Huntress vs SentinelOne vs CrowdStrike for Small Business

Huntress sells managed EDR: a lightweight agent that runs alongside Microsoft Defender Antivirus, with Huntress's 24/7 SOC investigating and remediating threats included in every product price. SentinelOne and CrowdStrike sell endpoint protection platforms that replace your antivirus, put EDR above their entry tiers and sell their own managed detection and response, Wayfinder MDR and Falcon Complete, on top. Choose Huntress if you want the watching built into one per-endpoint price; choose SentinelOne or CrowdStrike if you want a full prevention and EDR platform that your team, a provider or the vendor's own MDR will run.

Disclosure: the endpoint tools our service pages name for managed clients are ThreatDown EDR and Microsoft Defender for Business, none of the three compared here. Every fact below comes from each vendor's own website, checked October 10, 2026, and the comparison is unranked. For Microsoft's product against two of these, see Defender for Business vs CrowdStrike vs SentinelOne; for SentinelOne's two most compared packages, see SentinelOne Control vs Complete.

What is the difference between Huntress, SentinelOne and CrowdStrike?

Huntress vs SentinelOne: what changes?

The main change is what the price includes. Huntress's pricing page says every product is fully managed by its 24/7 human SOC, with no add-ons or service tiers, and its Managed EDR page says the agent runs alongside your existing antivirus, including Microsoft Defender, which Huntress manages for free. SentinelOne replaces the antivirus with its own agent, and the price buys the platform. On SentinelOne's package table, managed threat hunting is an add-on to Complete and included from Commercial, and its MDR service is an add-on to Commercial and Enterprise. That service, Wayfinder MDR, adds 24/7 analysts and a breach response warranty of up to $1 million.

On the product side, SentinelOne lists one-click remediation and rollback of changes made by an attack, an AI security assistant for hunting in Complete, and cloud workload protection. Huntress lists ransomware canaries, persistent foothold detection and external reconnaissance of open ports, with its SOC acting on what they find. Which matters more depends on whether you have someone to use a console.

Huntress vs CrowdStrike: what changes?

CrowdStrike's pricing page lists three bundles with prices: Falcon Go at $59.99, Falcon Pro at $99.99 and Falcon Enterprise at $184.99 per device per year, or $7.99, $14.99 and $19.99 per device billed monthly, as of October 2026. Endpoint detection and response first appears in Enterprise. Go, which is capped at 100 devices, and Pro center on next-generation antivirus and device control, with firewall management added in Pro. Falcon Complete, CrowdStrike's 24/7 MDR with its breach prevention warranty, is quote only.

So the like-for-like comparison with Huntress Managed EDR, at an MSRP of $8.99 per endpoint per month with the SOC included, is Falcon Enterprise plus someone to watch it: your staff, a provider or Falcon Complete.

Who watches the alerts with each one?

• Huntress: its SOC handles every alert from detection to resolution and sends remediation guidance. If you buy direct or through a reseller, Huntress says you own deployment, portal management, integrations and acting on its incident reports; through an MSP, the MSP does that work and Huntress sets no seat minimum.
• SentinelOne: the agent blocks threats on its own and can roll back their changes; investigation falls to your team, the partner that sold it, or Wayfinder MDR.
• CrowdStrike: the same split, with your team or a partner on Go, Pro or Enterprise, or CrowdStrike's own analysts with Falcon Complete.

Which fits a small team?

Illustrative situations, not client stories:

• No IT staff, and an MSP that already runs Huntress. Huntress through the MSP: no seat minimum, and the MSP handles deployment and the incident reports.
• One IT generalist who works business hours. Huntress, with the SOC in the price, or SentinelOne or CrowdStrike with the vendor's MDR. Compare the total per endpoint, not the license alone.
• A capable IT team, Linux servers and cloud workloads. SentinelOne Complete or CrowdStrike Falcon Enterprise gives that team a full platform to run, with MDR added later if nights become a problem.
• Fewer than 100 devices and a tight budget. Falcon Go is CrowdStrike's entry point, but it has no EDR, so an insurer that asks for EDR will need a higher bundle.
• Already on Microsoft 365 Business Premium. You own Defender for Business; Huntress can run alongside Defender, while SentinelOne or CrowdStrike would replace it.

What affects cost, implementation and support?

• Published prices, as of October 2026. Huntress lists Managed EDR at an MSRP of $8.99 per endpoint per month ($7.99 in its 100-endpoint example), Managed ITDR at $4.80 per identity and Managed SIEM at $4.00 per data source. SentinelOne lists Core at $69.99, Control at $79.99, Complete at $179.99 and Commercial at $229.99 per endpoint per year, shown for 5 to 100 workstations, and says final pricing comes from the authorized partner. CrowdStrike lists Go at $59.99, Pro at $99.99 and Enterprise at $184.99 per device per year.
• Minimums and terms. Huntress's standard term is 12 months, with a 50-seat minimum per product when bought direct or through a reseller and none through an MSP. Falcon Go stops at 100 devices.
• Implementation. SentinelOne and CrowdStrike are built to replace the existing antivirus, so the old product has to come off cleanly; Huntress installs beside Defender Antivirus. Start with a pilot group either way.
• Support after an alert. Decide who isolates a device, who reimages it, who resets accounts and who calls the insurer before you sign, whichever vendor you pick.

How does NetSys help?

If you are comparing these because nobody watches your current tool, that is the job of our managed detection and response service: every alert triaged by a NetSys engineer around the clock, compromised devices isolated, the accounts an incident touched reset, and a written root cause, with the escalation path agreed in advance. It is included in our managed agreement or delivered on its own alongside in-house IT, and it runs month to month.

Book a call with a NetSys engineer to compare total cost and coverage for your device count before you sign a 12-month term.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Huntress and SentinelOne?

Huntress is a managed service with its own EDR agent and a 24/7 SOC included in the price; it runs beside Microsoft Defender Antivirus. SentinelOne is an endpoint protection platform that replaces your antivirus, with XDR from Singularity Complete upward and its Wayfinder MDR sold separately.

Is Huntress better than CrowdStrike for a small business?

Neither is better in general. Huntress suits a business that wants monitoring built into the price and has no analyst. CrowdStrike suits a business that wants its platform and will pay for EDR in Falcon Enterprise plus someone to watch it, whether staff, a provider or Falcon Complete.

Does Huntress replace Microsoft Defender?

No. Huntress says its Managed EDR runs alongside your existing antivirus, including Microsoft Defender, and it manages Microsoft Defender Antivirus at no extra cost. Defender stays the antivirus; Huntress adds its detection and its SOC.

What affects cost, implementation and support?

Device count, the tier that includes EDR, whether monitoring is bundled, seat minimums and contract terms. Implementation is mostly removing the old agent and a staged rollout. Support depends on who acts on an incident report at night, so agree that in writing first.

Can I run Huntress with SentinelOne or CrowdStrike?

Huntress says its agent runs alongside your existing antivirus. If that antivirus is SentinelOne or CrowdStrike, confirm compatibility with both vendors before running two security agents on one machine, and check whether you would be paying twice for the same detection.