MDR vs SOC: The How-to-Choose Guide

Introduction: The Operational Reality

Security operations teams  – especially small and mid-sized teams – are under pressure from every direction. 

Limited budgets result in 24×7 coverage gaps, slow incident response, and tooling sprawl that internal teams can’t maintain. Alert fatigue and manual triage still consume a huge share of analyst time, which increases breach risk because investigations get delayed.

That’s why SOC discussions should be less about which tool collects the logs and more about how to operationalize detection and response: how it runs, how fast it works, and how much can be automated.

The two dominant operating models in that conversation are:

• MDR – Managed Detection & Response, and
• SOC – Security Operations Center

This guide breaks down:

• What MDR and SOC actually look like in practice
• Which model tends to fit small, mid-market, and enterprise teams
• How MSSPs should think about MDR vs SOC
• Where AI changes the economics 

What Is a SOC?

A Security Operations Center (SOC) is an IT security function that organizations oversee and operate themselves, with some elements potentially supported by external partners. A SOC combines people, processes, and technology – typically detection tooling and a SIEM (Security Information & Event Management) to monitor, detect and respond to threats.

Core SOC Components

People

• SOC manager and analysts, skill-ranked into Tiers from 1 to 3 
• Incident response team
• Threat hunters

Process

• Triage and escalation runbooks
• Threat hunting procedures
• Compliance reporting workflows

Technology

• SIEM – for log aggregation, detections, correlation
• Detection tools – to cover endpoint, network, email, cloud, identity, IoT, etc. 
• Operations tools – for managing cases, ticketing, automation and orchestration

Implications of operating your own SOC:

• Highest control over tooling, detections, and processes
• Strong in-house capability built over time
• Ongoing investment in engineering, content tuning, and staffing

What Is MDR?

Managed Detection & Response (MDR) is an outsourced security service where key aspects of a SOC – such as alert monitoring, detection, alert triage, and initial incident response – are managed for you. MDR is a human + tooling service that you can think of as managed SOC-as-a-service. MDR services typically come with service level agreements (SLAs) around key performance indicators.

Primary MDR Responsibilities

• 24×7 monitoring
• Detection engineering; often with co-managed options
• Alert triage and investigation
• Incident response coordination

Implications of using an MDR:

• Fast to deploy, easy to scale
• Low internal staffing overhead
• Shared ownership of outcomes, and sometimes operations

MDR vs SOC: Operating Model Comparison

Table - SOC vs MDR: Operating Model Comparison

* Note on hybrid models:
Organizations with their own SOC often use MDR as a hybrid overlay. For example for after-hours coverage, endpoint-only MDR, or surge support – rather than as their primary operating model.

Best Use Cases by Business Size

So far we’ve looked at team size and capabilities. Another useful lens is overall business size (employees), which often correlates with how many dedicated security staff you can realistically hire.

SOC Best Fit

A self-run SOC tends to fit best when:

• You have a larger security team – e.g., 20+ staff across SOC, IR, and adjacent functions
• You require full internal control over tooling, detections, and processes
• You’re heavily regulated – e.g., banks, insurers, public infrastructure, large healthcare – and already operating IT security at scale

MDR Best Fit as the Primary Model

An MDR-first approach tends to fit when:

• You have a small team – e.g., 0–5 dedicated security staff, sometimes fewer
• The IT security owner is also juggling IT, compliance, or risk roles
• You need 24×7 coverage but can’t justify building a full SOC
• Your infrastructure is scaling faster than your headcount

In between those extremes, hybrid models are common – for example, a lean internal function plus MDR for off-hours or specific domains like endpoint or cloud.

MDR vs SOC for MSSPs & Security Service Providers

For MSSPs and security service providers, the MDR vs SOC conversation is not about “should we outsource?” but about “how do we deliver security services at scale?”

SOC-Style Platform Use

Many MSSPs run on a SOC-style stack that combines:

• A SIEM/XDR platform (e.g., Splunk Enterprise, Microsoft Sentinel, or open-source options like Wazuh)
• Case management and IR tools (e.g., TheHive)
• Validation against frameworks and benchmarks such as MITRE ATT&CK evaluations and Gartner’s SIEM market analyses

This approach works well when MSSPs have:

• A dedicated detection engineering team
• Mature internal SOC processes
• The engineering capacity to maintain multiple integrations and content pipelines

MDR for MSSP Acceleration

Many MSSP owners lean toward MDR-like platforms or services when:

• They need multi-tenant alert orchestration without building and maintaining hundreds of bespoke API integrations
• They want Tier-1/Tier-2-grade triage delivered quickly for customers, even as they onboard more tenants
• They want to scale revenue faster than headcount, especially for night/weekend coverage and surge capacity

In other words: MDR-style capabilities let MSSPs offer certain SOC outcomes without scaling engineering and analyst staff linearly.

Where AI Changes the Equation

AI doesn’t eliminate the need for human analysts, it changes what they spend their time on. AI improves efficiency for any SOC operating model – whether in-house SOC, MDR, or MSSP – but the economics are especially transformative for small teams and multi-tenant providers.

Top AI Benefits in Security Operations

Modern AI, especially agentic AI systems, can:

1. Automate the vast majority of alert triage – often over 90% of alerts in practice
2. Shrink investigation times from hours to minutes by assembling context automatically
3. Deliver Tier-1 or even Tier-2-grade triage and investigation support without requiring linear growth in senior headcount
4. Normalize alerts across many tenants and sources for MSSPs
5. Capture evidence automatically to support SOC 2, ISO-27001, PCI and other compliance requirements

Where AI Is Now Being Applied in Modern SOCs

“AI SOC” or “agentic alert processing” is already being used or trialed in many SOCs. These are scenarios where an AI agent does most of the repetitive triage, enrichment, and correlation work, while humans focus on investigations, decisions, and complex response.

Specifically, AI is being applied across key SOC functions:

• Detection coverage & mapping aligned to MITRE ATT&CK (Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge) 
• SIEM alert triage and correlation
• SOAR playbooks with AI-generated context, summaries, and recommended actions

How AirMDR Bridges MDR and SOC With AI

AirMDR is an AI-native detection and response platform that you can consume in two ways:

• As a fully managed MDR service (we act as your SOC)
• As an AI SOC platform that powers your own SOC or MSSP

Under the hood, it’s the same AI engine – designed for agentic alert processing and transparent evidence.

Key Advantages

• 90%+ of alerts triaged automatically in under 5 minutes, with clear, audit-ready reasoning
• Human oversight built in – AI does the heavy lifting, analysts stay in control
• 200+ out-of-the-box integrations across cloud, SIEM, endpoint, and identity sources
• Automatic evidence capture for SOC 2, PCI, ISO-27001 and similar compliance frameworks

For enterprise SOC teams, AirMDR doesn’t replace your SOC – it multiplies it by delivering a platform that removes the manual work that causes alert fatigue.

For MSSPs, it provides a multi-tenant AI SOC backbone without requiring a large internal engineering team.

Conclusion: MDR vs SOC Is the Wrong Question

Successful security operations is not about choosing between operating your own SOC or outsourcing everything to MDR.

The real challenge lies in how fast alerts are investigated, orchestrated, and validated – for enterprise SOCs, small security teams, and rapidly scaling MSSPs. The impact of AI is especially dramatic where headcount is constrained or you’re serving many tenants.

With AI-driven systems in place:

• SOC teams get:
  • More time for strategic threat hunting and incident management
  • Less burnout from alert fatigue
  • SLA-grade response without proportional cost increases
• MSSPs gain:
  • Multi-tenant SOC automation
  • Pre-built integrations instead of building everything in-house
  • The ability to scale from tens to thousands of customers more efficiently

The future of security operations belongs to agentic AI + expert human oversight, where:

• Every alert gets triaged quickly
• Evidence is captured automatically
• Analysts stay in control – and spend their time on the work only humans can do