EDR or MDR for Computer Security? How to Choose.
The core difference between the two is that EDR (Endpoint Detect and Response) is a tool, while MDR (Managed Detect and Response) is a service built around tools and people. EDR gives you technology on your endpoints whereas MDR gives you a security team watching, interpreting, and responding to what those tools see.
EDR is software installed on your endpoints—laptops, desktops, and servers. Its job is to continuously watch what’s happening on each device: which processes are running, what files are being changed, what network connections are being made, and whether any of that looks like malware, ransomware, or other malicious behavior. Modern EDR uses signatures, behavior analytics, and sometimes machine learning to decide when something is suspicious. When it detects a threat, it can raise alerts and often take automated actions like killing a process, quarantining a file, or isolating a device from the network. All of this is presented in a management console where your IT or security team can investigate alerts, see timelines of what happened on a machine, and decide what to do next.
The key point with EDR is that it assumes someone on your side is watching and responding. If nobody logs into the console, tunes the policies, or investigates alerts, then you just have a lot of data and potential warnings that never turn into action.
MDR is a managed service where a third-party provider’s security operations center (SOC) takes on that monitoring and response role for you. An MDR provider usually uses an EDR product (sometimes their own, sometimes a partner’s) as one of the main data sources. They collect the endpoint telemetry, but they typically also pull in other signals—firewall logs, identity and access events, email security alerts, and sometimes cloud platform logs. Their analysts work 24/7 to watch this combined stream of data, investigate suspicious patterns, and decide whether something is a real incident. Instead of you having to live in the EDR dashboard, you get notifications like: “We detected suspicious activity on this endpoint at 2:13 a.m., isolated the device, stopped the malicious process, and here is what you need to do next.” MDR is about people + process, not just tech. The MDR team does threat hunting, triage, correlation, and incident response so your organization doesn’t have to build a full security team in-house.
In practice, EDR and MDR go well together especially for small and & medium-sized organizations . The EDR agent sits on your endpoints and provides deep visibility and control. The MDR service sits above that, using EDR and other tools as sensors, and the provider’s analysts turn those raw alerts into investigated incidents and concrete actions. So you’re often not choosing “EDR vs MDR” in an either/or sense. You’re choosing between “EDR that we run ourselves” or “EDR plus MDR where someone else runs the detection and response for us.”
EDR alone can be a good fit if you have internal security expertise or a strong IT team that has the time and skills to monitor alerts, investigate them, and respond quickly. In that case, EDR gives your team a powerful toolbox: visibility into endpoints, forensics data, and buttons to contain and remediate threats. But you are accepting the responsibility to treat it like a mini-SOC: someone needs to own it, tune it, and watch it.
MDR is usually a better choice if you don’t have a dedicated security team, your IT staff is already busy with day-to-day operations, or you need 24/7 coverage that you can’t realistically staff yourself. It helps satisfy the growing expectations from cyber insurance and compliance frameworks that you have continuous monitoring and incident response, not just antivirus and a firewall.
In conclusion, EDR is the advanced sensor and response software on your endpoints, while MDR is the managed security service that operates those tools (and others) on your behalf, continually watching for and responding to threats.
At Dominant Systems, we have been doing computer security work since we installed our first firewall in 1995. These days we offer a multi-level, multi-vendor security platform for SMBs that includes managed IT, EDR, MDR, testing of critical systems, and employee training. For SMBs who are looking to switch IT managed service and managed security providers, contact us to see how the “Dominant Difference” can power your costs, and get you better support.