From Guards to Vaults: Why I Prefer Rubrik Over CrowdStrike
Cybersecurity is moving from prevention to resilience. Here is why I believe Rubrik is better positioned than CrowdStrike for that shift.
TLDR: The next phase of cybersecurity is not about stopping every attack, it is about bouncing back fast and Rubrik may be the winner in that shift.
The Setup
When people talk about cybersecurity, the conversation almost always starts with CrowdStrike. It has earned that reputation with a strong platform, excellent execution, and a loyal customer base. For a long time, I owned it and was happy with the ride.
But over the past year, I have been rethinking where the real growth and resilience in cybersecurity will come from. And my conclusion is this: the next big winner may not be CrowdStrike, but Rubrik.
Bodyguards vs Vaults
The way I explain it to friends is simple.
CrowdStrike is like hiring the best bodyguards for your house. They monitor the cameras, walk the perimeter, and chase away anyone trying to break in.
Rubrik is like reinforcing the vault inside your house. Even if someone gets past the guards, they cannot take or destroy what really matters, your crown jewels.
Both are important. But in a world where ransomware and data breaches are now a matter of when, not if, the vault is becoming just as critical as the guards.
I remember an incident in my current role as a software engineer when a backup did not work the way it was supposed to. The whole team ended up scrambling for hours trying to recover things. That stuck with me since it showed me firsthand that recovery is often the weak spot, not the defenses around it.
Where Budgets Are Shifting
CIOs know they cannot stop every attack. The question they ask now is: “If we do get hit, how fast can we get back online?”
Take a hospital as an example. If ransomware freezes patient records, the clock starts ticking on lives and operations. Prevention tools help, but once the attack lands, they are no longer useful. What matters is whether you can recover clean data instantly. That is exactly the category where Rubrik shines.
There was a time when a system backup that everyone trusted turned out to be incomplete. Watching the team scramble to fix it was eye opening. It taught me that recovery is where companies often discover they are most vulnerable.
The Numbers Tell the Story
Rubrik’s most recent quarter showed 51 percent revenue growth, with subscription ARR rising to 1.25 billion dollars. It now has more than 2,500 customers paying over 100K annually, up 27 percent from the year before.
CrowdStrike is still growing well at about 21 to 23 percent year over year, with ARR at 4.24 billion dollars. But growth is slowing from the high flying days.
What surprised me in Rubrik’s earnings was how quickly losses narrowed. Non GAAP EPS went from a steep loss last year to almost breakeven this year. Free cash flow margins are now close to 19 percent. I did not expect that kind of leverage this early.
By contrast, CrowdStrike once again raised guidance, showing solid execution but not the kind of surprise that shifts the long-term story.
Why Rubrik’s Moat Looks Stronger
CrowdStrike’s moat is its Threat Graph, a massive dataset that grows smarter with every attack. But Microsoft and Palo Alto have equally vast datasets now, plus bigger distribution.
Rubrik’s moat comes from trust and inertia. Once an enterprise ties its mission critical data recovery to Rubrik, the cost and risk of switching becomes enormous. It is not like replacing a project management tool. It is more like replacing your plumbing while your house is on fire.
I once watched a backup process that looked perfect on paper fail in practice. What followed was hours of late night firefighting. Since then I have always thought of recovery as the quiet but crucial part of security.
Agentic AI and the Future of Cybersecurity
We are also entering a new era where artificial intelligence is not just answering questions but taking actions on its own. These are often called agentic AI workflows, and they could change the way cybersecurity works in the years ahead.
For CrowdStrike
CrowdStrike has built its reputation on spotting threats across millions of devices, learning from patterns, and responding quickly. Smarter AI can help its Falcon platform react faster and even anticipate attacks before they happen. The challenge is that companies like Microsoft are building similar AI agents directly into their operating systems. If every Windows machine comes with its own AI guard by default, CrowdStrike will need to keep innovating to stay ahead.
For Rubrik
Rubrik is all about recovery and resilience, and this is an area where autonomous AI could shine even more. Imagine an AI system that not only detects suspicious activity in your data but also immediately restores clean versions, isolates the problem, and rebalances workloads before you even know something is wrong. That would take away much of the stress and cost that usually comes with ransomware or other data attacks.
A simple way to think about it: CrowdStrike’s AI is like a security guard who is getting smarter and faster every day. Rubrik’s AI is more like a vault that notices someone trying to break in and quietly moves your valuables to a safe place before the thief even gets close.
Risks to the Rubrik Thesis
No investment is without risk, and Rubrik is no exception. I see two main buckets of risk.
Short Term
Rubrik is still young as a public company and will need to prove that it can keep growing at its current pace. A couple of weak quarters could hurt sentiment quickly.
Competition is heating up. Both established backup players and newer startups are trying to claim a piece of the data resilience market. If Rubrik stumbles on execution, others could take share.
Long Term
If cloud platforms like Microsoft, AWS, or Google decide to deeply integrate resilience and backup into their offerings, Rubrik could face margin pressure or even be squeezed.
The pace of technology change is relentless. Today ransomware is the dominant threat, but tomorrow it may be something different. Rubrik will need to keep evolving its platform or risk being leapfrogged.
My Recent Move
For transparency: I recently trimmed my CrowdStrike position and used the proceeds to initiate a position in Rubrik.
CrowdStrike remains a great company, but it felt priced for near perfection. Rubrik, on the other hand, is in that rare zone of strong growth, improving margins, and a valuation that does not yet reflect its long term potential.
In my view, the biggest cybersecurity gains in the next five years will come not just from stopping hackers at the door, but from how well companies bounce back when they inevitably get hit. That is why I want more exposure to Rubrik in my portfolio.
Closing Thought
Cybersecurity is always evolving. Yesterday it was about building stronger walls. Today it is about resilience making sure the business can survive and recover.
CrowdStrike will continue to be a strong player. But Rubrik feels better aligned with where the puck is going. For long term investors willing to look past the noise, I believe Rubrik offers the more compelling upside.
Great analogies to explain the complex cybersecurity space. You have covered the risks and threats very well.
Good news is its customers will not reduce their budgets on cybersecurity even during macro slowdown.
We can monitor the execution and add it over a period of time as it executes.