CRITICALSTART vs ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR comparison

Critical Start and ThreatLocker are both solutions in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category. Critical Start is ranked #31, while ThreatLocker is ranked #11 with an average rating of 9.1. Critical Start holds a 0.8% mindshare in MDR, compared to ThreatLocker’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Critical Start users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of ThreatLocker users who would recommend it.

CRITICALSTART

Read 10 CRITICALSTART reviews

703 Views
583 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR

Read 9 ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR reviews

446 Views
446 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

CRITICALSTART

ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 5, 2025

CRITICALSTART and ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR are both active in cybersecurity solutions. ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR is perceived to have a more comprehensive feature set, making it a strong choice despite potentially higher costs, especially if extensive features are prioritized.

Features: CRITICALSTART offers efficient incident detection and automated response, emphasizing response automation with effective filtering through its Trusted Behavior Registry. Its Zero-Trust model helps in smart alert management and escalations handled via a user-friendly mobile app. ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR provides advanced threat analysis, prioritized detection capabilities, and robust application whitelisting through its Zero Trust approach. It includes ringfencing for application safety, efficient recording policies, and network monitoring for improved security visibility.

Room for Improvement: CRITICALSTART could enhance system speed and navigation intuitiveness in its updated interface, while also refining integration capabilities for more expansive data connections. It may also benefit from streamlining alert tuning for reduced false positives. ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR could improve error handling during policy updates, provide more comprehensive initial policy setups to prevent unnecessary blocks, and minimize its onboarding adjustment period for new users. Continuous refinement of user training processes could also bolster user experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CRITICALSTART delivers an agile deployment process with responsive support, valued for quick adaptation and personal customer interaction. ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR offers a smooth deployment process with proactive customer service and a 24/7 Cyber Hero response team, which is highly appreciated for immediate assistance and network isolation capabilities.

Pricing and ROI: CRITICALSTART is recognized for its cost-effective pricing structure with substantial ROI, appealing to budget-conscious users due to its competitive cost and fast return on investment. ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR, though priced at a premium, is justified by its extensive features that deliver significant long-term value and heightened security outcomes. The initial investment is higher, but the improved security posture offers reassurance.

To learn more, read our detailed CRITICALSTART vs. ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART vs. ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 869,566 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (27th)

ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR

Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

11th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

8.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR is 1.0%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR	1.0%
CRITICALSTART	0.8%
Other	98.2%

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

Featured Reviews

Justin Hadley

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.

Read full review

Andres Plaza

President & Chief Executive Officer at OneconnectionIT

Enables granular control through Ringfencing and works seamlessly for us as an MSP

The most valuable feature is ringfencing. It enables us to only allow what needs to be allowed into the environment and keep out anything else. It permits applications to perform without accessing anything they are not supposed to. For instance, if an application tries to utilize the command prompt unnecessarily, it blocks this action while still allowing users to operate the application. Being able to let the user or the customer continue to use that application but block the application from using the command prompt because it is not necessary is great. Being able to inform customers about enhanced security from a zero-trust standpoint has significantly improved our sales. We are able to walk up to a customer or call a new prospect and let them know that we are going to keep them secure at a level that they have not seen before. We are able to explain to them how cybersecurity works through it.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

More CRITICALSTART pros

"It's an important solution to have in order to maintain a strong security posture, especially as we're seeing things like supply chain attacks, where people are accidentally downloading malware from our vendors."

"The most valuable feature is ringfencing. It enables us to only allow what needs to be allowed into the environment and keep out anything else. It permits applications to perform without accessing anything they are not supposed to."

"There is a tremendous amount that is helpful, such as their recording, watching the systems, locking down the systems, and their training."

"The ability to isolate the device when something is happening and the network access control element are valuable features."

"Our customers now have the confidence that they can work without being impeded, losing access or getting compromised."

"Our clients feel a bit more secure when using their equipment now, and they can feel confident that we have their backs kind of when they're when they either get compromised."

"It's secure, and we know it's secure."

"Customer service and support are exceptional."

More ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR pros

Cons

"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 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."

"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."

"There is room for improvement with the new UI, and that's about it. I would like to see a more intuitive design."

"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."

"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."

More CRITICALSTART cons

"As far as an improvement regarding ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR, there are still some things that, out of the box, it would be nice to have a more fine-grained ability to create certain exclusions."

"We have seen a couple of approval requests come through where if the user types in a reason for why they need it, they'll get approved based on the reason versus the application that are actually required."

"It would be great if they handled patch management, and I am aware that they are currently working on it."

"From an MDR perspective, the solution can have the ability to ingest logs from other sources, such as M365, firewalls, external sources, and even cloud SaaS-based platforms. This way, we can obtain a holistic picture."

"The ultimate, most amazing solution in the market could be less pricey and more transparent."

"If there is any aspect to improve, perhaps affordability for small businesses could be considered."

"The Cyber Hero Support is not as effective as it is portrayed. There is a lot of miscommunication in notes, which are very buried and not easy to find."

"Pricing is a bit high, with a minimum of 50 devices. Lowering that for small companies would be great."

More ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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 of other services was so insane that they weren't even an option."

"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."

"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."

"The pricing is not so bad. My clients do not like it, but they are following our pricing."

"ThreatLocker is worth every penny and a couple more."

"It is pretty good. We would have been one of the biggest partners in Ireland, so we got pretty good pricing at the start, and it is still competitive. Pricing depends on what we are up against."

"It has been excellent."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Real Estate/Law Firm

14%

Healthcare Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

27%

Retailer

10%

Comms Service Provider

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR?

The pricing is cost-efficient and provides good value given the level of security enhancement it provides.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR?

There are still gaps in the EDR when benchmarked against SentinelOne, but it's improving quickly. The ability for ThreatLocker to digest the 365 logs provides an elevated level of 365 protection th...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR?

Our primary use case for ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR ( /products/threatlocker-cyber-hero-mdr-reviews ) is to reinforce a zero trust environment. We utilize it to avoid security faults and improve d...

See all answers

Comparisons

Red Canary vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 30% of the time

Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 28% of the time

ReliaQuest GreyMatter vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 23% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 20% of the time

More CRITICALSTART Competitors

Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response vs ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR

Compared 41% of the time

Huntress Managed EDR vs ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR

Compared 26% of the time

CompassOne by Blackpoint Cyber vs ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR

Compared 19% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR vs ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR

Compared 14% of the time

More ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART

October 2025

Download CRITICALSTART product report

Buyer's Guide

ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR

September 2025

Download ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR product report

Also Known As

Critical Start, CriticalStart

No data available

Overview

The cybersecurity landscape is growing more complex by the day with the arrival of new threats and new tools supposedly designed for combating them. The problem is it’s all creating more noise and confusion for security professionals to sort through.

CRITICALSTART is the only MDR provider committed to eliminating acceptable risk and leaving nothing to chance. They believe that companies should never have to settle for “good enough.” Their award-winning portfolio includes end-to-end Professional Services and Managed Detection and Response (MDR). CRITICALSTART MDR puts a stop to alert fatigue by leveraging the Zero Trust Analytics Platform (ZTAP) plus the industry-leading Trusted Behavior Registry, which eliminates false positives at scale by resolving known-good behaviors. Driven by 24x7x365 human-led, end-to-end monitoring, investigation and remediation of alerts, their on-the-go threat detection and response capabilities are enabled via a fully interactive MOBILESOC app.

Critical Start

ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR provides advanced threat detection and response capabilities, designed to enhance cybersecurity defenses for businesses.

Designed for efficient threat management, ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR offers a comprehensive suite tailored to meet cybersecurity demands. Its robust architecture supercharges security operations, protecting against sophisticated threats with precision and reliability. Automation in threat management and response streamlines processes and enhances protection efficiency. This solution is widely recognized for its adaptability to various cybersecurity landscapes.

What are the solution's most important features?

Advanced Threat Detection: Identifies complex and emerging threats to ensure high-level protection.
Automated Response: Rapidly addresses threats to minimize potential impact.
Customizable Policies: Tailors security measures to specific business requirements.
Comprehensive Reporting: Offers detailed insights into threat landscapes.

What benefits or ROI should users look for in reviews?

Improved Security Efficiency: Streamlines threat detection and response activities.
Enhanced Threat Intelligence: Offers valuable insights to strengthen defenses.
Cost-Effectiveness: Reduces the need for frequent manual interventions.
Scalability: Adapts to growing security demands.

ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR finds effective use in industries requiring high-level security measures, including finance and healthcare. Its implementation involves integrating with existing infrastructure to offer seamless threat management, with a focus on protecting sensitive data and ensuring compliance with industry standards.

ThreatLocker

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART vs. ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR

September 2025

Free Report: CRITICALSTART vs. ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR

Find out what your peers are saying about CRITICALSTART vs. ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our CRITICALSTART vs. ThreatLocker Cyber Hero MDR report.

See our list of best Managed Detection and Response (MDR) vendors.

We monitor all Managed Detection and Response (MDR) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.