Arctic Wolf Aurora Platform vs WatchGuard MDR: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)

Arctic Wolf Aurora Platform

Mid-market and enterprise security teams without dedicated 24/7 SOC capacity should evaluate Arctic Wolf Aurora Platform for its concierge MDR model, which pairs managed detection with a dedicated security team that actually owns your incident response instead of handing off tickets. The $3M Security Operations Warranty and NIST coverage across Detection, Analysis, and Incident Management functions reflect a vendor betting its revenue on outcomes rather than alerts. Skip this if you're building an internal SOC with existing staff or need granular control over your detection logic; Aurora's strength is outsourcing the entire function to practitioners who run it at scale.

WatchGuard MDR

Mid-market and SMB security teams without dedicated threat hunting staff should pick WatchGuard MDR for its 24/7 managed hunting service that actually surfaces threats your alerts would miss. The platform covers the full incident lifecycle from detection through guided remediation, with particular strength in continuous monitoring and threat analysis per NIST DE.CM and DE.AE. Skip this if you need deep forensics and recovery orchestration; WatchGuard prioritizes the hunt and initial response over post-incident investigation depth.