eSentire vs Expel
eSentire
eSentire is one of the longest-operating pure-play MDR firms, protecting more than 2,000 organisations across 80+ countries. Its proprietary Atlas platform ingests signals across the customer's vendor stack and powers the firm's 24/7 SOC, threat hunting, and incident response. It runs an in-house Threat Response Unit (TRU) for original research and is well known for deep specialisation in financial services, legal, and insurance verticals.
Pros
- One of the most established pure-play MDR providers (operating since 2001)
- Strong vertical playbooks for financial services and legal, including hedge fund and law-firm specialisation
- Vendor-broad Atlas platform reduces lock-in to a single EDR
- In-house TRU threat research team backs proactive hunting
Cons
- Premium pricing; not positioned for the very low end of SMB
- Atlas terminology has shifted across MDR / XDR / agentic AI; clarify current taxonomy in contract
- Limited public pricing
Pricing: Custom (contact sales)
Expel
Founded in May 2016 by ex-Mandiant/FireEye veterans Dave Merkel, Justin Bajko, and Yanek Korff, Expel takes a deliberate stance: no proprietary agent, full transparency into SOC activity via the Workbench portal, and integration with whatever security tools the customer already owns. The company reached unicorn status in November 2021 and was named a Leader in The Forrester Wave for MDR Services, Q1 2025. Independent and private.
Pros
- Genuinely vendor-neutral: no Expel agent, integrates with existing EDR/SIEM/cloud stack
- Transparent operations via Workbench (customers see every analyst action in real time)
- Strong public commitments such as a 13-minute MTTR for critical threats
- Founding team's Mandiant lineage gives credibility in IR and detection engineering
Cons
- 'Bring your own tech' means customers must already own (and license) suitable EDR/SIEM/cloud tooling
- Premium pricing relative to bundled MSSP offerings
- Limited public pricing; sales-led
Pricing: Custom (contact sales)