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CRITICALSTART vs LMNTRIX Active Defense 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)
31st
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (26th)
LMNTRIX Active Defense
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
35th
Average Rating
9.8
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Threat Deception Platforms (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of LMNTRIX Active Defense is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CRITICALSTART0.9%
LMNTRIX Active Defense0.8%
Other98.3%
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.
EQ
Chief Information Officer at The C&S Companies
It gives us fantastic information about the security of our environment
The dashboard can seem overwhelming at times. It's fairly simple for the end user, and we don't need to do much to make it work, but the dashboard makes it seem a little more complicated than it actually is. There could also be more guidance on how to set up playbooks.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"In a given quarter, I get 589,000 security events and 584,000 of those get reduced by the service before they even get to me, so the alerts that actually come through to me end up being about 1,400 in that quarter, which is a 99.7 percent efficiency rate."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I sleep better at night knowing that LMNTRIX is monitoring our systems and has the ability to respond to threats as they happen."
"The fact that it's constantly hunting, looking for anomalies, and can evict without any intervention is really incredible."
"For companies like us that couldn't afford to setup and staff a 24/7 SOC, LMNTRIX is the perfect solution."
"LMNTRIX gives us fantastic information about the security of our environment. It tells us about possible threats and how to fix any issues."
"LMNTRIX gives us fantastic information about the security of our environment, telling us about possible threats and how to fix any issues."
"We have a dedicated technical representative that is very responsive."
"I have no regrets about standardizing on LMNTRIX as our endpoint protection agent."
"Customer service is stellar and they really care about their customers."
 

Cons

"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."
"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..."
"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 and I hate it."
"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 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."
"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"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."
"The dashboard can seem overwhelming at times. It's fairly simple for the end user, and we don't need to do much to make it work, but the dashboard makes it seem a little more complicated than it actually is. There could also be more guidance on how to set up playbooks."
"The only multifactor authentication that is available is Google Authenticator."
"The dashboard can seem overwhelming at times."
"The portal is still a bit buggy, although it's new and still being refined."
"The portal is still a bit buggy, although it's new and still being refined."
"In the beginning, we were having issues with the LMNTRIX respond agent not playing nice with Cisco AMP."
"The next release might include a monthly newsletter."
"In the beginning, we were having issues with the LMNTRIX respond agent not playing nice with Cisco AMP."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of other services was so insane that they weren't even an option."
"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."
"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"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."
"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."
"I've told CRITICALSTART that I think the managed service they provide is cheaper than it should be. It's a really good deal."
"It's not the cheapest solution, but you certainly get what you paid for."
"The cost is going to be a little higher than traditional endpoint protection, but you are getting the 24/7 monitoring and validation by highly skilled analysts and that makes it worth it."
"The pricing and ease of install are great!"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Real Estate/Law Firm
11%
Healthcare Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Non Profit
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

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

Also Known As

Critical Start, CriticalStart
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Alliance Funding Group (AFG) - USA Kestrel Coal - Australia Success Resources - Malaysia
Find out what your peers are saying about CRITICALSTART vs. LMNTRIX Active Defense and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.