No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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)
31st
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (26th)
CrowdStrike Falcon Complete...
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 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 CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR is 6.1%, down from 14.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR6.1%
CRITICALSTART0.9%
Other93.0%
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.
Sachin Bode - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at IFB Industries Ltd
Managed detection has strengthened our defenses and has provided real-time threat visibility
Sometimes we are facing performance issues with the end-user systems, and sometimes it is blocking a few of our applications, which we later resolve with the team. Recently, we were having our call center application running on the systems, which suddenly stopped working because CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR was not allowing it to run. After removing CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR, it started working, and then later we added the application URLs and the communication URLs to CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR allow list, so it started working. Some processor utilization needs to be dropped because now Windows systems are consuming more CPU and RAM than earlier. Windows 10 was fine, but Windows 11 is consuming more CPU and RAM. If CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR is contributing to consuming the resources, then other applications are taking a lot of time to run. In Windows 11, we are facing this issue sometimes, and we need more powerful systems than earlier. I would also appreciate improvements on the pricing side. Some of our locations where people are isolated, we are not buying CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR due to the pricing. If there is a nominal reduction in the price, then we will go for everyone in the organization.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It is a comfort to know that there is a team of professionals backing you up, especially in an area that you don't feel 100 percent comfortable."
"The biggest lesson is transitioning from alert overload to being at a point where we do have eyes on alerts, where every alert is truly possible."
"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."
"CrowdStrike Falcon Complete provides complete details of any malicious activity, including the impact date and file source."
"The most valuable feature is that it has a zero-day approach; it looks into what is happening on an endpoint and protects you better against threats that are not yet known, providing far better detection than when it is only signature-based and much quicker protection against any new threat."
"It is an endpoint protection product. It has a very good reporting engine and dashboard. It has a good set of endpoint controls. It provides an effective set of protections. When we throw malware and stuff like that at it, it is able to stop them."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the real-time visibility into what is happening in your endpoint."
"The prevention capabilities hold the utmost value."
"If someone is using the old Microsoft Office and the system is not updated, then CrowdStrike takes action on behalf of the operating system."
"The detection and investigation capabilities are my favorite parts of the solution, and it has good threat intelligence and threat-hunting features."
"EDR and Next-Generation Antivirus (NGAV) are good features. The Spotlight feature is also good, and it also can detect patching-related vulnerabilities."
 

Cons

"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)."
"There is room for improvement with the new UI, and that's about it. I would like to see a more intuitive design."
"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 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."
"They could dig a little bit deeper into the Splunk alerts when they feel like they need to be escalated to us."
"The UI has become slower but it's not something I would call them out on."
"There is room for improvement with the new UI, and that's about it. I would like to see a more intuitive design."
"The downside is that if you are using a device offline, not connected to the internet, you will potentially have exposure."
"The support from CrowdStrike Falcon Complete is very fast. The support could improve if it was in the French language."
"CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR offers an optional module that might not be cost-effective for all organizations."
"Falcon could use more SIEM capabilities, like a central place to monitor all our clients."
"The downside that we see with CrowdStrike is that it is not part of a broader ecosystem."
"We're a small organization. I'm not sure how it would fare if you were larger and had more and more users and added complexity."
"What could be improved in CrowdStrike Falcon Complete is the threat hunting feature and the insights it provides, in particular, the variable analysis feature. Protection against zero-day threats and sandboxing could also be improved in CrowdStrike Falcon Complete. If you compare it with other solutions, it can go head-to-head, but the features I mentioned still need improvement."
"Crowdstrike could be cheaper. It's pricier than Carbon Black."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."
"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 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."
"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."
"Falcon Complete could be a bit cheaper."
"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."
"At approximately €60 per machine, per year, I think that it's a good price point."
"It's expensive. Its price varies because it's a modular solution."
"This product is one of the more expensive ones on the market."
"There is a license needed to use the solution. The price of the solution is fair."
"CrowdStrike is more expensive than SentinelOne. Licensing works on the number of agents and the modules you buy. CrowdStrike has different modules, such as Falcon, Falcon Overwatch, Falcon Complete, etc. The pricing depends upon the module that the customer wants. They have different Incident Response (IR) teams, which are very expensive."
"It is a fairly firm price. It is not the cheapest solution, but if you take the complete team into consideration, it is a great value."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solutions are best for your needs.
889,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Real Estate/Law Firm
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Healthcare Company
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 Enterprise18
Large Enterprise32
 

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?
Sometimes we are facing performance issues with the end-user systems, and sometimes it is blocking a few of our applications, which we later resolve with the team. Recently, we were having our call...
 

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: April 2026.
889,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.