We performed a comparison between CrowdStrike Falcon 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.
Features: CrowdStrike Falcon stands out for its minimal impact on system performance, optimal resource utilization, and precise detection of threats. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is highly regarded for its automated processes, advanced threat analysis, and extensive security measures, including protection against ransomware and access controls. CrowdStrike Falcon could benefit from adding a sandbox feature and more detailed firewall management options. Microsoft Defender for Cloud could use enhancements in automation and ease of use.
Service and Support: CrowdStrike Falcon's customer service has been commended for its promptness and assistance. Some Defender for Cloud users reported positive experiences with Microsoft, while others complained that the solution's outsourced support lacked technical knowledge.
Ease of Deployment: CrowdStrike Falcon's setup is considered to be simple and efficient, with varying deployment times ranging from a few days to a month. While there may be some challenges during installation, they are generally manageable. The initial setup of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is described as straightforward, but the deployment time may vary depending on specific requirements.
Pricing: Some users find CrowdStrike Falcon costly and think the price should be lowered to make it more competitive. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is in the mid-to-high pricing tier. While some users find it expensive, others believe it offers good value.
ROI: CrowdStrike Falcon offers cost savings by decreasing the required number of engineers and eliminating the necessity for onsite servers. Microsoft Defender for Cloud streamlines security tasks and saves users money by consolidating various solutions.
Comparison Results: Users prefer CrowdStrike Falcon over Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Users like CrowdStrike Falcon's effortless setup process and lightweight design. It provides an in-depth analysis of endpoint devices, precise threat detection, and robust defense against cyberattacks.
"The setup is pretty simple."
"It is stable and scalable."
"The product detects and blocks threats and is more proactive than firewalls."
"The ease of deployment and configuration is valuable. It's very easy compared to other vendors like Sophos. Sophos' configuration is complex. Fortinet is a lot easier to understand. You don't need a lot of admin knowledge to do the configuration."
"The most valuable feature is the analysis, because of the beta structure."
"The console is easy to read. I also like the scanning part and the ability to move assets from one to the other."
"Forensics is a valuable feature of Fortinet FortiEDR."
"Fortinet is very user-friendly for customers."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"The automatic alert feature is the most important feature of the solution."
"It's ability to do threat hunting is really great, quite robust, and even allows you to do hygiene stuff."
"Overall, what I found most valuable in CrowdStrike Falcon is its good mechanism. It also has a good reporting feature. CrowdStrike Falcon is an invaluable tool because, through it, you can take quick action, for example, when an OS is missing specific patches."
"The solution can scale easily."
"This solution consistently releases improvements. They have communicated their next two years of development which is powerful and covers all of our needs."
"I like the vulnerability assessment and proactive hunting features of CrowdStrike Falcon."
"CrowdStrike displays a threat score when it detects an infection. This is helpful because not all detections are the same. It will classify them as ransomware, malware, phishing, etc. This feature helps us prioritize and cross-check with other EDR tools."
"The most valuable features are ransomware protection and access controls. The solution has helped us secure some folders on our systems from unauthorized modifications."
"Microsoft Defender has a lot of features including regulatory compliance and attaching workbooks but the most valuable is the recommendations it provides for each and every resource when we open Microsoft Defender."
"It's got a lot of great features."
"One important security feature is the incident alerts. Now, with all these cyberattacks, there are a lot of incident alerts that get triggered. It is very difficult to keep monitoring everything automatically, instead our organization is utilizing the automated use case that we get from Microsoft. That has helped bring down the manual work for a lot of things."
"Defender is a robust platform for dealing with many kinds of threats. We're protected from various threats, like viruses. Attacks can be easily minimized with this solution defending our infrastructure."
"The vulnerability reporting is helpful. When we initially deployed Defender, it reported many more threats than we currently see. It gave us insight into areas we had not previously considered, so we knew where we needed to act."
"Threat protection is comprehensive and simple."
"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."
"The SIEM could be improved."
"Detections could be improved."
"The only minor concern is occasional interference with desired programs."
"We find the solution to be a bit expensive."
"The solution is not stable."
"I would like the solution to extend beyond endpoint protection and include other attack surfaces such as other network components."
"Cannot be used on mobile devices with a secure connection."
"We've encountered challenges during API deployment, occasionally resulting in unstable environments."
"CS Falcon sensing capabilities for non-domain machines should be enhanced since the agent doesn't detect the neighbor's IP Address and/or any anomaly which was identified in the network for the non-domain machine."
"This solution could be improved with greater scope for admins to make changes to the solution."
"There are some areas where some customers would prefer a different service."
"I would like to see a little bit more in the offline scanning ability. This just comes from my background in what I have done in other positions. They only scan on demand, so I always have this fear that we sometimes maybe email out a dormant virus and can be held liable for that. That is something where I would like to see a little bit more robustness to the tool."
"CrowdStrike Falcon by itself does not supply in-depth reporting."
"To simplify the budgeting process for our clients, CrowdStrike should consider offering bundled packages that include essential features."
"The portal can be clunky to navigate at times and has room for improvement."
"In the future release of CrowdStrike Falcon, they should add a sandbox feature."
"The solution's portal is very easy to use, but there's one key component that is missing when it comes to managing policies. For example, if I've onboarded my server and I need to specify antivirus policies, there's no option to do that on the portal. I will have to go to Intune to deploy them. That is one main aspect that is missing and it's worrisome."
"I would like to see better automation when it comes to pushing out security features to the recommendations, and better documentation on the step-by-step procedures for enabling certain features."
"Microsoft Defender could be more centralized. For example, I still need to go to another console to do policy management."
"The initial setup is not actually so complex but it feels complex because there are many add-ons. There are many options and my team needs to be aware of all of these changes happening on the backend which is a distraction."
"They could always work to make the pricing a bit lower."
"I would suggest building a single product that addresses endpoint server protection, attack surface, and everything else in one solution. That is the main disadvantage with the product. If we are incorporating some features, we end up in a situation where this solution is for the server, and that one is for the client, or this is for identity, and that is for our application. They're not bundling it. Commercially, we can charge for different licenses, but on the implementation side, it's tough to help our end-customer understand which product they're getting."
"You cannot create custom use cases."
"I would like to have the ability to customize executive reporting."
CrowdStrike Falcon is ranked 3rd in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) with 107 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 3rd in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) with 46 reviews. CrowdStrike Falcon is rated 8.8, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of CrowdStrike Falcon writes "Easy to set up with good behavior-based analysis but needs a single-click recovery option". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud writes "Provides multi-cloud capability, is plug-and-play, and improves our security posture". CrowdStrike Falcon is most compared with Microsoft Defender XDR, Darktrace, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Trend Micro Deep Security and VMware Carbon Black Endpoint, whereas Microsoft Defender for Cloud is most compared with AWS GuardDuty, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft Defender XDR, Wiz and AWS Security Hub. See our CrowdStrike Falcon vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud report.
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