eSentire vs Northwave
eSentire is a Pure-play MDR that works with your existing tools. Northwave is a Services firm that works with your existing tools. eSentire targets SMB, Mid-market, and Enterprise organizations; Northwave serves Mid-market and Enterprise. eSentire includes 5 attack surfaces in base pricing (Endpoint, Cloud, SaaS, Identity, Network), compared to 2 for Northwave (Endpoint, Network).
Buyer brief
eSentire is a Pure-play MDR that works with your existing tools. Northwave is a Services firm that works with your existing tools. eSentire targets SMB, Mid-market, and Enterprise organizations; Northwave serves Mid-market and Enterprise. eSentire includes 5 attack surfaces in base pricing (Endpoint, Cloud, SaaS, Identity, Network), compared to 2 for Northwave (Endpoint, Network).
eSentire (Pure-play MDR) and Northwave (Services firm) serve different buyer profiles. Your decision depends on whether you prioritize eSentire's esentire excels at active, hands-on response and publicly reports 15-minute containment or Northwave's northwave mdr fits european buyers that want a soc service connected to incident response, red te....
At a glance
| FIELD |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| Best fit | Organizations wanting a provider that publicly reports 15-minute containment with true active remediation | Benelux, DACH and Nordic buyers that want European MDR with a Utrecht SOC |
| Price | Buyer benchmark: $30-100/endpoint/yr | Custom quote |
| Response authority | 6/6 actions · Configurable | 1/6 actions · Configurable |
| Stack | Works with existing stack | Works with existing stack |
| Data access | Dashboards | Dashboards |
| Warranty | None listed | None listed |
- Best fit
- Organizations wanting a provider that publicly reports 15-minute containment with true active remediation
- Price
- Buyer benchmark: $30-100/endpoint/yr
- Response authority
- 6/6 actions · Configurable
- Stack
- Works with existing stack
- Data access
- Dashboards
- Warranty
- None listed
- Best fit
- Benelux, DACH and Nordic buyers that want European MDR with a Utrecht SOC
- Price
- Custom quote
- Response authority
- 1/6 actions · Configurable
- Stack
- Works with existing stack
- Data access
- Dashboards
- Warranty
- None listed
›› Detailed comparison
| FIELD | eSentireTECH-AGNOSTIC | NorthwaveTECH-AGNOSTIC |
|---|---|---|
| ›› Fit | ||
| Target size | SMB, Mid-market, Enterprise | Mid-market, Enterprise |
| Sentiment | Positive | Mixed |
| ›› Your stack | ||
| Approach | Works with your tools | Works with your tools |
| EDR integrations | CrowdStrike FalconMicrosoft Defender for EndpointSentinelOneVMware Carbon BlackeSentire Atlas Agent (proprietary, optional) | Customer endpoint telemetry |
| SIEM integrations | Microsoft SentinelSplunkSumo Logic | Customer log sources |
| Coverage | EPEndpoint: CoveredCloudCloud: CoveredIDIdentity: CoveredSaaSSaaS: CoveredNetNetwork: CoveredOTOT/IoT: Not covered | EPEndpoint: CoveredCloudCloud: LimitedIDIdentity: LimitedSaaSSaaS: Not coveredNetNetwork: CoveredOTOT/IoT: Optional add-on |
| ›› Response | ||
| Response type | Active Remediation | Active Remediation |
| Approval policy | Configurable | Configurable |
| Response actions | IsolateKill processContainDisable accountsQuarantineCustom playbooks | Custom playbooks |
| IR included | ✓ Included | Separate |
| ›› Cost | ||
| Price range | Third-party buyer data reports eSentire MDR endpoint-focused pricing around $60-100/endpoint/year for 50-200 endpoints, $40-80/endpoint/year for 200-1,000 endpoints, and $30-60/endpoint/year for 1,000+ endpoints. Older community reports cite $10-25/endpoint/month depending on tier. | Not published |
| Minimum seats | None | None |
| Breach warranty | – | – |
| ›› More details | ||
| Requires own agent | No | No |
| Endpoints | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| Cloud workloads | ✓ Included | ~ Limited |
| Identity | ✓ Included | ~ Limited |
| SaaS apps | ✓ Included | Not offered |
| Network | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| OT/ICS | Not offered | + Optional |
| Threat hunting | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| Response SLA | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| 24/7 coverage | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pricing model | Per-endpoint pricing across three tiers (Essentials up to 500 endpoints, Advanced up to 5,000, Complete up to 5,000) with BYOL or bundled Atlas Agent options | Custom quote. Northwave does not publish MDR package pricing. |
| Hidden cost warnings | Tier differences are significant. Essentials may lack key response and advisory capabilities available in Advanced/Complete.. BYOL pricing differs from bundled Atlas Agent pricing. Custom pricing for 5,000+ endpoints.. MSP program uses inflexible per-customer purchasing model (criticized by partners) | Public pages do not publish response SLAs or named default response actions.. Rapid Response is a separate related service, so buyers should confirm what incident-response support is included in base MDR.. Cloud, SaaS and identity coverage are not named as clearly as endpoint, log and network telemetry.. Detection tuning depends on onboarding log sources and threat-based use cases, which may affect deployment effort. |
| Data portability | Partial | Partial |
| Contract terms | Annual, Multi-year | Custom |
| Channels | TeamsEmailPortalPhone | PortalEmailPhone |
| Data access | Dashboards | Dashboards |
| Dedicated analyst | ✓ | – |
| SOC regions | North AmericaEurope | Europe |
| Onboarding | Average 14 days deployment | Northwave says implementation starts with a plan covering service elements, phases, planning and threat-based use cases, then onboarding log sources and processes. No standard public onboarding duration was found. |
| Industry focus | Financial ServicesHealthcareManufacturingTechnologyGovernment | Financial ServicesHealthcareManufacturingLogisticsTechnologyPublic SectorCritical Infrastructure |
| MTTD | Not published | Not published |
| MTTR | 15-minute Mean Time to Contain (vendor-published public metric). 99.3% of threats isolated at first host (vendor-published). 200+ new threat protections added daily. | Not published |
| Community view | G2 4.6/5 (272 reviews). Gartner Peer Insights 4.6/5 (83 reviews). PeerSpot 7.6/10. Forrester Wave Leader (Europe Q3 2025). Praised for public 15-minute containment metrics and true active remediation. Some price sensitivity for SMBs and occasional SOC response delays on non-emergency tickets. | Northwave has limited MDR-specific public review volume. The public buyer case rests on European delivery, Utrecht SOC operations and the connection between MDR, CERT, red team and threat research. Buyers should validate response authority, cloud and identity coverage, pricing and escalation rules before signing. |
| Compliance | ISO 27001PCI-DSSSOC 2 Type IIHIPAA/HITRUSTGDPRNIST | NIS2ISO 27001GDPRTISAX |
| Certifications | ISO 15408UK Cyber EssentialsSIG LiteAITECMicrosoft Security Solutions PartnerAWS Partner Network | – |
| Founded | 2001 | 2006 |
| Data retention | Not publicly disclosed | Not published as a standard MDR retention period. |
| API available | ✓ | – |
| Website | Visit → | Visit → |
›› FAQ
What is the main difference between eSentire and Northwave?
eSentire is a Pure-play MDR that is technology-agnostic (works with your existing tools). Northwave is a Services firm that is technology-agnostic (works with your existing tools). eSentire covers 5 attack surfaces in base pricing vs. 2 for Northwave.
How do eSentire and Northwave differ in response capabilities?
eSentire supports 6 autonomous actions (account disable, custom playbooks, endpoint isolation, file quarantine, network containment, process termination) and approval is configurable. Northwave supports 1 autonomous actions (custom playbooks) and approval is configurable. Incident response is included with eSentire and not included with Northwave.
How does eSentire pricing compare to Northwave?
eSentire pricing: Third-party buyer data reports eSentire MDR endpoint-focused pricing around $60-100/endpoint/year for 50-200 endpoints, $40-80/endpoint/year for 200-1,000 endpoints, and $30-60/endpoint/year for 1,000+ endpoints. Older community reports cite $10-25/endpoint/month depending on tier.. Northwave pricing: Not published. Watch for with eSentire: Tier differences are significant. Essentials may lack key response and advisory capabilities available in Advanced/Complete.; BYOL pricing differs from bundled Atlas Agent pricing. Custom pricing for 5,000+ endpoints.. Watch for with Northwave: Public pages do not publish response SLAs or named default response actions.; Rapid Response is a separate related service, so buyers should confirm what incident-response support is included in base MDR..
Should I choose eSentire or Northwave?
Choose eSentire if: organizations wanting a provider that publicly reports 15-minute containment with true active remediation. Choose Northwave if: benelux, DACH and Nordic buyers that want European MDR with a Utrecht SOC. eSentire is not ideal for budget-constrained SMBs seeking the lowest-cost MDR option. Northwave is not ideal for buyers that need public MDR pricing or response SLAs before engaging sales.
Daylight Security
AI-native MDR for buyers comparing active remediation across endpoint, cloud, identity, and SaaS. Daylight works with existing EDR/SIEM stacks and uses ChatOps-native collaboration, so it can be a useful third reference point in this comparison.