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CRITICALSTART vs Rapid7 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)
31st
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (31st)
Rapid7 MDR
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
17th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 MDR is 2.6%, up from 2.6% 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.
Oluwaseun Sonaike - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good integrations , very scalable and flexible and we can send as many logs as we want
We've filled in crucial gaps we had with our previous solution. This was a key factor in choosing Rapid7 during the selection process. The ROI is already starting to show, too. We saw specific cost reductions. We used to pay extra for external user insight and availability management in our old setup. Now, that's all included in Rapid7, which saves us money and simplifies management.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I also use their mobile app. It's very easy to use and very convenient to be able to respond to alerts wherever you are. I love the app. You can respond and communicate, per ticket, with their SOC in near real-time. The response is very quick."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"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 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 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."
"The features of Rapid7 MDR that I find most effective for threat detection are the threat intelligence capabilities because it already collects many vulnerabilities and exploitations, as well as the configuration of network devices."
"The product allows us to customize our alerts."
"We've filled in crucial gaps we had with our previous solution. This was a key factor in choosing Rapid7 during the selection process. The ROI is already starting to show, too."
"The solution uses its own SIM solution, InsightIDRC, and offers an unlimited incident response as part of the package."
 

Cons

"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"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 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 UI has become slower but it's not something I would call them out on."
"The product should provide full transparency in security operations."
"There are potential improvements in reports and dashboards."
"Currently, I can't think of any improvements, although there's always room for improvement in any solution."
"Rapid7 MDR is currently weak in AI solutions and intelligence, which is concerning."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"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."
"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."
"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 product is not overly priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
11%
Real Estate/Law Firm
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
14%
Educational Organization
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about Rapid7 MDR?
We've filled in crucial gaps we had with our previous solution. This was a key factor in choosing Rapid7 during the selection process. The ROI is already starting to show, too.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rapid7 MDR?
Cost savings are realized as it's more cost-effective to purchase the entire service rather than individual technology stacks. The MDR service provides better value for the organization's investment.
What needs improvement with Rapid7 MDR?
Currently, I can't think of any improvements, although there's always room for improvement in any solution.
 

Also Known As

Critical Start, CriticalStart
Rapid7 Managed Detection and Response
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Landmark Health, NISC, Resimac, Starr Companies
Find out what your peers are saying about CRITICALSTART vs. Rapid7 MDR and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
852,098 professionals have used our research since 2012.