Exposure management has quickly risen from a buzzword to a boardroom imperative. The shift is now official: with analyst firms formalising the category and Gartner’s first Magic Quadrant for Exposure Assessment Platforms in 2025, there’s a clear benchmark for leadership. So, who stands at the front? Rapid7. With its Exposure Command at the heart of its Command Platform, Rapid7 hasn’t just set the standard; it’s helping define what effective, agentic cyber security means for mid-market SOCs navigating SIEM, SOAR, and beyond.
Market Reputation: Rapid7’s Leader Status Isn’t Just Hype
There’s a reason “Rapid7” and “leader” are so often mentioned together:
- Over 11,000 organisations globally rely on Rapid7’s platforms for exposure and threat management (finance.yahoo / quiverquant)
- In the inaugural Gartner Magic Quadrant for Exposure Assessment Platforms (2025), Rapid7 was ranked as a Leader for both "completeness of vision" and "ability to execute" (Globenewswire)
- Similar accolades came from the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Exposure Management 2025 Vendor Assessment, reinforcing longevity and innovation.
- Rapid7’s “at the top” status might be new for exposure management as a formal label, but years of leadership in vulnerability management, SIEM, and MDR power its holistic exposure approach.
- Rapid7 proves its customer centricity with transparent, simple pricing: no data ingestion or storage costs, fixed per endpoint pricing for 3-5 years and provable time to value, even for team members with basic security knowledge.
Quick stat:
Rapid7’s exposure management is used in over 120 countries, with upwards of 93% customer renewal rates (Rapid7 blog).
Key Innovations: Why Exposure Command Leads the Charge
What makes Rapid7 the inaugural champion isn’t just reputation; it’s innovation at every layer.
1. Exposure Command: Unified Visibility
- Delivers a single view of exposures cross on-premises, multi-cloud, container environments, IoT/OT, and integrated third-parties.
- Supports the full Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) cycle: scoping, prioritisation, validation, and remediation; but with a real business impact.
- Links asset and data exposure for a business-centric risk narrative.
2. AI-Driven Risk and Remediation
- Exposure Command and Remediation Hub now feature AI-generated insights. These aren’t just raw data, but prioritised, contextual risk scores tailored to your organisation.
- Automates repetitive tasks and guides SOC teams to high-impact actions, not just more alerts.
- Facilitates clearer risk communication to non-technical stakeholders.
3. Sensitive Data-Aware Security
- Exposure management is linked directly to sensitive data discovery, helping security teams quickly identify where regulated or high-value data lives, who can access it, and how exposed it is.
- Integrates this knowledge into AI-driven risk scoring, essential for compliance-heavy sectors.
4. Broad Scale, Deep Integration
- Consolidates telemetry from over 100 sources, bringing SIEM, exposure management, MDR, and SOAR into one operational platform.
- Tighter workflow between exposure detection, threat monitoring, and response: “found-it, fixed-it” in one lace.
Reference:
Rapid7's platform integrations
IDC notes:
Organisations credit Rapid7’s integrated approach as cutting mean time to respond (MTTR) to critical exposures by up to 50% year-on-year.
The Future of SOC Starts with Exposure Management
Formal exposure management isn’t a passing trend, it’s the future of cyber risk reduction, compliance, and operational efficiency. Rapid7’s trailblazing status in the Gartner MQ and IDC assessments is a testament to its sustained innovation, integration, and real-world outcomes for mid-market businesses.
We’d love to hear how you’re handling exposure and attack surface management, or where you’re hitting roadblocks.
