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CRITICALSTART vs Field Effect MDR 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

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)
Field Effect MDR
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
3rd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Field Effect MDR is 3.1%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Anmol Nagpal - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective MDR with great support and an easy setup
The feature I've found the move valuable is the 24/7 monitoring. We are a small organization that supports a LOT of endpoints and clients. Without this tool, it would be impossible for us to confidently tell clients that we are secure. Alongside this, the ability for Field Effect to make decisions on its own based on what it has learned from all the "training data" that we have provided in the past. It will only get better over time. We have had some false positives; for example, using a legitimate networking scanning tool from the terminal has been blocked. However, we were actually impressed when something so simple was caught!

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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 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."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable aspect of Field MDR is the comprehensive visibility the solution offers. Most solutions cover the traditional threat landscape of computers, endpoints, servers, etc. However, there are also things happening within the network environment, such as WiFi, mobile, the Internet of Things, smart TVs, video surveillance systems, etc., that have associated vulnerabilities. Most environments do not manage or protect these assets."
"The solution's advanced detection behaviors, automated notifications and responses, and automated remediation behaviors are valuable features."
"The automated response feature is incredibly effective."
"It's running in the background and does a packet-level analysis of everything that comes in. It also has an auto-response feature, so if something gets through and is clicked on, or somehow gets through the network, it gets isolated and quarantined, and we get notified."
"The most valuable features are AROs, which provide timely notifications for out-of-compliance or out-of-specification detections."
"One of the most useful and impressive features of the system is its detailed notification mechanism."
"The most valuable aspect of Field Effect Covalence is its ability to continuously monitor for and identify potential threats."
"I like how comprehensive Field Effect Covalence is."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement with the new UI, and that's about it. I would like to see a more intuitive design."
"The UI has become slower but it's not something I would call them out on."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"If they can include an email filter system, that would be great."
"While it's essential to stay informed about potential issues, the recurring notifications about past vulnerabilities can lead to confusion and may detract from our focus on current threats."
"In terms of improvement, there are instances where the ARO responses are slightly slower than preferred."
"I'd like improved visibility into the backend data where logs are stored, along with integrations with a wider range of products."
"I have had a couple of challenges around updates to the agents where it seems it doesn't automatically replace older versions."
"It would be more effective if it could surgically isolate the specific malicious process instead of deleting the entire machine."
"The ConnectWise PSA integration is two-way but does not send our comments back to the Field Effect portal."
"While the reporting is good, I would like more of a white-label option with my company's name at the top and a clean look for the report."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"I've told CRITICALSTART that I think the managed service they provide is cheaper than it should be. It's a really good deal."
"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."
"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."
"Covalence is cost-effective."
"It is on the high end, but it is worth it for the service that you get from them."
"We were particularly impressed with their pricing model, which charges per user rather than per system."
"The licensing model itself is solid, but we're ironing out some inconsistencies in how customer profiles are configured."
"Although Covalence is expensive, it provides good value for the price."
"The pricing is comparable to what else is out there."
"We're currently enrolled in the volume package, which offers tiered pricing based on usage."
"A top-tier competitor to Field Effect in Magic Quadrant that we had been using until our switch to Field Effect was a great product, but each capability had an additional charge. We had to license modules separately, and each of those add-ons had to be added onto its own consumption and agreement. It was a nightmare from a billing perspective because we had multiple agreements, and each one had a jagged anniversary or a renewal anniversary. It was a nightmare, whereas Field Effect MDR is one product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Real Estate/Law Firm
12%
Healthcare Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Retailer
9%
Computer Software Company
51%
Retailer
5%
Government
4%
Manufacturing Company
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about Field Effect Covalence?
It is very user-friendly. We have regular reports to see what is going on.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Field Effect Covalence?
Pricing was initially a concern, but the recent updates have resolved that by offering a more accessible buying cost.
What needs improvement with Field Effect Covalence?
Some resources lack experience, but issues can be escalated to more knowledgeable contacts. Pricing needed improvement, which was addressed by reducing the buying cost recently. Like any product, s...
 

Also Known As

Critical Start, CriticalStart
Field Effect Covalence
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about CRITICALSTART vs. Field Effect MDR and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.