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CRITICALSTART vs CrowdStrike Falcon Complete 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)
30th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (27th)
CrowdStrike Falcon Complete...
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR is 7.3%, down from 15.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR7.3%
CRITICALSTART0.9%
Other91.8%
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.
Muhammad  Fahad - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Director to ACIR at Board Of Revenue
Enhanced security team efficiency and proactive threat management with room to improve alert management and cost-efficiency
There are several issues we are facing with CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR, including data overload, noise, and false positive alerts. We experience alert fatigue, contextual gaps, integration complexity, and timeliness of intelligence challenges in our environment. Areas that should be improved include noise reduction, prioritization, real-time delivery, and advanced threat coverage. The filtering algorithm should be improved to address these concerns.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"It is a very good solution. It can provide detection and response in an extensive way, and for an endpoint, it can integrate the information that comes from the servers."
"The most valuable feature is that it has a zero-day approach. It does not work with the signature itself. It looks into what is happening on an endpoint and protects you better against threats that are not yet known but are captured in a signature. It provides far better detection than when it is only signature-based. You get much quicker protection against any new threat. This is the most important feature of the CrowdStrike solution."
"The most valuable feature is the Managed Detection and Response."
"The continuous improvement in detections and response times is valuable. They are more focused on threats that come from the cloud, not only that we see."
"Falcon Complete's best features are its detailed reporting and user-friendliness."
"The system is valuable as it is a fully managed endpoint protection service designed to stop breaches, detect threats, and respond to incidents effectively."
"Crowdstrike has better support than Carbon Black."
"It works as a security device and provides an extra layer of security to our devices and computers."
 

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..."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"There is room for improvement with the new UI, and that's about it. I would like to see a more intuitive design."
"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."
"The customization could be tweaked. We can do a bunch of custom dashboards. However, the one thing that I'm not a fan of is when you go to do an investigation, the way that the processes are laid out on the screen is very bland looking. While the information is there, it could be laid out better."
"We have a problem with the CrowdStrike Falcon Complete agent. It was closing the communication with the network or other computers."
"Falcon could use more SIEM capabilities, like a central place to monitor all our clients."
"They are doing very well in continuously improving their product. The only thing is that it is completely cloud-based, and some customers don't really like that type of approach, but you can only provide such a solution when you have cloud-based intelligence. On the other end, we know that it is sometimes a breaking point for some of the customers. They could potentially have an on-prem or hybrid solution. Any antivirus needs to have its features updated. If there could be a relay between them, it would be helpful, but that's very hard to do. So, you either accept that approach and have the benefit with this little disadvantage."
"The technical support is good. However, the technical support is outsourced to India which causes some language barriers. I am not sure if this is still an issue, they might have allotted more suitable representatives."
"I prefer to put a pound into the prevention and an ounce into the cure, but CrowdStrike put more focus into the EDR. This works as a business model for them, as they get a lot of customers purchasing their MDR services, usually SMBs lacking the staff to leverage the EDR tool themselves adequately. We have many such customers. I would much rather see more refinement and investment into the prevention side of the equation, though CrowdStrike has a good engine. The solution is as effective as SentinelOne and Windows Defender for Endpoint; it's an excellent endpoint protection solution."
"CrowdStrike Falcon Complete is not providing application control. This is a very useful feature in any endpoint security because if you want to block any malicious activity of any particular application, you can not block it in this solution. However, you are able to block hashes, but not executable files or processes. Additionally, this solution does not provide a user risk score. These are two areas that CrowdStrike Falcon Complete can improve on in the future."
"CrowdStrike Falcon Complete could improve the threat visibility and have remediated vulnerabilities that they find."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I've told CRITICALSTART that I think the managed service they provide is cheaper than it should be. It's a really good deal."
"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."
"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."
"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 is a little bit higher than other OEM competitors in the market, like SentinelOne and Trend Micro."
"CrowdStrike Falcon Complete is very expensive in comparison to Bitdefender."
"The pricing for CrowdStrike Falcon Complete is competitive. It's a cheaper solution when you compare it with others, and on a scale of one to five, I'm rating its pricing a four. You also don't need to pay extra for its features. CrowdStrike Falcon Complete is perfect."
"The solution needs to have human involvement, they could improve by having more automation where the solution can take the necessary action on time and more accurately."
"Its price is very high. CrowdStrike Falcon Complete is 50% more expensive than Cisco AMP for Endpoints."
"Its licenses are expensive for small-scale companies."
"This product is one of the more expensive ones on the market."
"The licensing cost for CrowdStrike Falcon Complete is fair, and I would give it a five out of five. You have to pay per device/user."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Real Estate/Law Firm
17%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Retailer
6%
 

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 Business35
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about CrowdStrike Falcon Complete?
It is a cloud-based solution. You can easily scale it.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CrowdStrike Falcon Complete?
The cost is not reasonable and should be more cost-efficient. From an enterprise level perspective, it should be reduced by approximately 20 to 25%.
What needs improvement with CrowdStrike Falcon Complete?
There are several issues we are facing with CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR, including data overload, noise, and false positive alerts. We experience alert fatigue, contextual gaps, integration com...
 

Also Known As

Critical Start, CriticalStart
Falcon Complete
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Palm Beach State College, Mercedes-AMG, Pokemon, Telstra, Goldman Sachs, Zebra
Find out what your peers are saying about CRITICALSTART vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.