 alerts a day without them, they tune it until they know what to do for 999 of them, and one will make it through to us per day. That tuning is the most valuable part of their solution."
"Outside of using the platform to manage alerts, the feature of the service that we get the most value from is being able to reach out to them and say, "Hey, we might go buy a SIEM," for example. They give us their overview of what's out there, what they've dealt with, what they integrate with, and what that looks like. That's been pretty powerful over the years for us."
"The quick interaction between the agents is the most valuable feature. If we have questions, they're quick to answer. If we make a change to our system, they quickly make the changes that are necessary to filter the logs correctly."
"There are two parts of CRITICALSTART's services that are most valuable to us. The MDR solution where they monitor our computers, laptops, and users across the board; and their knowledge of Palo Alto firewalls."
"The main difference between the other options and this one is the quality of the personnel within the SOC. It's their knowledge and depth and the way they handle customers."
 

Cons

"While they do inventory assets, including software inventory and CVE updates based on software subscriptions, would be a major improvement."
"The only frustrating aspect is the lack of support for Windows on ARM devices. We cannot fully secure these devices until they release an updated version of their agent software."
"Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response's analysis and remediation parts could be improved. It's not bad, but it needs improvement."
"It can sometimes take up to an hour to get notification of a problem and that's a long time."
"They could probably expand on their integration tools. They can integrate with more security tools."
"More integrations with various security tools to improve data ingestion would be beneficial."
"I can't think of any specific features that they need to add at the moment. As long as they continue to develop new solutions to support different operating systems and technologies, we are satisfied with their service. We appreciate the effort they put into adding new features and functionality to their service and believe they are doing a great job in providing us with all the necessary tools and resources to stay secure."
"I would like to see them build the ability to co-sell an EDR platform, manage an EDR or manage the actual response, potentially from the issues that are coming up from the security risks."
"The UI has become slower but it's not something I would call them out on."
"They just did a user interface overhaul to the website portal that you use for troubleshooting tickets. The old one was fine. The new one is not intuitive..."
"During the six-month integration and rollout, there were some bumpy roads along the way. There were communication breakdowns between the project manager, CRITICALSTART leadership, and us (as the customer). I expressed my displeasure during the integration in their inability to effectively communicate when there were holdups or issues. They were going through some growing pains at that time, but they have been right there for us ever since."
"In terms of responsiveness, when I open up an alert, sometimes it takes a bit of time to load. However, it only happened once or twice."
"There is room for improvement with the new UI, and that's about it. I would like to see a more intuitive design."
"It has frustrated us that they don't have a native Slack integration, because most things do now. That's something we've asked for, for years, and it just doesn't really seem like it's a priority."
"The updated UI is actually pretty bad. Regarding the intuitiveness, it is fairly easy to use, but the responsiveness, on a scale of one to 10, is a one. It's really poor performance."
"The only thing I can think of that I would like to see, and I'm sure they could work this into a service pretty easily, is not only alerts on issues that are affecting my company, but some threat intelligence of a general nature on what's out there in the environment. That might be a nice add-in."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I find their pricing to be reasonable and competitive."
"The pricing is fair."
"The pricing is pretty competitive."
"I rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten."
"It is more expensive than CrowdStrike, but it also has more features. I don't remember the amount, but I do remember that it was on the higher side. I believe we have five sensors, and the sensors have a yearly cost. We don't have any additional costs, but I know that if we have more features, they will add to the cost."
"The pricing has always been competitive. They have always been good to us. They will make it a fight. They don't try to hide anything; it's always been fully transparent and well-worth what we pay for it."
"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"As far as the expense goes, it's very competitive pricing and the services you get are almost like you have a person on your team."
"I've told CRITICALSTART that I think the managed service they provide is cheaper than it should be. It's a really good deal."
"The pricing of other services was so insane that they weren't even an option."
"There are contractual penalties if their SLAs are not met. This commitment was very important in our decision to go with this service, because not having downtime is extremely important to us. The providers has not missed an SLA in the 18 months that I have worked with them."
"Overall, for what I'm paying for it, and the benefit I'm getting out of it, it is right where it needs to be, if not a little bit in my favor. For what it costs me to actually have this service, I could afford one internal person to do that job, but now I have a team of 10 or more who are doing that job, and they don't sleep because they work shifts."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Real Estate/Law Firm
12%
Healthcare Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response?
The agents give pretty good visibility into what is happening at the endpoint.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response?
The pricing is okay and comparable to other solutions, with competitive pricing obtained for most options. We value the ease of use and hands-off approach.
What needs improvement with Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response?
The only frustrating aspect is the lack of support for Windows on ARM devices. We cannot fully secure these devices until they release an updated version of their agent software.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Arctic Wolf AWN CyberSOC
Critical Start, CriticalStart
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Agero, Madison Memorial Hospital, DLZ, Howard LLP, City of Sparks
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Find out what your peers are saying about Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response vs. CRITICALSTART and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
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