VENDOR COMPARISON

Expel vs. ReliaQuest

In the time it takes Expel to fully remediate a threat, ReliaQuest’s GreyMatter Agentic AI platform is only halfway through an investigation.

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Head-To-Head

Why orgs choose Expel over ReliaQuest

		ReliaQuest
MDR SPEED AND EXPERTISE Does your vendor offer speed while supporting your existing stack?
Mean time to remediate	AI-optimized SOC provides 14 minute incident resolution	Tech platform yields 48 minute resolution, after 33 minute time to investigate using GreyMatter Agentic AI¹
Agentless onboarding, bring-your-own-tech (BYOT)	Direct bi-directional API connections to your tools for fastest data collection and alert ingestion, no proprietary agents	Based on Expel’s analysis, 81% of connections are via indirect SIEM syslog paths, adding ingestion latency and reducing data fidelity²
Coverage Are all your attack surfaces protected?
Total integrations across attack surfaces	160+ connections across security tools including endpoint, cloud, identity, SaaS, network, and more	Lacks coverage for Azure and Google Kubernetes solutions and requires a SIEM to provide coverage for SaaS solutions like Box, GitHub, GitLab, Salesforce, Slack, Varonis, and Workday²
Contextualization	Forrester Q1 2025: rated 5/5 for Vulnerability Management Integration & Contextualization³	Forrester Q1 2025: rated 1/5 for Vulnerability Management Integration & Contextualization³
Transparency Can you see what your MDR is doing, in real time?
Direct SOC analyst access	Direct 24x7 access via Slack or Teams included. Always on-call to answer any questions	All communication is routed through a non-technical Customer Success Manager–no direct SOC access offered⁴
Humans + AI Does your MDR cut noise or just pass it along?
Context-aware prioritization	Ruxie™ AI surfaces what matters with context-based recommendations, then humans make the final call	ReliaQuest’s overemphasis on automation may be a drawback for customers seeking a human-led MDR solution, with concerns about its impact on handling sophisticated threats⁵
Expertise and partnership Does the vendor offer a tech-enhanced MDR service or a product?
MDR market recognition (Gartner)	Named a Representative Vendor in the Gartner Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response⁶	Not included in the Gartner Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response⁶
MDR market recognition (Forrester)	Named a Leader in the Forrester Wave™ for MDR Services, Q1 2025³	Not named a Leader in the Forrester Wave™ for MDR Services, Q1 2025³
Security posture improvement	Consistent resilience recommendations direct from real SOC analysts who live in your environment	GreyMatter is a tech platform, not a human-led SOC; any communication is routed through a non-technical Customer Success Manager⁴

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Questions to ask ReliaQuest

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When a threat is confirmed in my environment, who owns the investigation—your SOC or my team?

If my team has a critical incident at 3am, who do I talk to—a SOC analyst directly, or a customer success manager?

Your platform is AI-first and agentic. What happens when a sophisticated threat requires the kind of human judgment that automated triage might miss?

Gartner doesn’t include ReliaQuest in their MDR market guide. How do you define your service category, and how does that affect what’s included in your coverage and response commitments?

What’s your SLA for beginning investigation of a critical alert? Does “beginning investigation” mean an automated triage step, or an analyst actively reviewing the incident?

How many of your data sources connect through direct API versus indirect SIEM syslog forwarding—and what does that mean for data fidelity and response speed?

No compromises

The Expel difference

Fast & flexible

Agentless onboarding with 160+ integrations across endpoint, cloud, identity, SaaS, and network. No proprietary agents or extra vendor tooling required.

Transparency

Full real-time visibility into every detection, investigation, and response via Expel Workbench™—with direct 24×7 SOC analyst access through Slack or Teams, included.

Humans + AI

Ruxie™ AI surfaces only what matters with context-based recommendations, driving a 14-minute mean time to remediate with automated response across 8 attack surfaces.

Expertise

Direct SOC access via Slack or Teams around the clock—not a ticketing queue—backed by a Forrester Wave™ 5/5 rating for Managed Investigations in Q1 2025.

“There’s no way we could have achieved everything we have in our security strategy without a partner who really understands what we’re trying to accomplish. Expel supports our vision, not just in the security realm, but throughout our business.”

Lewis McIntyre

Director of Cybersecurity and Incident Response

You're in good company

Frequently asked questions

How does Expel's transparency compare to ReliaQuest's?

Expel is purpose-built around a glass-box model. Through Expel Workbench™, customers get real-time visibility into every detection, investigation, and response action as it happens, 24×7, shared directly with SOC analysts, not routed through an account team. Expel also provides direct analyst access via Slack or Teams with no after-hours limitations. ReliaQuest’s GreyMatter platform offers a “single pane of glass” focused on AI-driven delivery, with Customer Success Managers as the primary customer contact rather than SOC analysts—and Gartner does not recognize ReliaQuest as an MDR vendor, which is worth understanding when you’re scoping what your contract actually covers.

How does Expel's AI approach differ from ReliaQuest's?

Expel uses a human-in-the-loop model—Ruxie™ prioritizes and enriches alerts with context-based recommendations so analysts can act fast without replacing human judgment on sophisticated threats. Expel guarantees a 15-minute SLA for critical events with a ~14-minute MTTR backed by auto-remediation across 8 attack surfaces. ReliaQuest’s agentic AI-first model automates investigation initiation, but introduces a delay before investigation begins and a 60-minute SLA for initial analysis of critical incidents—and raises questions about handling complex threats that require expert human interpretation.

How do Expel's integrations compare to ReliaQuest's?

Expel connects to 160+ technologies via direct bi-directional APIs, no SIEM required, no collectors or forwarders. Direct API connections pull richer telemetry, enable faster detection and response, and don’t introduce delivery risk from syslog-based paths. ReliaQuest claims 600+ supported sources, but Expel’s analysis found approximately 81% of those connections route through indirect SIEM syslog paths, adding latency, reducing data fidelity, and limiting bidirectional response capabilities.

How does coverage across cloud, identity, and SaaS compare between Expel and ReliaQuest?

Expel provides detection and response across cloud, SaaS, network, endpoint, identity, and email simultaneously, with custom detections to eliminate blind spots specific to your environment. Forrester Q1 2025 rated Expel 5/5 for Vulnerability Management Integration & Contextualization. ReliaQuest claims full coverage but was rated 1/5 by Forrester in the same category, with the assessment noting an inability to integrate tools with analytics and continuous monitoring—a meaningful gap if you need visibility across a heterogeneous environment.

Is ReliaQuest actually an MDR provider?

ReliaQuest positions itself primarily as a security operations platform company—Gartner does not include them in the MDR market guide. That distinction matters when you’re evaluating who’s accountable for your investigations: a platform vendor that licenses you tooling, or an MDR provider operating a 24×7 SOC on your behalf. Expel is a Forrester Wave™ Leader in Managed Detection and Response Services (Q1 2025) and rated 5/5 for Managed Investigations, a direct measure of who owns the investigation process end to end.