An honest comparison
MDR or a SOC: which model fits?
MDR and SOC as a Service are two names for the same buy decision: your detection and response delivered by a provider's 24/7 team. The real comparison is between buying that capability as a service and building your own SOC. Here it is, honestly.
| Factor | Build in-house | Buy as a service (MDR / SOCaaS) |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | Your own analysts, tooling and processes, built and run by you | A provider's 24/7 analysts, tooling and processes, delivered as a monthly service |
| Time to coverage | A build measured in months at best: recruitment, tooling, onboarding and tuning before anyone is genuinely watching | Watching within days of onboarding, with mature detections from day one |
| Cost shape | Salaries for a 24/7 analyst rota, plus SIEM licensing, training and management, whether or not anything happens | One published monthly fee scoped to your endpoints, data sources and coverage |
| People risk | Analyst recruitment and retention is a permanent problem; one resignation can break the rota | The rota is the provider's problem; you get continuity contractually |
| Expertise breadth | Limited to what your team has seen; a small SOC sees a narrow slice of attacks | Analysts who defend many environments at once and recognise attacks the first time they hit yours |
| Out-of-hours reality | Genuine 24/7 needs multiple people on shift; most in-house teams quietly run business hours plus on-call | Contractual around-the-clock coverage with agreed response actions |
| Control | Total, along with total responsibility for keeping it all working | You keep decision authority and a live view; the operational burden transfers |
| Exit | Sunk build cost; changing course means unwinding a department | Documented detections and runbooks; switch or insource with notice |
The maths
Why the build rarely adds up
Genuine 24/7 coverage needs several trained analysts on a rota before you count tooling, threat intelligence and someone senior to run it. The NCSC's guidance on building a SOC sets out just how much that undertaking involves. Our tiers run at REPLACE_WITH_PRICE_RANGE per month, published in full, so you can do the build-vs-buy comparison with real numbers on the pricing page.
Fair is fair
When building wins
- You are an enterprise with the scale to keep a full analyst rota busy and current
- Security operations is your product or a regulatory requirement demands in-house capability
- You want a hybrid: your analysts by day, a service overnight and at weekends
If that is you, we will say so in the first call. We support co-managed arrangements alongside fully outsourced SOCs.
Terminology
MDR, managed SOC, SOC as a Service, outsourced SOC: in 2026 these labels overwhelmingly describe the same service. The one genuine distinction worth probing is MDR versus a traditional MSSP: whether the provider responds to threats or just forwards you the alerts. Compare the substance: who watches, who acts, and what the monthly fee actually covers.
Quick answers
Model questions, answered
What is the difference between MDR and SOC as a Service?
Very little in substance. MDR names the outcome: threats detected and responded to for you. SOC as a Service names the delivery: a security operations centre consumed on subscription. Both mean a provider's analysts watching your systems 24/7 and acting on genuine threats; compare coverage and response authority, not the label.
What is the difference between MDR and an MSSP?
A traditional MSSP manages security tooling and forwards alerts for your team to handle; MDR investigates and responds on your behalf. If the service ends with a notification in your inbox at 3am, it is an MSSP arrangement. If the threat is contained before you wake up, it is MDR.
When does building an in-house SOC make sense?
When you are large enough to sustain a full analyst rota, security operations is core to your business, or regulation demands it. Plenty of enterprises run hybrid models too: an in-house day team with a service covering nights and weekends. If in-house or co-managed is right for you, we will say so in the discovery call.
Still weighing it up?
Talk it through with people who run SOCs
Our team has built and run security operations in-house and as a service. A free 45 minute call will tell you honestly which model fits your business.