We performed a comparison between Microsoft 365 Defender and Microsoft Defender for Cloud based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: 365 Defender has a slight edge over Defender for Cloud in this comparison since it is the more user-friendly solution. Defender for Cloud does come out on top in the pricing and ROI categories, however.
"The solution is very easy to deploy."
"When we started out, our secure score was pretty low. We adopted some of the recommendations that Security Center set out and we were able to make good progress on improving it. It had been in the low thirties and is now in the upper eighties."
"It has seamless integration with any of the services I mentioned, on Azure, such as IaaS platforms, virtual machines, applications, or databases, because it's an in-house product from Microsoft within the Azure ecosystem."
"Provides a very good view of the entire security setup of your organization."
"The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative."
"Most importantly, it's an integrated solution. We not only have Defender for Cloud, but we also have Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, and Defender for Identity. It's an integrated, holistic solution."
"When you have commissioned Defender, you have these things visible already on your dashboard. This gives the efficiency to the people to do their actual work rather than bothering about the email, sorting out the email, or looking at it through an ITSM solution, whey they have to look at the description and use cases. Efficiency increases with this optimized, ready-made solution since you don't need to invest in something externally. You can start using the dashboard and auditing capability provided from day one. Thus, you have fewer costs with a more optimized, easier-to-use solution, providing operational efficiency for your team."
"One of the features that I like about the solution is it is both a hybrid cloud and also multi-cloud. We never know what company we're going to buy, and therefore we are ready to go. If they have GCP or AWS, we have support for that as well. It offers a single-panel blast across multiple clouds."
"The integration between all the Defender products is the most valuable feature."
"The EDR and the way it automatically responds to ransomware and other attacks are valuable features."
"Its most significant advantage lies in its affordability."
"I like that it's stable. It's been stable for a long time, and Microsoft Defender has done a good job there."
"The threat intelligence is excellent."
"The most valuable feature is the network security."
"It provides a single pane of glass within the 365 admin interface, streamlining our experience by consolidating information in one place and eliminating the need to navigate through multiple interfaces."
"The product integrates security into one tool instead of having third-party security tools."
"The solution could improve by being more intuitive and easier to use requiring less technical knowledge."
"One of the main challenges that we have been facing with Azure Security Center is the cost. The costs are really a complex calculation, e.g., to calculate the monthly costs. Azure is calculating on an hourly basis for use of the resource. Because of this, we found it really complex to promote what will be our costs for the next couple of months. I think if Azure could reduce the complex calculation and come up with straightforward cost mapping that would be very useful from a product point of view."
"I felt that there was disconnection in terms of understanding the UI. The communication for moving from the old UI to the new UI could be improved. It was a bit awkward."
"Azure's system could be more on point like AWS support. For example, if I have an issue with AWS, I create a support ticket, then I get a call or a message. With Azure support, you raise a ticket, and somebody calls back depending on their availability and the priority, which might not align with your business priority."
"From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR."
"As an analyst, there is no way to configure or create a playbook to automate the process of flagging suspicious domains."
"Customizing some of the compliance requirements based on individual needs seems like the biggest area of improvement. There should be an option to turn specific controls on and off based on how your solution is configured."
"Most of the time, when we log into the support, we don't get a chance to interact with Microsoft employees directly, except having it go to outsource employees of Microsoft. The initial interaction has not been that great because outsourced companies cannot provide the kind of quality or technical expertise that we look for. We have a technical manager from Microsoft, but they are kind of average unless we make noise and ask them to escalate. We then can get the right people and the right solution, but it definitely takes time."
"The capability to not only thwart attacks but also to adapt to evolving threats is crucial."
"The solution could improve by having better machine learning and AI. Additionally, the interface, documentation, and integration could be better."
"While the XDR platform offers valuable functionalities, it falls short of other solutions in its ability to deliver a cohesive identity experience."
"Offboarding latency should be reduced. Even after a device has been successfully offboarded using a particular offboarding script, it still shows up as onboarded."
"The web filtering solution needs to be improved because currently, it is very simple."
"For some scenarios, it provides good visibility into threats, and for some scenarios, it doesn't. For example, sometimes the URLs within the emails have destinations, and you do get a screenshot and all further details, but it's not always the case. It would be good if they did a better job of enabling that for all the emails that they identified as malicious. When you get an email threat, you can go into the email and see more details, but the URL destination feature doesn't always show you a screenshot of the URL in that email. It also doesn't always give you the characteristics relating to that URL. It would be quite good if the information is complete where it says that we identified this URL, and this is what it looks like. There should be some threat intel about it. It should give you more details."
"The data recovery and backup could be improved."
"Improving scalability, especially for very large tenants, could be beneficial for Microsoft Defender XDR."
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 2nd in Microsoft Security Suite with 46 reviews while Microsoft Defender XDR is ranked 1st in Microsoft Security Suite with 78 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0, while Microsoft Defender XDR is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud writes "Provides multi-cloud capability, is plug-and-play, and improves our security posture". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender XDR writes "Includes four services and four products, which can help organizations a lot". Microsoft Defender for Cloud is most compared with AWS GuardDuty, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, Wiz, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Microsoft Sentinel, whereas Microsoft Defender XDR is most compared with CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager, Wazuh, Trend Vision One and Microsoft Sentinel. See our Microsoft Defender XDR vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud report.
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We monitor all Microsoft Security Suite reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
