What is the Forrester Wave™ Report for MDR?

In today's threat landscape, selecting the right Managed Detection and Response (MDR) provider isn't just a technology decision – it's a strategic business imperative. The Forrester Wave™ reports serve as the gold standard for evaluating MDR vendors, providing the rigorous analysis security leaders need to make confident, defensible procurement decisions.

This comprehensive guide demystifies the Forrester Wave™ methodology, with particular focus on MDR evaluations that compare vendors across MDR service capabilities such as detection engineering, integration of Agentic AI, region-specific SOC support and vendor-agnostic technology integrations.

Understanding the Forrester Wave™ Reports

The Forrester Wave™ represents the cybersecurity industry's most respected vendor evaluation framework. Unlike basic market surveys or vendor-sponsored studies, Forrester Wave reports deliver independent, methodology-driven assessments that security executives rely on for narrowing down MDR providers to a short list of vendors.

According to Forrester, "The Forrester Wave uses a transparent methodology to compare the players in a software, hardware, or services market so our clients can make well-informed purchasing decisions."

For MDR specifically, these reports have become essential reading as organizations grapple with talent shortages, alert fatigue, and increasingly sophisticated threats. The evaluation process includes:

• Comprehensive vendor assessments through detailed RFPs and live demonstrations
• Customer reference interviews validating real-world performance and satisfaction
• Strategic vision analysis examining each provider's roadmap and market positioning
• Quantitative scoring across 23+ evaluation criteria specific to MDR capabilities

The result? A data-driven foundation for decisions that can impact your organization's security effectiveness for years to come.

Why Forrester Wave Reports Matter for Security Strategy

Forrester Wave reports go beyond providing simple vendor comparisons; they provide strategic insights that IT/Security leaders can use to:

• Build Executive Confidence: Forrester's brand recognition and methodology rigor help CISOs secure budget approval and stakeholder buy-in for security investments. When presenting to the board or C-suite, referencing Forrester’s analysis on market placement adds credibility to your recommendations.
• Benchmark Against Industry Standards: The reports reveal not just vendor capabilities, but market evolution trends. Understanding where the MDR market is heading helps you future-proof your security architecture and avoid technology dead ends.
• Validate Due Diligence: In an industry where marketing claims often exceed reality, Forrester's independent evaluation provides third-party validation of vendor capabilities. This is particularly crucial for MDR, where service quality directly impacts your organization's risk posture.
• Accelerate Procurement Cycles: The standardized evaluation framework and transparent scoring help streamline vendor selection processes, reducing the time and resources spent on extensive RFP cycles by helping decision makers establish a short list of MDR providers faster.

The Forrester Wave MDR Market Analysis: What Security Leaders Need to Know

The Forrester Wave for Managed Detection and Response Services has evolved into a critical resource as MDR transforms from a niche service to a core security capability. Forrester's 2025 analysis reveals several strategic shifts that security leaders must understand, such as the market maturity and provider differentiation, regional considerations and compliance directives.

Market Maturity and Provider Differentiation

Forrester recognizes that "detection and response is no longer enough for providers; customers now demand that their MDR providers become more proactive." This evolution reflects the broader shift from reactive security operations to predictive, intelligence-driven approaches.

The report emphasizes three critical evaluation areas for modern MDR selection:

• Detection Engineering Excellence: Forrester highlights that "providers scale through strong detection engineering via detection as code."
  • This isn't just about having good detections. It's about the engineering discipline to deploy, test, and iterate detections at scale.
  • For security leaders, this translates to choosing providers who can adapt to emerging threats without manual intervention delays.
• Security Posture Improvement: The analysis shows that "security posture improvement matters just as much as detection and response."
  • Modern MDR providers must function as strategic security advisors, not just monitoring services.
  • This capability becomes especially valuable for organizations with limited internal security expertise.
• AI Implementation Strategy: While generative AI adoption is widespread among providers, Forrester cautions that "generative AI's impact on providers shows, but its benefits for customers are less clear."
  • Security leaders should evaluate how AI improvements translate to tangible benefits in their environment, not just provider efficiency gains.

Regional Considerations and Compliance

Forrester's separate evaluation for European MDR services underscores the importance of regional expertise and regulatory compliance. For multinational organizations or those in heavily regulated industries, these factors can be deal-breakers regardless of technical capabilities.

Key considerations include data sovereignty requirements, localized threat intelligence, and compliance with frameworks like GDPR, NIS2, and sector-specific regulations.

Strategic Interpretation of Forrester Wave Positioning

Understanding how to read the Forrester Wave graphic is essential for extracting strategic value from these reports:

The Competitive Landscape Grid

The Forrester Wave visualization plots vendors across two critical dimensions:

• Current Offering Strength (Vertical Axis): Measures the provider's existing capabilities, including detection accuracy, response effectiveness, and service quality
• Strategy Strength (Horizontal Axis): Evaluates the vendor's vision, innovation roadmap, and market execution

The grid also includes a vendor’s competitive positioning in the market, noted as the Market Presence (Bubble Size). The size of the bubble reflects the provider's revenue, customer base, and overall market influence:

Quadrant Analysis for Strategic Decision-Making

• Leaders (Upper Right): These providers combine strong current capabilities with compelling strategic vision. For security leaders, Leaders often represent the safest choice for mission-critical implementations, though they may command premium pricing.
• Strong Performers: Vendors excelling in either current offering or strategy but not both. These providers may offer specialized strengths or cost advantages that align with specific organizational needs.
• Contenders: Competitive options with growth potential. For organizations with unique requirements or budget constraints, Contenders may provide excellent value while offering room for partnership and influence over product direction.

Beyond the Graphic: Leveraging Report Details

While the visual positioning provides quick insights, the real strategic value lies in the detailed analysis. Security leaders should focus on:

• Specific scoring breakdowns for capabilities most relevant to their environment
• Reference customer feedback on real-world performance and partnership quality
• Vendor roadmap alignment with organizational technology strategy
• Total cost of ownership analysis beyond initial service fees

Maximizing Strategic Value from Forrester Wave Analysis

To extract maximum strategic value from Forrester Wave reports in your MDR evaluation process:

• Customize the Evaluation Criteria: Use Forrester's interactive tool to weight evaluation criteria based on your organization's specific priorities. A healthcare organization might emphasize compliance capabilities, while a financial services firm might prioritize regulatory reporting and data sovereignty.
• Validate Through Reference Customers: Forrester provides customer references for top providers. Engage with organizations similar to yours to understand real-world performance beyond the report scores.
• Align with Business Strategy: Consider how each provider's strategic vision aligns with your organization's digital transformation initiatives, cloud adoption plans, and risk tolerance.
• Plan for Total Cost of Ownership: Evaluate not just service fees, but implementation costs, training requirements, and potential for expanding the relationship as your security needs evolve.

Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Forrester Wave

While this guide focuses on MDR, understanding the relationship between MDR and Extended Detection and Response (XDR) is crucial for strategic planning. Forrester's XDR platform evaluations complement MDR analysis by examining platform-based approaches to threat detection and response.

The key distinction: XDR typically refers to technology platforms that organizations deploy and manage internally, while MDR represents outsourced services. Many leading MDR providers, including eSentire, leverage open XDR technologies as part of their service delivery, combining the AI-driven platform benefits with expert human analysis and response capabilities.

For organizations evaluating their detection and response strategy, consider whether you need the technology (XDR), the service (MDR), or an integrated approach that combines both.

Forrester Wave as Strategic Enabler

Forrester Wave reports represent more than vendor evaluations—they're strategic intelligence tools that enable security leaders to make confident, defensible decisions in an increasingly complex threat landscape. By understanding how to interpret and apply Forrester's analysis, you can:

• Build stronger business cases for security investments
• Accelerate vendor selection processes
• Ensure alignment between technology choices and business strategy
• Validate your security program's direction against industry best practices

As you evaluate MDR providers for your organization, leverage the insights from Forrester Wave reports while considering your unique requirements, constraints, and strategic objectives.

The goal isn't just to select a vendor, but to choose a strategic partner who can help your organization stay ahead of evolving threats while enabling business growth and innovation.

eSentire's Forrester Wave Leadership: Validation of MDR Excellence

eSentire's recognition in both global and European Forrester Wave MDR Services evaluations provides third-party validation of our strategic approach to our 24/7 threat detection and response capabilities. This positioning reflects our commitment to the key differentiators Forrester identifies as critical for MDR success:

• Detection Engineering Leadership: Our detection-as-code methodology and mature engineering practices enable rapid adaptation to emerging threats while maintaining detection accuracy and reducing false positives.
• Integrated Security Posture Management: Our combined eSentire MDR and Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) offering addresses Forrester's emphasis on proactive security improvement, helping organizations identify and remediate gaps before they become incidents.
• Customer-Centric AI Implementation: Our agentic AI capabilities deliver measurable improvements in response times and investigation quality—benefits that directly impact customer security outcomes, not just our operational efficiency.

For security leaders evaluating MDR providers, these Forrester insights validate the strategic value of partnering with a recognized market leader while ensuring access to cutting-edge capabilities that address both current and future security challenges.

Ready to explore how eSentire's Forrester Wave-recognized MDR capabilities can strengthen your security posture? Contact our team to discuss how our proven approach to managed detection and response can address your organization's specific challenges and strategic objectives.