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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 July 2025, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Field Effect MDR is 3.2%, 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

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.
Rob Schenk - PeerSpot reviewer
The most valuable aspect of the solution is the comprehensive visibility it offers
The most valuable aspect of Field MDR is the comprehensive visibility the solution offers. Most solutions cover the traditional threat landscape for endpoints, including computers, endpoints, servers, etc. However, there are also risk within the network environment, such as WiFi, mobile, the Internet of Things, smart TVs, video surveillance systems, etc., that have associated vulnerabilities. These devices may not be actively managed or protected in most environments. Field Effect MDR gives you visibility across the entire ecosystem. With this broad visibility, you can significantly lower your operational risk. Field Effect has a team of high-quality security analysts reviewing the initial triage to determine whether an alert is actionable. They clear out the false positives and feed our security operation center actionable alerts. It lets us save time because we're only dealing with real issues instead of weeding out the false positives and wasting time. Managing Field Effect is straightforward. We have a good internal process to manage this. It's mainly about having some automation in place to streamline things and having some processes for keeping my software and third-party patching up to date. A lot of security alerts fall in those areas. It helps us identify issues quickly and lower the overall risk for our client rate. It groups alerts by risk levels. The nomenclature is straightforward and easy to understand. Our engineers and technicians are well-versed in the topic.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 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."
"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 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 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."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable features are AROs, which provide timely notifications for out-of-compliance or out-of-specification detections."
"The standout feature is its continuous 24/7 monitoring of all network traffic, providing unparalleled vigilance."
"The AROs have been incredibly helpful."
"The ARO alerts are helpful to use almost daily to get a sense of what actions we need to take to expedite security measures."
"The solution's advanced detection behaviors, automated notifications and responses, and automated remediation behaviors are valuable features."
"One of the most useful and impressive features of the system is its detailed notification mechanism."
"The most valuable feature is the network traffic monitoring function."
"I appreciate the "set it and forget it" nature of Field Effect Covalence."
 

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."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"The tagging of ARO closure has room for improvement."
"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."
"Because this is a security solution, I would recommend that they extend their support hours, and perhaps for emergencies, even to 24/7 or 24/5."
"The ConnectWise PSA integration is two-way but does not send our comments back to the Field Effect portal."
"They put too much detail into the emails."
"It would be more effective if it could surgically isolate the specific malicious process instead of deleting the entire machine."
"I have had a couple of challenges around updates to the agents where it seems it doesn't automatically replace older versions."
"The interface is perhaps the weakest part of the entire platform, and that does not mean that it is deficient. It is just not as optimized and as efficient as other aspects of the platform."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of other services was so insane that they weren't even an option."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 licensing model itself is solid, but we're ironing out some inconsistencies in how customer profiles are configured."
"The pricing is fair and reasonable."
"The pricing is comparable to what else is out there."
"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."
"It is a little pricey. It is a little on the high end, but we are continuing to use it. We signed the contract and have not canceled, so we find value in having it."
"The pricing isn't sized, so Field Effect doesn't make it easy for anything under 25 users. I'm not crazy about that."
"We're currently enrolled in the volume package, which offers tiered pricing based on usage."
"We were particularly impressed with their pricing model, which charges per user rather than per system."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
13%
Real Estate/Law Firm
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
54%
Government
4%
Retailer
4%
Non Profit
4%
 

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: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.