CRITICALSTART vs ConnectWise SIEM comparison

ConnectWise and Critical Start are both solutions in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category. ConnectWise is ranked #25 with an average rating of 6.0, while Critical Start is ranked #30. ConnectWise holds a 1.3% mindshare in MDR, compared to Critical Start’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 66% of ConnectWise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Critical Start users who would recommend it.

ConnectWise SIEM

Read 3 ConnectWise SIEM reviews

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631 Comparison Views

66% willing to recommend

CRITICALSTART

Read 10 CRITICALSTART reviews

946 Views
728 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

ConnectWise SIEM

CRITICALSTART

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

CRITICALSTART and ConnectWise SIEM are competing in the cybersecurity space. ConnectWise SIEM seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced features and comprehensive security capabilities.

Features: CRITICALSTART provides real-time threat detection and response, ensuring swift action against potential attacks. It offers integration capabilities with various security tools, making it versatile. ConnectWise SIEM supplies robust data analytics and customizable reporting, enhancing its ability to detect and respond to complex threats. The key difference lies in ConnectWise's focus on detailed analytics, which provides deeper insights.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Deployment for CRITICALSTART is streamlined with straightforward configuration and responsive customer service, facilitating quicker setup. ConnectWise SIEM offers a more complex deployment process, requiring more resources and time but compensates with comprehensive customer support, aiding in thorough implementation.

Pricing and ROI: CRITICALSTART is recognized for its cost-effective implementation and reliable return on investment, appealing to budget-conscious organizations. ConnectWise SIEM requires a higher initial investment, reflected in its extensive features and capabilities, which can deliver substantial long-term ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed CRITICALSTART vs. ConnectWise SIEM Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART vs. ConnectWise SIEM

January 2026

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Helped 881,114 peers since 2012

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

ConnectWise SIEM

Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

25th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (50th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (54th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (22nd)

CRITICALSTART

Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

30th

Average Rating

9.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (27th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of ConnectWise SIEM is 1.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
ConnectWise SIEM	1.3%
CRITICALSTART	0.9%
Other	97.8%

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

Featured Reviews

reviewer2711757

Cyber Security Software Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Automated alerting and reporting excel while cost and feature limitations remain

I find automation to be one of the best and most valuable features of the product. Machine learning is incorporated into the solution, though AI is a broader term that I wouldn't apply here. I haven't personally explored AI yet, but I will investigate it. Machine learning functions more as automation in my experience, as there's no training involved yet. I want to conduct R&D on another project with Wazuh to determine how to capture usage, for example, tracking user logins and time spent. This is where I need to implement machine learning. Additionally, the extraction of GeoIP adds complexity. The solution is effectively reducing incident response times in operations.

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Justin Hadley

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have found the solution has great functionality and it is easy to use."

"The integration capabilities of ConnectWise SIEM are off the shelf, making it easy to buy and use; you just unpack it and use it."

"One valuable feature of ConnectWise Fortify is the ability to add other teams and receive notifications when customers make changes or remove multi-factor authentication in Microsoft or SAP environments."

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

More CRITICALSTART pros

Cons

"ConnectWise SIEM is primarily focused on notifications and is limited in that aspect, while Wazuh can automate the elimination process."

"The manage portion of the solution is complicated and should be simplified by having different versions to meet the needs of different size companies."

"ConnectWise Fortify could work on covering more areas, like phishing messages, which have become more complicated to detect."

"The UI has become slower but it's not something I would call them out on."

"There is room for improvement with the new UI, and that's about it. I would like to see a more intuitive design."

"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..."

"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."

"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."

"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 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 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."

More CRITICALSTART cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

21%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

University

Real Estate/Law Firm

17%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	4

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ConnectWise Fortify?

I haven't utilized the advanced threat intelligence capabilities with ConnectWise SIEM. Advanced threat intelligence is an option, but I haven't explored this feature yet. The advanced threat intel...

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What is your primary use case for ConnectWise Fortify?

I do not have experience with ConnectWise SIEM for RMM, as I mostly work on Wazuh, and I have a team that handles ConnectWise SIEM. I'm linking with them, serving as the bridge. I am solely working...

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What advice do you have for others considering ConnectWise Fortify?

The review can be made anonymous if just my name and not the company name is used. I would assess the real-time visibility for my organization as somewhat real-time, but it's not fully real-time. T...

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Comparisons

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 15% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

January 2026

Download ConnectWise SIEM product report

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART

January 2026

Download CRITICALSTART product report

Also Known As

ConnectWise Security Management, ConnectWise Fortify, Continuum Fortify, ConnectWise SIEM, ConnectWise SASE

Critical Start, CriticalStart

Overview

IT solution providers are the first—and often only—line of defense for every kind of business in every part of the world. Whether managing mom-and-pop businesses or high-profile clients, providing preventive security measures is a must-have in today’s cybersecurity landscape. Security information and event management (SIEM) solutions offer an additional layer of security for your clients; however, most SIEM solutions are routinely difficult to manage, expensive to deploy, and require a significant amount of in-house cybersecurity expertise.

ConnectWise SIEM offers a powerful alternative to expand your security perspective to both prevention and detection. The solution includes comprehensive, flexible SIEM software that streamlines safety and security across your network without additional full-time employee costs or complicated implementations.

ConnectWise

The cybersecurity landscape is growing more complex by the day with the arrival of new threats and new tools supposedly designed for combating them. The problem is it’s all creating more noise and confusion for security professionals to sort through.

CRITICALSTART is the only MDR provider committed to eliminating acceptable risk and leaving nothing to chance. They believe that companies should never have to settle for “good enough.” Their award-winning portfolio includes end-to-end Professional Services and Managed Detection and Response (MDR). CRITICALSTART MDR puts a stop to alert fatigue by leveraging the Zero Trust Analytics Platform (ZTAP) plus the industry-leading Trusted Behavior Registry, which eliminates false positives at scale by resolving known-good behaviors. Driven by 24x7x365 human-led, end-to-end monitoring, investigation and remediation of alerts, their on-the-go threat detection and response capabilities are enabled via a fully interactive MOBILESOC app.

Critical Start

Sample Customers

Techvera, Syrex, Clark Integrated Technologies

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART vs. ConnectWise SIEM

January 2026

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