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Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response vs Expel comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 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

Arctic Wolf Managed Detecti...
Ranking in SOC as a Service
1st
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
4th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Expel
Ranking in SOC as a Service
4th
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response is 5.1%, down from 9.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Expel is 1.8%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response5.1%
Expel1.8%
Other93.1%
Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
 

Featured Reviews

Dan Stepanukha - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Administrator at a real estate/law firm with 201-500 employees
Stays ahead of threats with fast alerts and improves compliance documentation for investor readiness
The best features Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response offers are its time sensitivity. It alerts us right away if an anomaly occurs. The time sensitivity helps our team by making our response faster in case it's an actual attack, which luckily hasn't happened yet. Speed is definitely one of the best features of Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response. The documentation is really good with Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response, making filling out our NIST and incident response really easy. Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response has positively impacted my organization as it's an added layer of security, which has been really good. It also helped us stay up to date with our security posture so we can work better with investors who require certain paperwork or security postures. Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response has helped with investor requirements by assisting us with incident response paperwork, providing a score for NIST 2.0 framework rating, and allowing us to easily fill out documentation for bigger investors like Merrill Lynch so we can continue to work with them.
reviewer2578461 - PeerSpot reviewer
MDR Specialist at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Rapid threat management and diverse technology integration for effective monitoring
Expel has made it easier for companies to monitor and manage various log sources. With its vast integration portfolio, customers can efficiently monitor diverse environments. Time to value is quick, as Expel can turn their service up very rapidly. They have both automated active responses and human processes that quicken threat resolution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution works well for our team as it offers a hands-off approach, which we need."
"Arctic Wolf is laser-focused on providing top-notch customer service."
"They have a portal where you can evaluate and mitigate any vulnerabilities that you and your network might have."
"They provide useful quarterly updates."
"This service makes answering audits much easier since it covers so many security best practices."
"After an easy onboarding, the monitoring started immediately."
"Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response helped secure our investor relationships, specifically with Merrill Lynch, which required us to document our security posture, and Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response made it really easy for that."
"Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response helped secure our investor relationships, specifically with Merrill Lynch, which required us to document our security posture, and Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response made it really easy for that."
"Their threat hunting protocol and process with AI and machine learning are strong, allowing for active and rapid responses."
 

Cons

"It would be great if the whole process of determining vendor risk could be simplified by Arctic Wolf."
"It can sometimes take up to an hour to get notification of a problem and that's a long time."
"I can't think of any specific features that they need to add at the moment. As long as they continue to develop new solutions to support different operating systems and technologies, we are satisfied with their service. We appreciate the effort they put into adding new features and functionality to their service and believe they are doing a great job in providing us with all the necessary tools and resources to stay secure."
"The only frustrating aspect is the lack of support for Windows on ARM devices. We cannot fully secure these devices until they release an updated version of their agent software."
"We get a lot of false alarms, but that's because they don't know our network in detail. I think that could be alleviated if we told them more about our network so they could create rules to skip some of those things."
"The only frustrating aspect is the lack of support for Windows on ARM devices. We cannot fully secure these devices until they release an updated version of their agent software."
"In the future, I would like to see a summary report."
"They focus on detecting administrator-level control compromises. Because they're focusing more on administrator-level compromise, they are less able to see if an individual user has been compromised. It is, admittedly, very difficult because they don't know what normal human behavior is. If a hacker compromises a human account and then acts just like the human, how are you ever going to notice, unless you have some inside knowledge of how the company works? For example, they overlook account lockouts on user accounts, whereas in our own alerting system, we do not. We review every account lockout, and if it is bad, we contact the person, whereas they think of that as noise because they're more focused on the administrator-level compromise."
"The one area where Expel may not measure up is if a customer requires a managed SIEM as part of their overall solution. There's a gap there, and solutions might require third-party assistance for management."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is pretty competitive."
"The pricing is fair."
"I find their pricing to be reasonable and competitive."
"I rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten."
"It is more expensive than CrowdStrike, but it also has more features. I don't remember the amount, but I do remember that it was on the higher side. I believe we have five sensors, and the sensors have a yearly cost. We don't have any additional costs, but I know that if we have more features, they will add to the cost."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise1
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response?
The agents give pretty good visibility into what is happening at the endpoint.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was very good. It was a good experience because of the transparent pricing, which was very reasonable based on some of the other services that ...
What needs improvement with Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response?
Some of the alerts or reports were not very easy to understand, and it took time to go through those, which was sometimes a little frustrating. Some of the reports from Arctic Wolf Managed Detectio...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Expel?
Expel's pricing has adapted as the market evolved and has become competitive over the past twelve months.
What needs improvement with Expel?
The one area where Expel may not measure up is if a customer requires a managed SIEM as part of their overall solution. There's a gap there, and solutions might require third-party assistance for m...
What is your primary use case for Expel?
I have experience reselling Expel. Customers often come to me wanting to evaluate multiple providers to make a choice based on their specific use cases, requirements, technology investments, and so...
 

Also Known As

Arctic Wolf AWN CyberSOC
Workbench, Expel SOC-as-a-Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Agero, Madison Memorial Hospital, DLZ, Howard LLP, City of Sparks
Amanda Fennell CSO
Find out what your peers are saying about Huntress, CrowdStrike, Field Effect and others in Managed Detection and Response (MDR). Updated: January 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.