We performed a comparison between Cisco SecureX and Microsoft 365 Defender based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Cisco SecureX earns high marks for its automated utilities, comprehensive visibility, and seamless integration with external resources. Microsoft 365 Defender offers effortless integration with other Microsoft solutions. Users praised its flexibility and comprehensive protection against multiple threat types. Users say Cisco SecureX needs better documentation and integration with on-premises systems. It would also benefit by expanding its compatibility with third-party solutions. Microsoft 365 Defender could upgrade its machine learning and AI capabilities. Some users suggested adopting Zero Trust features.
Service and Support: Some users describe Cisco support as dependable and efficient, while others noted a decline in quality due to personnel changes. Some of our reviewers were satisfied with Microsoft support, but others complained about slow responses and lackluster problem-solving capabilities.
Ease of Deployment: Setting up Cisco SecureX is generally considered to be straightforward in cloud environments, but it requires more effort to integrate the solution with on-premise products. Setting up Microsoft 365 Defender is potentially complex and may involve integrating with existing policies. Some users reported longer deployment times.
Pricing: A few users said Cisco SecureX’s price could be lower, given that it is included for free with certain Cisco products. Some users say that Microsoft 365 Defender is good value, but others perceive it as more expensive than similar competing products.
ROI: Cisco SecureX provides a positive ROI by speeding up detection and resolution. It also decreases workloads through automation and proactive information gathering. Microsoft 365 Defender offers savings, attack prevention, consolidation of security measures, and proactive threat detection.
Comparison Results: Our users recommend Cisco SecureX over Microsoft 365 Defender due to its data consolidation, centralized platform, automation tools, and affordability. In contrast, Microsoft 365 Defender has received mixed reviews regarding its complexity, pricing, and support. Cisco SecureX appears to offer a more comprehensive and user-friendly solution.
"SecureX takes all the separate pieces of security within your company, adds in intelligence from different sites and services on the internet, and makes them work together."
"The forensics are amazing because when you have enrichment, and the solutions talk with each other, when you need it, you have the ability to know everything in the organization: when, why, whatever."
"SecureX enables us to have all the threat intelligence and threat event data in one place."
"I like that I don't have to jump around to five different products and log into five different places to view the data that it returns."
"It has evolved a lot, just that monitoring piece to the current Orchestrator piece. The additional analytics are there. They now have something called Insight, which can basically take data from Microsoft Azure AD and Intune to give us information about our endpoints. This is detailed information about the endpoints, from Secure Endpoint and all these different products. So, it is just constantly evolving. Every time that it evolves, we have more information with more visibility. There are more features that we have that just make everything so much easier, and it is in one place. I don't have to keep going back and forth. I don't have to go to Secure Endpoint and ISE to get the data. I don't have to go to Intune on Microsoft to get the information. It is all in one place."
"Integrates well with our existing security infrastructure."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to manage all the applications and visibility. For example, if there is malware, spam, or another component that wants to attack the company in my servers, network, or applications, then SecureX will react to the problem."
"The automation and orchestration tools are the most valuable features."
"We are connected to Microsoft and have every laptop enrolled. This acts as an endpoint. The tool helps me check security and compliance. I can also check what a device is doing."
"The EDR features are valuable. By getting the EDR features, we have more control over the device. We have information about events in real-time and more protection against zero-day threats and zero-day vulnerabilities. We can monitor every event or action that a device is going through. We can get an idea if it is something malicious or if we have to take any actions."
"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."
"Microsoft 365 Defender is a stable solution."
"From the perspective of Microsoft 365 XDR, the main benefit is a single, centralized dashboard offering the holistic visibility organizations crave."
"The 'Incidents and Alerts' tab is a valuable feature where we can find triggered alerts."
"The integration with other Microsoft solutions is the most valuable feature."
"Setting up Microsoft 365 Defender is easy. It's a user-friendly solution that provides threat protection. It has good stability and scalability."
"I would like it to integrate with another solution, e.g., DNA. I would like it to connect to that solution, but not the security aspect."
"They could expand into more areas. The more third-parties that we have tied into it, the better. The capabilities are there. As they just continue to involve the product, the more things that you can look into, then the more analytics that you can get. Also, the more data that we can get, then the better off we will be."
"One of the improvements the product needs is more integration with collaboration platforms."
"The front-end work controls the new algorithm and the firewall rules. The search feature of these rules could be improved."
"The playbooks provided with the product are great, although I would appreciate having more playbooks available. Threats are constantly evolving, so having access to updated playbooks is crucial."
"Remediation stuff could be integrated into the product's automation."
"The automation and orchestration could be simpler. It could be that all the other parts are that easy to use so that these stick out as a negative, but that's the trickiest part for us. The workflows within the orchestration are just a bit more difficult."
"For us, the biggest sticking point is that the product is not being designed for multi-tenancy use at present, from an MSP perspective."
"The patching capability should be there. Patching is something that you cannot do even though you see the vulnerabilities present in your environment. For patching, you have to depend on another solution."
"365 Defender has multiple subsets, including Defender for Cloud Apps. When integrating Defender for Cloud Apps with apps on third-party cloud platforms like AWS or GCP, there are limitations on our ability to control user activities. If Microsoft added more control over third-party products, that would be a game-changer and help us quite a lot."
"The documentation on their website is somewhat outdated and doesn't show properly. I wanted to try a query in Microsoft Defender 365. When I opened the related documentation from the security blog on the Microsoft website, the figures were not showing. It was difficult to understand the article without having the figures. The figures were there in the article, but they were not getting loaded, which made the article obsolete."
"My client would like the solution to be more customizable without using code. You can only build on the default console, but we're not allowed to change it."
"Stability could be improved by avoiding frequent changes to the interface."
"Automated playbooks and automated dashboards would be preferable to the way the data is currently being presented."
"The licensing is a nightmare and has room for improvement."
"The price should be adjustable by region."
Cisco SecureX is ranked 14th in Extended Detection and Response (XDR) with 13 reviews while Microsoft Defender XDR is ranked 5th in Extended Detection and Response (XDR) with 78 reviews. Cisco SecureX is rated 9.0, while Microsoft Defender XDR is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco SecureX writes "Gives our customers visibility and they don't have to go multiple management consoles anymore". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender XDR writes "Includes four services and four products, which can help organizations a lot". Cisco SecureX is most compared with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, Trend Vision One, Splunk SOAR, Cisco Secure Network Analytics and Fortinet FortiSOAR, whereas Microsoft Defender XDR is most compared with CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager, Wazuh and Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks. See our Cisco SecureX vs. Microsoft Defender XDR report.
See our list of best Extended Detection and Response (XDR) vendors.
We monitor all Extended Detection and Response (XDR) 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.