Obsidian Security vs Expel
Side-by-side comparison of AI visibility scores, market position, and capabilities
SaaS security platform for behavioral threat detection and identity risk management across enterprise SaaS applications. Newport Beach CA; raised $90M+;
About
Obsidian Security is a SaaS security and identity threat detection company founded in 2017 and headquartered in Newport Beach, California. The company was founded by former executives and engineers from Carbon Black, CrowdStrike, and the NSA who applied endpoint detection and response principles to the SaaS domain. Obsidian's platform monitors user behavior across SaaS applications to detect account compromise, insider threats, and data exfiltration by analyzing activity patterns — logins, API calls, data access, sharing events — against behavioral baselines built for each user.\n\nObsidian raised $90 million across three rounds from investors including Norwest Venture Partners, IVP, and Greylock Partners. Its platform integrates with major enterprise SaaS applications including Salesforce, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, ServiceNow, GitHub, Workday, and more than 40 other applications. Rather than relying solely on configuration checks, Obsidian focuses on runtime behavioral analytics: detecting when a compromised account is performing unusual data exports, when a user accesses records far outside their normal work patterns, or when a service account begins making API calls it has never made before.\n\nThe platform also covers SaaS identity risk management, inventorying privileged accounts, dormant accounts, and over-permissioned users across all integrated applications. Security teams can use Obsidian to reduce their SaaS attack surface by identifying and remediating excessive access, and to respond to active threats with detailed activity timelines that provide forensic evidence for incident investigations. Obsidian's combination of posture management and behavioral detection positions it between pure SSPM tools and identity threat detection and response (ITDR) platforms.
Expel is a Forrester Wave Leader in MDR with 5/5 scores across 15 criteria, providing 24/7 AI-powered threat detection and response across cloud, endpoint, identity, and network.
About
Expel is a Herndon, Virginia-based managed detection and response (MDR) company founded in 2016 that provides 24/7 security monitoring, threat detection, and incident response as a managed service. Rather than replacing a customer's existing security tools, Expel integrates with the tools organizations already have — SIEMs, EDRs, cloud platforms, and identity providers — and applies AI-powered automation and expert human analysis to triage alerts and respond to threats around the clock.
AI Visibility Head-to-Head
Key Details
Capabilities & Ecosystem
Capabilities
Integrations
Also Compare
Track AI Visibility in Real Time
Monitor how your brand performs across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Grok daily.