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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)
4th
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)
31st
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (27th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response is 8.4%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response8.4%
CRITICALSTART0.8%
Other90.8%
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.
JH
The transparency of data in the platform is perfect: You see everything as they are seeing it
Their Zero Trust Analytics Platform (ZTAP) engine, which is kind of their correlation engine, is by far and away one of the best in the business. We can filter and utilize different lists to build out different alerts, such as, what to alert on and when not to alert. This engine helps reduce our number of alerts and false positives. The service's Trusted Behavior Registry helps the provider solve every alert. The way that they have it built out is very intelligent. The way every alert comes in, it gets triaged one direction or another. If it is already a false positive, then it is still getting addressed and reviewed on a regular cadence. Also, true positive alerts get escalated to the appropriate personnel. Its mobile app is great. The ability just to be able to quick reference and see what's coming in when you're on the move or go. You don't always need to have your computer or laptop handy, because you can operate it just from the mobile app. It can communicate with analysts, which is great. The mobile app is great at affecting the efficiency of our security operations. Those guys are using it throughout the day, whether that be at the office, home, or off hours. Typically, they triage from the mobile app. Then, if an escalation needs to be done on a computer, they will pull out a computer. We were on the original UI for a few years, so the updated UI has been a refreshing change. It has significantly more ability to filter and translate data, then load that data. It is rather intuitive to click through for some of our junior analysts or interns, especially as we are starting to onboard and teach them different aspects of the security operations team.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can effectively manage the massive amounts of security data that we receive from various sources such as firewalls, switches, endpoints, and other log sources."
"After an easy onboarding, the monitoring started immediately."
"The integration between Cisco AMPs and the Windows servers is most valuable. So, they can also sandbox machines on which they see something suspicious."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its ease of implementation."
"The agents give pretty good visibility into what is happening at the endpoint."
"The product provides integrations with several different SaaS applications."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is the managed detection and response component."
"Arctic Wolf is laser-focused on providing top-notch customer service."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"From where we were prior to going into them, the service has increased our analysts’ efficiency to the point that they can focus on other areas of the business. It gives me the ability to allow analysts to do Level 3 and 4 work and stay out of the weeds of the alerts, where you tend to get alert fatigue. The service takes care of much of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 triage. It is more effective than what we had been used to, because it allows the filtering of Level 1 and Level 2 type alerts to be taken care of. This leaves less for us to handle, which is a good thing."
"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."
"There is a team of people who monitor our traffic and processes 24/7, so if anything raises a flag or alert, it will escalate back to me right away. That's the most incredible part: Humans working behind the scenes 24/7 to monitor our networks."
"The way that the user interface presents data enables our team to be able to make decisions significantly quicker, rather than have to dig into the details or go back to the original tools."
"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."
 

Cons

"While they do inventory assets, including software inventory and CVE updates based on software subscriptions, would be a major improvement."
"The implementation process could be a little more streamlined."
"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."
"We get a lot of false alarms, but that's because they don't know our network in detail. I think that could be alleviated if we told them more about our network so they could create rules to skip some of those things."
"More integrations with various security tools to improve data ingestion would be beneficial."
"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."
"I would actually be interested in having fewer features at a lower price."
"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."
"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."
"There is room for improvement with the new UI, and that's about it. I would like to see a more intuitive design."
"The biggest room for improvement is not necessarily in their service or offering, but in the products that they support. I would like them to further their knowledge and ability to integrate with those tools. They have base integrations with everything, and we haven't come across anything. They should just continue to build on that API interface between their applications and other third-party consoles."
"The UI has become slower but it's not something I would call them out on."
"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."
"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."
"They could dig a little bit deeper into the Splunk alerts when they feel like they need to be escalated to us. For example, if a locked account shows up, they could do a little extra digging to verify that the locked account was due to a bad password on the local system. They could just do a little extra digging within the Splunk environment instead of pushing it onto us to go do that extra little digging."
"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..."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 is fair."
"I find their pricing to be reasonable and competitive."
"The pricing is pretty competitive."
"I rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten."
"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."
"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."
"I've told CRITICALSTART that I think the managed service they provide is cheaper than it should be. It's a really good deal."
"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"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."
"The pricing of other services was so insane that they weren't even an option."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
Real Estate/Law Firm
13%
Healthcare Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response vs. CRITICALSTART and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.