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CRITICALSTART vs Carbon Black Managed Detection and Response 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

Carbon Black Managed Detect...
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
29th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
CRITICALSTART
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
30th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (26th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of Carbon Black Managed Detection and Response is 1.3%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Carbon Black Managed Detection and Response1.3%
CRITICALSTART1.1%
Other97.6%
Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
 

Featured Reviews

JS
IT Security & Audit Compliance Analyst at Milwaukee City and County
It provides an overview of all our assets and their status.
We use Carbon Black for monitoring.  We haven't experienced any significant incidents, yet. So far, we've mostly been weeding out all the false positives.  Carbon Black provides an overview of all our assets and their status.  Carbon Black's support could be better.  I have used Carbon Black…
JH
Sr. Manager, Security Engineering at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
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

"Carbon Black provides an overview of all our assets and their status."
"The valuable features are threat hunting, threat intelligence feeds, and it culls all the activities of the endpoint. Additionally, the ML and AI engines are really good."
"The installation process is quick and easy."
"The greatest value of MDR involves the tests, reporting and alerts, so that we may respond immediately."
"I don't have to take care of this product; it's just working and that's it, and I don't have to think about anything."
"This is where Carbon Black has been phenomenal for us, it has detected many security concerns."
"The biggest lesson is transitioning from alert overload to being at a point where we do have eyes on alerts, where every alert is truly possible."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"We are absolutely seeing return on our investment from CRITICALSTART's services, as they're doing the job of a 24/7 SOC at a fraction of the price that it would cost me to run it myself."
"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."
"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."
"When I start thinking about if I were to try to light up a SOC, which I've done before and I have no interest in doing, it could be a million dollars a year or more to do that, and for what I am paying them for the managed fees, it's a steal."
 

Cons

"Carbon Black's support could be better."
"In the future, it would be great if they could provide endpoint management and the ADR solution together in this package."
"As the solution has changed hands, I expect some changes in licensing and in support. It remains to be seen if that will be good or bad."
"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."
"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 and I hate it."
"The biggest room for improvement is not necessarily in their service or offering, but in the products that they support."
"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."
"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."
"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"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

"The price of this solution is inexpensive compare with others. The company went out of its way to provide us with a favorable discount. However, there is room for improving the current licensing model and the price of some of the fees. The model is complex and could be streamlined."
"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."
"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."
"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"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 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."
"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
Comms Service Provider
16%
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
 

Also Known As

Carbon Black Cloud Managed Detection Deliver
Critical Start, CriticalStart
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Coincheck, Mednax, Charles River, Chick-fil-A, Netflix, Domino's Pizza
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about CRITICALSTART vs. Carbon Black Managed Detection and Response and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.