CRITICALSTART vs Expel comparison

Critical Start and Expel are both solutions in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category. Critical Start is ranked #30, while Expel is ranked #17 with an average rating of 9.0. Critical Start holds a 0.9% mindshare in MDR, compared to Expel’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Critical Start users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Expel users who would recommend it.

CRITICALSTART

Read 10 CRITICALSTART reviews

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806 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Expel

Read 1 Expel review

1,541 Views
1,279 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

CRITICALSTART

Expel

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

Expel and CRITICALSTART compete in the cybersecurity solutions category, each offering unique strengths in threat detection and response. CRITICALSTART's advanced features may offer a superior investment for certain businesses.

Features: Expel offers intuitive dashboards, streamlined workflow integration, and effective support service to enhance operational efficiency. CRITICALSTART provides customizable threat hunting capabilities, comprehensive reporting, and a detailed feature set that adds value to its offering.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Expel facilitates a straightforward deployment process with minimal onboarding time and responsive customer service. CRITICALSTART requires a more complex setup but offsets this with robust assistance to address issues effectively.

Pricing and ROI: Expel's competitive pricing structure focuses on delivering long-term value, whereas CRITICALSTART involves a higher initial setup cost balanced by substantial ROI through enhanced security features.

To learn more, read our detailed Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

January 2026

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Helped 881,733 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)

30th

Average Rating

9.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (26th)

Expel

Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

17th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

SOC as a Service (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 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 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
Product	Market Share (%)
Expel	1.8%
CRITICALSTART	0.9%
Other	97.3%

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.

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reviewer2578461

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More CRITICALSTART pros

"Their threat hunting protocol and process with AI and machine learning are strong, allowing for active and rapid responses."

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..."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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

"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

"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."

"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."

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Real Estate/Law Firm

13%

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

No data available

Questions from the Community

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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.

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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...

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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...

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Comparisons

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Compared 14% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 11% of the time

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ReliaQuest GreyMatter vs CRITICALSTART

Compared 8% of the time

Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response vs CRITICALSTART

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Compared 17% of the time

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CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR vs Expel

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Trend Micro Managed XDR vs Expel

Compared 8% of the time

Deepwatch vs Expel

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART

February 2026

Download CRITICALSTART product report

Buyer's Guide

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

January 2026

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Also Known As

Critical Start, CriticalStart

Workbench, Expel SOC-as-a-Service

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

Expel provides a security operations platform designed to help businesses manage threats efficiently. It offers a comprehensive approach to cybersecurity, enabling organizations to focus on improving their security posture while leveraging advanced technology and expertise.

Expel services are crafted to simplify and enhance security operations by delivering transparent insights and actionable guidance. It uses a combination of automated detection and human expertise to identify threats and prevent security breaches, allowing clients to reduce risk and save time. The tailored approach ensures that each client receives support aligned with their security challenges, making it a reliable choice for protective measures in complex ecosystems.

What are Expel's key features?

24x7 Monitoring: Continuous surveillance to detect and mitigate threats in real-time.
Automated Detection: Leveraging machine learning algorithms to identify threats quickly.
Expert Guidance: Access to seasoned security professionals for strategic advice.
Clear Reporting: Simplified reports for better visibility into security operations.

What benefits should you consider when evaluating Expel?

Risk Reduction: Significant decrease in potential security breaches.
Cost Efficiency: Lower operational costs by optimizing existing security resources.
Enhanced Focus: Freeing internal teams to work on growth initiatives rather than threat management.
Scalability: Ability to adapt to the evolving security needs of businesses.

Expel implementation varies across industries, addressing specific challenges within different sectors. In finance, it strengthens defenses against cyber fraud, whereas in healthcare, it focuses on safeguarding sensitive patient data. Technology firms utilize Expel for maintaining data integrity and compliance, proving its versatility across multi-faceted environments.

Expel

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Amanda Fennell CSO

Buyer's Guide

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

January 2026

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