No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

CRITICALSTART vs Huntress Managed EDR comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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)
27th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (24th)
Huntress Managed EDR
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
1st
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 1.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Huntress Managed EDR is 4.1%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Huntress Managed EDR4.1%
CRITICALSTART1.3%
Other94.6%
Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Abhishek Saini - PeerSpot reviewer
Professional Services Engineer at Next7 IT
Managed detection has transformed incident response and now delivers faster, focused protection
Overall, my experience with Huntress Managed EDR has been very positive. If I were to suggest improvements, I would like to see more advanced customization and reporting capabilities, particularly for MSPs managing multiple clients. For example, additional dashboard customization, more granular alert filtering options, and enhanced executive level reporting would help teams present security insights more effectively to their clients. Deeper integrations with a broader range of third party security and IT management platforms could also streamline workflows and reduce the need to switch between multiple tools. Another area of improvement would be expanding automation options for common remediation tasks, allowing security teams to respond even more quickly to certain types of threats while maintaining appropriate control. These are more enhancements than shortcomings, as Huntress Managed EDR already provides strong threat detection, excellent SOC support, and an easy-to-manage platform that delivers significant value in day-to-day operations. A few additional enhancements would make the platform even stronger, especially for MSPs managing a large number of endpoints and clients. From a user interface perspective, I would like to see more customizable dashboards that allow engineers to tailor views based on the client's priorities, threat levels, or operational metrics. Another useful feature would be additional automation and authorization options for common response actions such as isolating devices, initiating remediation workflows, or integrating with ticketing systems and SIEM platforms. Overall, these would be valuable additions, but they do not take away from the core strength of Huntress Managed EDR.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Out of all the service providers I've had to work with over the years—I've been here six years—CRITICALSTART is my favorite to work with."
"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 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."
"This has been a positive experience and money well spent."
"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."
"It is a comfort to know that there is a team of professionals backing you up, especially in an area that you don't feel 100 percent comfortable."
"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."
"Huntress Managed EDR is probably the easiest solution to use, both to deploy and to maintain, of all the product lines and vendor partnerships we have."
"Huntress Managed EDR requires very little from my end, as I get updates and dashboard alerts for changes and issues."
"It is clear, simple, and easy to use. There are things that I can automate in terms of escalation, but if I want to go into the settings and play with it, I can. They provide detailed remediation steps, explaining why an issue is a problem and what steps to take."
"My advice to others looking into using Huntress Managed EDR is to do it; it's really good, easy to manage, and a great solution."
"Huntress Managed EDR is a perfect solution for the SMB market and is recommended to all small businesses that have no cybersecurity posture, as it is easy to implement and provides peace of mind with a real-life SOC."
"I have found it valuable that this solution is always there and always armed."
"What stands out most is their human element: when faced with an unknown threat, real people, not just automated processes, are investigating it, and they're people we trust."
"The customer support provided by Huntress is impeccable. Their product is easy to deploy and manage, and the portal setup for Managed Service Providers is excellent. A lot of companies do not do that very well."
 

Cons

"The biggest room for improvement is not necessarily in their service or offering, but in the products that they support."
"The UI has become slower but it's not something I would call them out on."
"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 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 and I hate it."
"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"They could dig a little bit deeper into the Splunk alerts when they feel like they need to be escalated to us."
"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."
"Using Huntress Managed EDR has not reduced our need for expensive security tools or hiring expensive security analysts, as we run redundancy and maintain all that in-house while Huntress serves as a partner, not a replacement."
"Incident reporting could be a little bit cleaner."
"One downside of Huntress Managed EDR, compared to the CrowdStrike agent, is that it takes a longer time to push it out to all of our endpoints and ensure everything is configured correctly."
"Huntress has a cyber education platform, but it lacks all the languages we need. Since we support customers in different countries, expanding the language options for their training would be beneficial."
"One area for improvement in Huntress would be to allow for PSA integration from a specific IP address or hostname for better security measures."
"Ultimately, the clarity of their alerts is paramount for effective threat communication and could benefit from clearer remediation steps."
"It would be nice if Huntress Managed EDR started adding additional features that some of the other competitors have, but obviously, to keep it lightweight, they cannot pack too much into it."
"I would like the API to be a little better. They are getting there."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing model for Huntress is similar to competitors and is charged per endpoint."
"The cost-effectiveness of Huntress is much better compared to BlackPoint. Although Huntress does not offer all the finer details that BlackPoint does, it remains much more competitive in pricing."
"The tool’s price is very good. You just need to pay for the standard license. However, you need to pay the additional cost for Microsoft Defender."
"The pricing is competitive, in line with Huntress's offerings, and aligns well with our business model."
"It is very fair. I started at $2.50 and now I am at $3.50. When I signed up, I thought it was too cheap. It now reflects the price. It is very fair. I do not think you can find anything better."
"It works well for an MSP."
"While other options have emerged since Huntress' arrival, I believe it still offers the best value for the features and services it provides."
"I believe Huntress offers competitive pricing overall."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solutions are best for your needs.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
17%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business65
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Huntress?
I would like to see more customization and deeper integration with SIEM and other security tools for Huntress Managed EDR, as better reporting and more detailed endpoint investigation data would al...
What is your primary use case for Huntress?
My main use case for Huntress Managed EDR is endpoint monitoring and threat detection, which I use to investigate suspicious processes, malware activity, endpoint alerts, and potential indicators o...
What advice do you have for others considering Huntress?
I would rate Huntress Managed EDR a nine out of 10 because it gives strong endpoint visibility, reliable threat detection, and effective remediation, while the managed SOC reduces the workload for ...
 

Also Known As

Critical Start, CriticalStart
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about CRITICALSTART vs. Huntress Managed EDR and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.