How to build or buy a SOC: In-house, SOCaaS, MSSP, and MDR compared

Organizations can build a SOC in-house, outsource it through SOC-as-a-Service or an MSSP, or use MDR to access managed detection and response capabilities. This guide compares the main operating models, costs, staffing requirements, coverage and time to value, then outlines a practical SOC maturity roadmap and best practices.

Key points of this article:

• There’s no one-size-fits-all SOC model. The right choice depends on your budget, risk profile, and in-house expertise.
• In-house SOCs offer the most control, while MSSP, SOCaaS, and MDR models reduce the burden of staffing and operations.
• MDR focuses on outcomes. It helps detect, investigate, and contain threats on your behalf.
• Assess your maturity before deciding. Frameworks such as SOC-CMM can help determine whether to build, buy, or combine SOC capabilities.

Different SOC operating models: in-house, virtual, co-managed and SOC-as-a-Service

Building and maintaining a SOC is expensive, time-consuming, and requires continuous investment. As a result, many organizations outsource all or some of their SOC activities to providers such as Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs), SOC-as-a-Service (SOCaaS) providers, or Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services offered by vendors such as ESET.

All three approaches help spread the cost of operating a SOC across multiple customers, but do so in slightly different ways.

What does this look like in reality? 

According to Gartner®, “The OMSS market represents a subset of the $25.5 billion managed security services market which has seen 11.5% annual growth in recent years. This growth in externally sourced comprehensive services is driven by organizations struggling to internally address the changes required due to rapidly evolving cybersecurity threat landscapes, technological advancements, shifting business needs and the growing complexity of IT environments.”^[1]

This shift reflects a structural reality. Many organizations no longer view SOC functions as something that must be built entirely in-house. Instead, they are turning to external providers to access capabilities that are difficult to scale internally, from 24/7 monitoring and incident response to advanced analytics and threat intelligence.

Outsourced services have changed significantly to meet this new demand. Where providers traditionally focused on areas such as firewall management, intrusion detection, and basic monitoring, organizations now expect proactive threat hunting, rapid response, vulnerability management, and orchestration and automation capabilities. This has pushed providers to expand into more integrated, outcome-driven services aligned with how modern attacks actually unfold.

This knock-on effect of this is that organizations structure their security operations. Outsourcing provides access to broader visibility across threat actor campaigns, industry-specific risks, and emerging attack techniques. But it shouldn’t be treated as an all-or-nothing decision for organizations; part of the attraction of this approach is that there is a sliding scale of involvement.

In practice, many organizations adopt a hybrid model, combining internal oversight with external expertise. This allows them to retain control over critical assets and decision making, while relying on providers for continuous monitoring, detection, and response capabilities that are difficult to scale in-house.

One hybrid option is Managed Detection and Response (MDR). It takes an outcome-focused approach that combines technology, threat intelligence, and human expertise to actively detect and respond to threats. Rather than simply generating alerts, MDR services are designed to investigate, contain, and mitigate threats as they occur.

This model reflects the way in which modern attacks unfold, and is increasingly seen as a baseline expectation by partners, regulators, and cyber insurers.

These differences become clearer when comparing how MSSPs, SOCaaS providers, and MDR services operate in practice.

Are you buying or renting your SOC?

One way to think about these models is in terms of ’Build or Buy’: do you build the function yourself, or buy in the managed services or outsourced resources to achieve the same capability? 

With an in-house SOC, you are responsible for building and maintaining everything: technology, processes, and skilled personnel. This often means repeated investment as tools evolve, infrastructure scales, and experienced analysts move on. 

A survey of SOC professionals conducted by the SANS Institute in 2025 highlights this challenge, noting that many SOCs remain relatively small, experience ongoing turnover, and struggle to retain talent. Self-described SOCs were staffed by between two and 10 people, their most common tenure was between three and five years, and 62% of staff thought their organization wasn’t doing enough to retain talent.

By contrast, most outsourced models shift parts of this burden to a third party. However, they do so in different ways. With SOCaaS, organizations typically consume a platform-driven service that provides monitoring, detection, and analytics capabilities. Depending on the provider and service tier, internal teams may still need to supply some combination of personnel, processes, or incident response capabilities. 

MSSPs focus more broadly on operating and managing security infrastructure, collecting and analyzing logs, generating alerts, and maintaining security tooling. In most cases, however, investigation, decision-making, and response remain the responsibility of the customer organization, meaning internal staff must still carry a significant operational load.

With MDR, the model shifts toward outcomes. MDR providers take on the responsibility for triage, investigation, and active threat containment, combining technology, threat intelligence, and human expertise to reduce risk and respond to incidents as they occur. The following table provides a high-level comparison of these operating models, outlining their typical strengths, limitations, and areas of responsibility.

Note: In practice, many providers combine elements of the below models, and capabilities vary significantly between offerings.

When MDR makes sense

The speed at which MDR and MSSP services can be deployed makes them particularly valuable for organizations that need to establish or strengthen detection and response capabilities quickly.

Unlike models that primarily generate alerts, MDR focuses on outcomes, including investigating, containing, and mitigating threats in real time. It reduces the operational burden on internal teams.

This is one of the key reasons MDR has become a widely adopted model among small and mid-sized organizations. These organizations often lack the resources to build and sustain a full 24/7 SOC, yet still face the same threat landscape as larger enterprises. As the market has matured, MDR services have become more accessible, while increasing regulatory pressure and cyber insurance requirements have further accelerated adoption.

How to build (or buy) a SOC: a practical roadmap

For most organizations, the question is how SOC capabilities should be delivered. Practically speaking, only a limited number of organizations can fully justify the cost and complexity of building and maintaining a standalone SOC.

For those evaluating their options, frameworks such as SOC-CMM provide a structured way to assess and improve maturity. SOC-CMM defines six levels of capability, ranging from no formal security operations to fully optimized, intelligence-driven SOC functions, and includes freely available tools to support self-assessment. 

The SOC maturity model

SOC maturity is commonly described across six progressive stages:

1: None

No formal SOC function exists.

2: Ad hoc  

General IT staff respond to alerts as they arise, with no defined processes or coverage model.

3: Initial 

Basic tooling such as SIEM is present, along with a limited processes; coverage is inconsistent and typically restricted to office hours.

4: Defined 

Documented processes and playbooks are in place, along with dedicated staff and structured escalation paths. Key metrics such as Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR) are tracked.

5: Quantitatively Managed 

Continuous monitoring is established, alongside proactive threat hunting. Detection and response performance is measured and communicated in terms of business risk, and efforts are made to reduce manual analyst workload through automation.

6: Optimized 

The SOC becomes a strategic function, contributing intelligence-driven insights to risk decisions. Threat intelligence is tightly integrated into operations, and advanced practices such as red, blue, and purple teaming are formalized.

A simple test of whether you need to build a SOC

Building an in-house SOC typically makes sense only for organizations with specific regulatory requirements, data residency obligations, or a need to demonstrate significant in-house security capability. These organizations often operate in highly targeted sectors and already maintain substantial internal security teams.

For most others, the challenge is how to access SOC capabilities without incurring the cost and complexity of building them internally.

For those looking to buy in SOC capability

Organizations evaluating outsourced SOC models must balance control, risk tolerance, and resource availability. In practice, SOCaaS, MSSP, and MDR models distribute responsibility across people, process, and technology in different ways.

The most significant cost driver in any SOC is skilled personnel. As a result, the decision often comes down to how much responsibility an organization is prepared to retain internally versus how much it is willing to delegate to an external provider in exchange for faster detection, more consistent coverage, and improved response outcomes. 

Making the right SOC choice

There is no single operating model that suits every organization. The right choice depends on risk tolerance, internal expertise, regulatory obligations, and budget. 

For many organizations, the goal is not to build a SOC from scratch, but to achieve SOC outcomes through the combination of people, process, and technology that best fits their requirements.

[1] Gartner, Market Guide for Outsourced Managed Security Services, 5 January 2026. GARTNER is a trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates.

FAQs

What’s the difference between SOCaaS (SOC as a Service), MDR and an MSSP? 

SOCaaS outsources an organization’s SOC function to a specialist provider. MDR is a managed service focused on detecting and responding to threats, typically led by EDR/XDR, often with analysts acting on behalf of the client organizations. An MSSP is a specialist managed service company that manages security tools broadly but may only forward alerts rather than respond. All have strengths and weaknesses, and no one size fits all.

Is it cheaper to outsource a SOC than to build one? 

For most small to midsized organizations, building an effective around the clock in house SOC means hiring scarce analysts across three shifts, as well as bringing in and constantly updating plenty of tools and other technologies. A co-managed or MDR model gives round-the-clock coverage at a predictable cost, which is why many teams reach the equivalent of a SOC level outcome without building a SOC. The right answer depends on your organization’s size, appetite for risk, budget and in-house skills.

Do small and mid-sized businesses need a SOC? 

They need the outcomes a SOC provides, but they don’t need to build one to do that. A managed or comanaged model is the realistic route to around the clock protection without a dedicated team and the expense that goes with it, and it delivers most of the protection the organization would need for all but the most targeted and well-resourced attacks.