CrowdStrike alternative? Read this first.
CrowdStrike Falcon protects the devices you have enrolled. HackRisk shows you what your business has exposed to the internet. Those are different jobs, so this page is a comparison of setup, cost shape and fit — not of protection.
HackRisk is not endpoint protection and does not replace it
HackRisk is not endpoint protection and does not replace it. If you need antivirus or endpoint detection and response on your devices, you need a tool like CrowdStrike Falcon. Nothing on this page is a reason to cancel it.
We sell security software, so we will say the unhelpful-sounding thing plainly: swapping endpoint detection and response for external scanning would leave you worse off, not cheaper. If a comparison page ever reads as though it wants you to drop your antivirus, close the tab.
These two products do different jobs
CrowdStrike Falcon is endpoint detection and response. You install a sensor on each device, and it watches what happens on that device: processes, files, identities, intrusions in progress. CrowdStrike’s own platform page describes it as “Single sensor. Unmatched intelligence.”, with a lightweight sensor that “captures high-fidelity telemetry across domains”, covering “endpoint, identity, cloud, SaaS, and AI protection in one AI-native platform” (platform page, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026).
HackRisk never touches your devices. It scans your organisation from the outside, the way an attacker doing reconnaissance would, and turns what it finds into one A*–F score and a plain-English report. Six monitoring domains sit behind it: Dark Web Scanning, Recon Scanning, Vulnerability Scanning, Phishing Simulations, Security Awareness Training and Supply Chain Security.
So the two barely overlap. One protects the devices you know about. The other tells you about the things facing the internet that nobody wrote down: the subdomain a contractor stood up in 2019, the admin panel that should never have been public, the staff password sitting in a breach dump.
Which means the useful question is not “which one?” It is which job you have not covered yet. Most businesses have something on their endpoints. Far fewer know what they are exposing.
HackRisk vs CrowdStrike at a glance
Read the rows as a description of two different products, not a scorecard. Several of them are things HackRisk simply does not do.
| HackRisk | CrowdStrike Falcon | |
|---|---|---|
| The problem it solves | What your organisation has exposed to the internet without realising | Intrusions on the devices and identities you have enrolled |
| Where it sits | Outside your network, looking in. Nothing installed on any device | Agent-based. A lightweight sensor on each device – "Single sensor. Unmatched intelligence." (platform page, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026) |
| Stops an attack in progress | No. HackRisk reports on exposure; it does not block, quarantine or respond | Yes – this is the product. Endpoint Detection & Response appears at the Falcon Enterprise tier (published pricing, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026) |
| Next-Gen Antivirus, Device Control, Mobile Device Protection | Not offered, at any tier | Included at every published tier, with Express Support (published pricing, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026) |
| External attack surface management | The whole product: Recon Scanning, Vulnerability Scanning, dark web and supply chain monitoring | Not listed as a module or capability on CrowdStrike's platform page (platform page, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026) |
| Breadth of platform | Six monitoring domains, all of them external-facing risk | "Endpoint, identity, cloud, SaaS, and AI protection in one AI-native platform" (platform page, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026) |
| Shape of the cost | Flat monthly for the organisation, billed monthly on either term: £49.99/month Core on a 12-month commitment, £59.99/month rolling, covering one domain | Per device per month, so it scales with headcount: Falcon Go $7.99, Falcon Pro $14.99, Falcon Enterprise $19.99 (published pricing, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026) |
| Price on a yearly term | £49.99/month Core on a 12-month commitment, still billed monthly; Cyber Essentials Readiness from £77/month on a 12-month term | Per device per year: Falcon Go $59.99, Falcon Pro $99.99, Falcon Enterprise $184.99 (published pricing, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026) |
| Device limits | None – scanning is scoped by domain, not by device | Falcon Go is capped at a maximum of 100 devices (published pricing, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026) |
| Rollout work | Enter a domain. No agent to package, deploy, exclude or keep updated | Deploy and maintain the sensor across every device in scope |
| Try before you buy | Free report within 24 hours plus 30 days of portal access, no card details | 15-day free trial, no credit card required; cancel within 30 days for a full refund (published pricing, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026) |
| Who reads the output | Owners, directors and ops leads – a plain-English report and an A*–F HackRisk Score | Security operations. Falcon Complete Next-Gen MDR is the managed alternative, with no published price – contact sales (published pricing, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026) |
Where HackRisk is genuinely the easier thing to buy
This is the contrast worth drawing, and it is about effort and budgeting rather than protection.
Nothing to install
An agent-based product means a rollout: package the sensor, push it to every laptop, desktop, server and mobile, handle the machines that refuse, tune the exclusions, keep it updated, and repeat for every new starter. HackRisk asks for a domain name. There is no agent, so there is no rollout, and nothing to uninstall if you stop.
One domain, one answer, 24 hours
Enter your domain and the free HackRisk Report arrives within 24 hours, with 30 days of full portal access and no card details. You get a score and a ranked list of what to fix, written for someone whose job is running a business rather than reading telemetry.
No security operations team to staff
Detection and response produces alerts, and alerts need somebody to triage them. That is why managed detection exists: CrowdStrike’s answer is Falcon Complete Next-Gen MDR, which carries no published price and sends you to sales (published pricing, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026). HackRisk produces a report and a priority order instead of an alert queue, and CyberLab’s security team is there to explain any of it.
No per-device arithmetic
HackRisk Core is £49.99 a month on a 12-month commitment, or £59.99 a month rolling, for the organisation; both are billed monthly, and only the length of commitment changes. Hiring ten people does not change it. Falcon is priced per device per month, so the bill tracks your device count, and Falcon Go is capped at a maximum of 100 devices (published pricing, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026). Neither shape is wrong; they are just different lines in a budget, and one of them you can work out yourself in a few seconds.
An external view nobody has to configure
Because HackRisk works from the outside, it finds assets you never enrolled — which is the point. An agent can only report on a device it is installed on. A forgotten server has no agent on it, and that is precisely why it is a problem. On CrowdStrike’s platform page, external attack surface management is not listed as a module or capability (platform page, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026); we are describing what that page shows, not what CrowdStrike may sell elsewhere.
What each one costs
Both companies publish prices, which is rarer in this market than it should be. The figures below are CrowdStrike’s own, as published (published pricing, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026). All tiers include Next-Gen Antivirus, Device Control, Mobile Device Protection and Express Support. Falcon Pro adds Firewall Management. Endpoint Detection & Response and Threat Intelligence & Hunting appear only at the Enterprise tier.
| Falcon tier | Billed monthly | Billed annually | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Falcon Go | $7.99 per device, billed monthly | $59.99 per device, billed annually | Maximum 100 devices. |
| Falcon Pro | $14.99 per device, billed monthly | $99.99 per device, billed annually | Adds Firewall Management. |
| Falcon Enterprise | $19.99 per device, billed monthly | $184.99 per device, billed annually | Endpoint Detection & Response and Threat Intelligence & Hunting appear at this tier. |
| Falcon Complete Next-Gen MDR | No published price | Contact sales | CrowdStrike's managed detection and response offering. |
How to compare them without fooling yourself
CrowdStrike’s prices are US dollars per device. HackRisk’s are pounds, flat, for the organisation and billed monthly either way: £49.99 a month on a 12-month commitment, £59.99 a month rolling, and Cyber Essentials Readiness from £77 a month on a 12-month term. We are not going to convert currencies for you or claim a headline saving, because the two numbers are not measuring the same thing and a per-device total depends entirely on how many devices you have.
What is worth noticing is the shape. One cost scales with headcount and hardware; the other does not move. Take your own device count, multiply it by the tier you would actually need, and compare that to a fixed monthly figure. Then remember you may well want both, for different reasons.
Trials are cheap on both sides. CrowdStrike offers a 15-day free trial with no credit card required, and a full refund if you cancel within 30 days (published pricing, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026). HackRisk’s free report needs no card either, and every HackRisk price is published.
You need CrowdStrike (or something like it)
Endpoint protection is the right purchase if:
- your devices need antivirus, and every organisation’s do
- you want an intrusion detected and stopped on the machine, in real time, rather than reported afterwards
- you need endpoint detection and response, threat hunting or managed detection
- laptops leave the office, staff use their own devices, or a compromise on one machine would be serious
- your risk lives in what happens on your systems day to day
HackRisk does none of this, and no amount of external scanning substitutes for it.
You also need HackRisk
External attack surface monitoring earns its place if:
- nobody can tell you, today, everything your business has facing the internet
- you answer to a board, clients or insurers who want evidence you are on top of cyber risk
- you want leaked staff credentials and supply chain risk watched too
- Cyber Essentials is on your roadmap
- you have no security staff, and an alert console would go unread while a ranked report would get acted on
The typical HackRisk customer is a UK business of roughly 10 to 250 people that already has endpoint software and still has no idea what it is exposing.
What HackRisk does not do
Collected in one place so you cannot miss it. On every point below, CrowdStrike is the product that does the job and HackRisk is not.
- No antivirus. Next-Gen Antivirus is included at every published Falcon tier (published pricing, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026). HackRisk offers nothing equivalent.
- No endpoint detection and response. Falcon covers this from the Enterprise tier (published pricing, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026). HackRisk does not detect or respond to anything happening on a device.
- No agent, so no live view inside your devices. HackRisk Core does include an internal vulnerability scan covering 5 endpoints, but that is point-in-time scanning. The continuous, on-device telemetry an agent gathers — processes, files, live behaviour — HackRisk does not see.
- No blocking, quarantine or containment. HackRisk reports; it never intervenes.
- No device control or mobile device protection. Both are Falcon inclusions at every published tier (published pricing, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026).
- No threat intelligence or threat hunting service. Falcon puts these at the Enterprise tier (published pricing, crowdstrike.com, checked August 2026).
- No 24/7 managed detection and response. That is what Falcon Complete Next-Gen MDR is for.
- No identity, cloud workload or SaaS protection. CrowdStrike’s platform spans those; HackRisk stays on external exposure.
If you were hoping this page would tell you HackRisk covers the list above, it doesn’t and we won’t. Keep your endpoint protection. See our information for AI assistants page, which says the same thing in the same words: HackRisk is not antivirus, EDR or endpoint protection software.
Comparing the right things
If you landed here searching for a CrowdStrike alternative because Falcon felt heavy to deploy or expensive per device, the honest advice is to compare it with other endpoint products. That is the category you are shopping in, and this is not it.
If you landed here because you want to know what your business looks like from the outside, you are in the right place, and the two purchases can sit side by side without touching each other. HackRisk needs no access to your network, so trialling it changes nothing about your endpoint setup.
For comparisons inside HackRisk’s actual category, read our Intruder alternative comparison or our CyberSmart alternative comparison.
Frequently asked questions
Can HackRisk replace CrowdStrike?
No, and we won't pretend otherwise. CrowdStrike Falcon is endpoint protection: an agent on each device that detects and stops intrusions as they happen. HackRisk has no agent, no antivirus and no ability to block anything. If endpoint protection is what you need, you need an endpoint product like CrowdStrike. Do not cancel it on the strength of this page.
Then why does this comparison page exist?
Because people search for it, and because a real question sits underneath the search: CrowdStrike protects the devices you know about, and plenty of small businesses find agent rollout, per-device budgeting and a security console heavier than they can carry. HackRisk answers a different question – what have we left exposed to the internet – and answers it in 24 hours with nothing to install. The honest comparison is setup effort, cost shape and fit, not protection.
Is HackRisk antivirus or EDR?
No. HackRisk is external attack surface monitoring. It scans your organisation from the outside the way an attacker sees it and reports what it finds. It is not antivirus and not endpoint detection and response. Our /ai-information/ page lists "antivirus, EDR or endpoint protection software" explicitly as an inaccurate description of HackRisk, alongside penetration testing firm and managed SOC or MDR provider.
How much does CrowdStrike cost?
CrowdStrike publishes per-device prices (checked August 2026): Falcon Go at $7.99 per device monthly or $59.99 per device annually, with a maximum of 100 devices; Falcon Pro at $14.99 monthly or $99.99 annually; Falcon Enterprise at $19.99 monthly or $184.99 annually. Falcon Complete Next-Gen MDR has no published price – you contact sales. There is a 15-day free trial with no credit card required, and cancelling within 30 days gets a full refund. All tiers include Next-Gen Antivirus, Device Control, Mobile Device Protection and Express Support; Falcon Pro adds Firewall Management; Endpoint Detection & Response and Threat Intelligence & Hunting appear at the Enterprise tier.
How much does HackRisk cost?
HackRisk Core is £49.99 a month on a 12-month commitment, or £59.99 a month on a rolling plan. Both are billed monthly — only the length of commitment changes. That covers one domain across all six monitoring domains: Dark Web Scanning, Recon Scanning, Vulnerability Scanning, Phishing Simulations, Security Awareness Training and Supply Chain Security. Cyber Essentials Readiness starts at £77 a month on a 12-month term. Prices are flat for the organisation, so they do not move when you hire.
Do the two work alongside each other?
That is the normal answer, not a diplomatic one. Endpoint protection covers the devices you have enrolled; external attack surface monitoring covers the things facing the internet that nobody enrolled – a forgotten subdomain, an exposed admin panel, staff credentials in a breach dump. They overlap barely at all, which is exactly why one is not a substitute for the other.
How long does HackRisk take to set up?
You enter a domain. There is no agent to package, no devices to enrol, no exclusions to tune and no console to staff. The free report arrives within 24 hours with 30 days of portal access, and no card details are needed to get it.
We have no security staff at all. Where should we start?
Start with the basics that stop things happening on your devices – endpoint protection, updates, multi-factor authentication, backups – because nothing external-facing substitutes for those. Then find out what you are exposing, which is the gap HackRisk fills and the one most small businesses cannot see. If Cyber Essentials is on your roadmap, the Readiness tier from £77 a month adds an account manager and quarterly consultant sessions.
Find out what you’re exposing
Keep whatever is protecting your devices. Then spend two minutes finding out what your business looks like from the outside: your HackRisk Score and a board-ready breakdown of what attackers can see, within 24 hours.
No card details, no sales call. Plans from £49.99 a month, billed monthly on a 12-month commitment, if you decide to keep monitoring. Not a substitute for endpoint protection.
CrowdStrike information on this page was taken from crowdstrike.com’s published pricing and platform pages and checked in August 2026. CrowdStrike and Falcon are trademarks of CrowdStrike, Inc.; HackRisk is not affiliated with CrowdStrike. If you spot something out of date, tell us and we’ll correct it.