EDR and XDR

EDR and XDR products install an agent on endpoints that watches for malicious behaviour, not just known malware signatures, and can automatically isolate a machine, kill a malicious process, or roll it back to a pre-attack state. XDR extends the same detection logic across more than endpoints, often pulling in identity, network or email signals for broader correlation. Application allow-listing, where only approved software can run, is a stricter and different approach offered by some products in this category rather than behavioural detection alone. EDR is not itself a staffed monitoring service; unless you buy a managed MDR add-on or pair it with a separate MDR product, someone on your own team has to review and act on the alerts it raises.

Pricing is per endpoint per month in almost every case, usually split by workstation and server since servers can carry a higher rate. A managed MDR add-on, where offered, is typically priced separately on top of the base EDR licence.

Behavioural detection quality and automated remediation are the core of the category, but rollback to a pre-attack state, where offered, matters a lot for ransomware recovery since it can undo file encryption without a full restore from backup. Offline protection determines whether the agent still catches threats when a device is disconnected from the internet. A threat hunting console is only useful if someone on your team will use it regularly; if not, weight the managed MDR add-on more heavily. SIEM and SOAR integration and macOS or Linux support matter only if your client base needs them.

RMM integration lets EDR alerts show up alongside patching and monitoring alerts in the same console, and SIEM or SOAR integration matters for MSPs running a broader security operation that correlates signals across tools. If you are pairing EDR with a separate MDR provider, confirm the MDR product explicitly supports your chosen EDR agent rather than requiring its own.

Ask about the contract term, whether pricing differs by workstation and server, and what the managed MDR add-on costs if you might want it later. Ask what happens to historical detection data and any configured policies if you switch vendors, since rebuilding allow-listing rules from scratch is time-consuming.

A small MSP without a round-the-clock security team should lean toward a product with a managed MDR add-on or a paired MDR service, since unreviewed alerts provide little protection on their own. A larger MSP with its own security analysts can get more value from a product with a deep threat hunting console and SIEM integration, building its own detection workflow rather than paying for managed response.