EDR vs. MDR: What’s the Difference and Which Does Your Business Need?

If you’ve been shopping for cybersecurity solutions for your business, you’ve almost certainly encountered the terms EDR and MDR. They sound similar. They’re often marketed similarly. And they address overlapping threats — which makes it genuinely confusing to understand what you actually need.

Here’s the clear breakdown, and why IntegriTel deploys both SentinelOne and Blackpoint Cyber for our managed clients.

What EDR Does

EDR stands for Endpoint Detection and Response. It’s software that runs on every device in your business — laptops, desktops, servers — and monitors what’s happening at the operating system level in real time.

SentinelOne, the EDR platform we deploy, uses AI to detect malicious behavior patterns rather than relying on known virus signatures. This matters because signature-based antivirus misses new malware variants. SentinelOne catches threats based on what they do, not what they look like.

When SentinelOne detects a threat, it can automatically isolate the infected device from the network, kill the malicious process, and roll back changes made by the malware — all within seconds, without waiting for a human to respond. This automatic containment is critical for stopping ransomware before it encrypts your file server.

What MDR Does

MDR stands for Managed Detection and Response. It’s a service, not just software. A team of security analysts monitors your environment 24/7, investigates alerts, and responds to threats on your behalf.

Blackpoint Cyber, our MDR partner, operates a Security Operations Center (SOC) that watches your network around the clock. When something suspicious happens — an unusual login at 3am from an unfamiliar location, lateral movement across your network, data being staged for exfiltration — Blackpoint’s analysts investigate and act.

The key difference from EDR: MDR provides human expertise and broader visibility. EDR watches individual endpoints. MDR watches the relationships between endpoints, your network traffic, identity systems, and cloud services — and applies human judgment to what it sees.

Why You Need Both

EDR without MDR means you have sensors but no one watching them. SentinelOne will generate alerts — but who’s reviewing them? Most SMBs don’t have an internal security team. Alerts pile up, get ignored, or get reviewed days later when the damage is done.

MDR without EDR means analysts have limited visibility. Blackpoint Cyber is significantly more effective when it has rich endpoint telemetry from SentinelOne feeding into its investigation. The combination gives analysts the full picture: what happened on the device, how it connects to network activity, and what needs to be done.

Together, they create a layered defense:

• SentinelOne catches and automatically contains threats at the endpoint level within seconds
• Blackpoint Cyber investigates the broader attack pattern, determines scope, and coordinates response
• IntegriTel handles remediation, patch deployment, and post-incident review on your behalf

What This Costs for an SMB

The combined cost of SentinelOne EDR and Blackpoint Cyber MDR for a 25-person business typically runs $800–$1,200 per month through IntegriTel’s managed security offering. That includes licensing, deployment, configuration, and ongoing management.

Compare that to the average cost of a ransomware incident: $1.85 million in total impact for a small business, according to recent industry data. The math is straightforward.

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