Northwave vs OpenText
Northwave is a Services firm that works with your existing tools. OpenText is a Pure-play MDR that works with your existing tools. Northwave targets Mid-market and Enterprise organizations; OpenText serves SMB and Mid-market. Northwave includes 2 attack surfaces in base pricing (Endpoint, Network), compared to 4 for OpenText (Endpoint, Cloud, SaaS, Network).
Buyer brief
Northwave is a Services firm that works with your existing tools. OpenText is a Pure-play MDR that works with your existing tools. Northwave targets Mid-market and Enterprise organizations; OpenText serves SMB and Mid-market. Northwave includes 2 attack surfaces in base pricing (Endpoint, Network), compared to 4 for OpenText (Endpoint, Cloud, SaaS, Network).
Northwave (Services firm) and OpenText (Pure-play MDR) serve different buyer profiles. Your decision depends on whether you prioritize Northwave's northwave mdr fits european buyers that want a soc service connected to incident response, red te... or OpenText's sensible fit for smaller it teams that want opentext's threat intelligence and a 24/7 soc layered....
At a glance
| FIELD |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| Best fit | Benelux, DACH and Nordic buyers that want European MDR with a Utrecht SOC | SMB and lower mid-market organizations that want a SOC layer over their existing endpoint stack |
| Price | Custom quote | Custom quote |
| Response authority | 1/6 actions · Configurable | 1/6 actions · Approval required |
| Stack | Works with existing stack | Works with existing stack |
| Data access | Dashboards | Dashboards |
| Warranty | None listed | 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
- Best fit
- SMB and lower mid-market organizations that want a SOC layer over their existing endpoint stack
- Price
- Custom quote
- Response authority
- 1/6 actions · Approval required
- Stack
- Works with existing stack
- Data access
- Dashboards
- Warranty
- None listed
›› Detailed comparison
| FIELD | NorthwaveTECH-AGNOSTIC | OpenTextTECH-AGNOSTIC |
|---|---|---|
| ›› Fit | ||
| Target size | Mid-market, Enterprise | SMB, Mid-market |
| Sentiment | Mixed | Mixed |
| ›› Your stack | ||
| Approach | Works with your tools | Works with your tools |
| EDR integrations | Customer endpoint telemetry | CrowdStrikeMicrosoft DefenderSentinelOneSophosCarbon BlackBitdefender |
| SIEM integrations | Customer log sources | Microsoft SentinelSplunk |
| Coverage | EPEndpoint: CoveredCloudCloud: LimitedIDIdentity: LimitedSaaSSaaS: Not coveredNetNetwork: CoveredOTOT/IoT: Optional add-on | EPEndpoint: CoveredCloudCloud: CoveredIDIdentity: LimitedSaaSSaaS: CoveredNetNetwork: CoveredOTOT/IoT: Not covered |
| ›› Response | ||
| Response type | Active Remediation | Guided Response |
| Approval policy | Configurable | Approval Required |
| Response actions | Custom playbooks | Custom playbooks |
| IR included | Separate | Separate |
| ›› Cost | ||
| Price range | Not published | Not published |
| Minimum seats | None | None |
| Breach warranty | – | – |
| ›› More details | ||
| Requires own agent | No | No |
| Endpoints | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| Cloud workloads | ~ Limited | ✓ Included |
| Identity | ~ Limited | ~ Limited |
| SaaS apps | Not offered | ✓ Included |
| Network | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| OT/ICS | + Optional | Not offered |
| Threat hunting | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| Response SLA | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| 24/7 coverage | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pricing model | Custom quote. Northwave does not publish MDR package pricing. | Custom quote, not published. Sold direct and through OpenText partner channel. |
| Hidden cost warnings | 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. | Co-managed model means the customer's team still does the actual containment work. No published SLA, contractual response commitments must be negotiated. Headline detection metrics come from a 2021 launch announcement and have not been independently verified |
| Data portability | Partial | Partial |
| Contract terms | Custom | Annual |
| Channels | PortalEmailPhone | EmailPortalPhone |
| Data access | Dashboards | Dashboards |
| Dedicated analyst | – | – |
| SOC regions | Europe | North America |
| Onboarding | 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. | Not published |
| Industry focus | Financial ServicesHealthcareManufacturingLogisticsTechnologyPublic SectorCritical Infrastructure | SMBHealthcareFinancial ServicesPublic Sector |
| MTTD | Not published | Less than 30 minutes (vendor-published, 2021 launch claim) |
| MTTR | Not published | Not published |
| Community view | 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. | Public review coverage of OpenText Core MDR is thin. Capterra lists the product with zero reviews, and there is no Gartner Peer Insights MDR profile or G2 page with a meaningful review base. Practitioner discussion mostly references the broader OpenText Cybersecurity portfolio and the Webroot heritage rather than the MDR service itself. |
| Compliance | NIS2ISO 27001GDPRTISAX | Not published |
| Certifications | – | Not published |
| Founded | 2006 | 1991 |
| Data retention | Not published as a standard MDR retention period. | Not published |
| API available | – | ✓ |
| Website | Visit → | Visit → |
›› FAQ
What is the main difference between Northwave and OpenText?
Northwave is a Services firm that is technology-agnostic (works with your existing tools). OpenText is a Pure-play MDR that is technology-agnostic (works with your existing tools). Northwave covers 2 attack surfaces in base pricing vs. 4 for OpenText.
How do Northwave and OpenText differ in response capabilities?
Northwave supports 1 autonomous actions (custom playbooks) and approval is configurable. OpenText supports 1 autonomous actions (custom playbooks) and requires approval before acting.
How does Northwave pricing compare to OpenText?
Northwave pricing: Not published. OpenText pricing: Not published. 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.. Watch for with OpenText: Co-managed model means the customer's team still does the actual containment work; No published SLA, contractual response commitments must be negotiated.
Should I choose Northwave or OpenText?
Choose Northwave if: benelux, DACH and Nordic buyers that want European MDR with a Utrecht SOC. Choose OpenText if: sMB and lower mid-market organizations that want a SOC layer over their existing endpoint stack. Northwave is not ideal for buyers that need public MDR pricing or response SLAs before engaging sales. OpenText is not ideal for buyers who need analysts to isolate endpoints or kill processes without customer approval.
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.