Northwave vs Red Canary
Northwave is a Services firm that works with your existing tools. Red Canary is a Pure-play MDR that works with your existing tools. Northwave targets Mid-market and Enterprise organizations; Red Canary serves SMB, Mid-market, and Enterprise. Northwave includes 2 attack surfaces in base pricing (Endpoint, Network), compared to 5 for Red Canary (Endpoint, Cloud, SaaS, Identity, Network).
Buyer brief
Northwave is a Services firm that works with your existing tools. Red Canary is a Pure-play MDR that works with your existing tools. Northwave targets Mid-market and Enterprise organizations; Red Canary serves SMB, Mid-market, and Enterprise. Northwave includes 2 attack surfaces in base pricing (Endpoint, Network), compared to 5 for Red Canary (Endpoint, Cloud, SaaS, Identity, Network).
Northwave (Services firm) and Red Canary (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 Red Canary's vendor-agnostic mdr with 9 edr platform integrations and detection-as-code methodology, the broad....
At a glance
| FIELD |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| Best fit | Benelux, DACH and Nordic buyers that want European MDR with a Utrecht SOC | Linux-heavy environments needing purpose-built Linux EDR for containers and Kubernetes |
| Price | Custom quote | Core rates, period unstated: $120/endpoint + $100/user + $250/cloud resource |
| Response authority | 1/6 actions · Configurable | 6/6 actions · Configurable |
| Stack | Works with existing stack | Works with existing stack |
| Data access | Dashboards | Full query access |
| 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
- Linux-heavy environments needing purpose-built Linux EDR for containers and Kubernetes
- Price
- Core rates, period unstated: $120/endpoint + $100/user + $250/cloud resource
- Response authority
- 6/6 actions · Configurable
- Stack
- Works with existing stack
- Data access
- Full query access
- Warranty
- None listed
›› Detailed comparison
| FIELD | NorthwaveTECH-AGNOSTIC | Red CanaryTECH-AGNOSTIC |
|---|---|---|
| ›› Fit | ||
| Target size | Mid-market, Enterprise | SMB, Mid-market, Enterprise |
| Sentiment | Mixed | Positive |
| ›› Your stack | ||
| Approach | Works with your tools | Works with your tools |
| EDR integrations | Customer endpoint telemetry | CrowdStrikeMicrosoft DefenderSentinelOneCarbon BlackPalo Alto CortexTrend MicroJamfRed Canary Linux EDR |
| SIEM integrations | Customer log sources | Microsoft Sentinel |
| Coverage | EPEndpoint: CoveredCloudCloud: LimitedIDIdentity: LimitedSaaSSaaS: Not coveredNetNetwork: CoveredOTOT/IoT: Optional add-on | EPEndpoint: CoveredCloudCloud: CoveredIDIdentity: CoveredSaaSSaaS: CoveredNetNetwork: CoveredOTOT/IoT: Optional add-on |
| ›› Response | ||
| Response type | Active Remediation | Active Remediation |
| Approval policy | Configurable | Configurable |
| Response actions | Custom playbooks | IsolateKill processContainDisable accountsQuarantineCustom playbooks |
| IR included | Separate | Separate |
| ›› Cost | ||
| Price range | Not published | Core Plan: $120/endpoint + $100/user + $250/cloud resource. Billing period not stated in profile data. Complete and Enterprise plans priced higher. Available through AWS Marketplace. |
| Minimum seats | None | None |
| Breach warranty | – | – |
| ›› More details | ||
| Requires own agent | No | No |
| Endpoints | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| Cloud workloads | ~ Limited | ✓ Included |
| Identity | ~ Limited | ✓ Included |
| SaaS apps | Not offered | ✓ Included |
| Network | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| OT/ICS | + Optional | + Optional |
| Threat hunting | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| Response SLA | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| 24/7 coverage | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pricing model | Custom quote. Northwave does not publish MDR package pricing. | Resource-based pricing: per-endpoint + per-user + per-cloud-resource. Three tiers: Core (SMB), Complete (mid-market), Enterprise (custom with dedicated support). |
| 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. | Resource-based pricing (endpoint + user + cloud) can scale unexpectedly as environments grow. Elevated customer churn post-Zscaler acquisition disclosed in Feb 2026 earnings, market mindshare declined 4.2% to 2.9% year-over-year. Single SOC location in Denver with no follow-the-sun model documented. Enterprise tier required for dedicated support and custom features. Vendor-agnostic positioning may erode over time under Zscaler ownership per Forrester |
| Data portability | Partial | Partial |
| Contract terms | Custom | Annual, Multi-year |
| Channels | PortalEmailPhone | SlackTeamsEmailPortalPhone |
| Data access | Dashboards | Full query access |
| 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. | Days to weeks depending on environment complexity and number of integrations |
| Industry focus | Financial ServicesHealthcareManufacturingLogisticsTechnologyPublic SectorCritical Infrastructure | TechnologyFinancial ServicesHealthcareGovernmentEducation |
| MTTD | Not published | Sub-minute median time to acknowledge (vendor-published, measured from alert reaching analyst) |
| MTTR | Not published | Seconds for automated containment, minutes for analyst-driven response |
| 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. | Forrester Wave MDR Leader Q1 2025. G2 4.7/5 (127 reviews, #1 customer satisfaction). Gartner Peer Insights 4.6/5 (131+ reviews). PeerSpot 9.0/10. Product quality remains strong post-Zscaler acquisition, but Zscaler disclosed elevated customer churn in Feb 2026 earnings with market mindshare declining from 4.2% to 2.9% year-over-year. |
| Compliance | NIS2ISO 27001GDPRTISAX | SOC 2 Type IIISO 27001 |
| Certifications | – | SOC 2 Type II (annual independent assessment)ISO 27001:2013 (annual independent assessment)Working toward FedRAMP certification |
| Founded | 2006 | 2014 |
| Data retention | Not published as a standard MDR retention period. | Security Data Lake with SQL query interface during service. Specific retention periods available on request. |
| API available | – | ✓ |
| Website | Visit → | Visit → |
›› FAQ
What is the main difference between Northwave and Red Canary?
Northwave is a Services firm that is technology-agnostic (works with your existing tools). Red Canary is a Pure-play MDR that is technology-agnostic (works with your existing tools). Northwave covers 2 attack surfaces in base pricing vs. 5 for Red Canary.
How do Northwave and Red Canary differ in response capabilities?
Northwave supports 1 autonomous actions (custom playbooks) and approval is configurable. Red Canary supports 6 autonomous actions (account disable, custom playbooks, endpoint isolation, file quarantine, network containment, process termination) and approval is configurable.
How does Northwave pricing compare to Red Canary?
Northwave pricing: Not published. Red Canary pricing: Core Plan: $120/endpoint + $100/user + $250/cloud resource. Billing period not stated in profile data. Complete and Enterprise plans priced higher. Available through AWS Marketplace.. 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 Red Canary: Resource-based pricing (endpoint + user + cloud) can scale unexpectedly as environments grow; Elevated customer churn post-Zscaler acquisition disclosed in Feb 2026 earnings, market mindshare declined 4.2% to 2.9% year-over-year.
Should I choose Northwave or Red Canary?
Choose Northwave if: benelux, DACH and Nordic buyers that want European MDR with a Utrecht SOC. Choose Red Canary if: organizations with existing EDR investments (CrowdStrike, Microsoft, SentinelOne, Carbon Black, Cortex XDR, Trend Micro, Jamf) wanting MDR layered on top. Northwave is not ideal for buyers that need public MDR pricing or response SLAs before engaging sales. Red Canary is not ideal for global organizations needing follow-the-sun SOC coverage, only Denver SOC confirmed.
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.