CrowdStrike Falcon and Microsoft Defender XDR are both Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions that offer endpoint protection and threat detection capabilities. CrowdStrike Falcon is a standalone platform, whereas Defender XDR integrates seamlessly with Microsoft security products. CrowdStrike Falcon offers customizable alert settings and machine-learning algorithms for proactive threat hunting. Microsoft Defender is highlighted for its efficient incident response system. Both products have flexible pricing options, with users noting positive ROI from both solutions.
The summary above is based on 207 interviews we conducted recently with CrowdStrike Falcon and Microsoft 365 Defender users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"The product detects and blocks threats and is more proactive than firewalls."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the ability to customize it and to reduce its size. It lets you run in a very small window in terms of memory and resources on legacy cash registers."
"The main thing is that I feel safe. Because the processes that have been used to get a handle on the attackers are much better than other competitors"
"Fortinet FortiEDR's firewalling, rule creation, monitoring, and inspection profiles are great."
"The console is easy to read. I also like the scanning part and the ability to move assets from one to the other."
"The stability is very good."
"This is stable and scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the analysis, because of the beta structure."
"CrowdStrike Falcon's scalability is good. We have thousands of students using this solution."
"I like the overall reports of this solution. They are crisp, and to the point."
"The most valuable feature is the activity dashboard because it gives you a holistic view of your environment from a security standpoint."
"The OverWatch is the most valuable feature to me. It's a 24x7 monitoring service, and when they see anything suspicious in my environment, they will investigate."
"It has definitely minimized resources. When everything was on-prem, there was a lot more work maintaining it. One of the big value tickets: I don't have lists of hundreds of exceptions for certain applications that I have to maintain, add, delete, and move. The very nature of the product has lessened my workload considerably."
"The detection is very reliable. Also, OverWatch is a great feature."
"Everything we've done with CrowdStrike is due to Arctic Wolf. We don't even need to get alerts from CrowdStrike anymore. It'll send those to Arctic Wolf, and then Arctic Wolf analyzes those and let us know if there's a major issue."
"Cyberattack detection is very good. We use it for detecting different vulnerabilities, such as ransomware, virus, and malware. It is a good product today when compared to Symantec that we used previously."
"A crucial aspect for our team is the inclusion of identity and access management tools from the vendor."
"Scanning, vulnerability reporting, and the dashboard are the most valuable features."
"The summarization of emails is a valuable feature."
"The common and advanced security policies for threat hunting and blocking attacks are valuable."
"We are able to consolidate licences and make use of many Microsoft products using this solution. If we have any Microsoft customers, we encourage them to use this solution for enterprise defence."
"Microsoft 365 Defender is simple to upgrade."
"The integration with other Microsoft solutions is the most valuable feature."
"Microsoft Defender XDR is scalable."
"We'd like to see more one-to-one product presentations for the distribution channels."
"FortiEDR could add a separate scanning dashboard. In incident management, we prefer to remove the endpoint system from the environment and scan the system. We typically use Symantec for that, but if we want to use FortiEDR for that, then we need a scanning tab to clarify things."
"Once, we had an event that was locked and blocked, but information about it came to us two or three days later."
"The dashboard isn't easy to access and manage."
"The security should be strong for the cloud. Some applications are on-prem and some are on the cloud. Fortinet should also have strong security for the cloud. There should be more security for the cloud."
"The solution's installation from a central installation server could be improved because the engineers had a little bit of trouble getting it installed from a central location."
"We've encountered challenges during API deployment, occasionally resulting in unstable environments."
"The solution is not stable."
"I have worked with their technical support on several problems that were never fully resolved."
"We can do a threat analysis of any machine at any time, but that threat analysis is very limited."
"The performance could be better."
"They offered a white glove service that was extremely costly. When we got into it, we saw it was relatively easy. If I was being nitpicky, I'd say that I don't like being sold something that's unnecessary. That's the only downside I've seen to the solution."
"Crowdstrike Falcon XDR can improve the integration. There are some locks on the cloud to on-premise integrations."
"CrowdStrike Falcon could improve if it became an XDR. When we look only to an end-point, we lost the context of the environment. I know it's another line of design of the product. However, if CrowdStrike becomes an XDR, it could be very good."
"The content-filtering features for children could be improved. We have young grandchildren aged 12 and 8. My daughter, their mother, wants to keep them from getting in trouble on the net. She looked at all these other solutions from Google, Microsoft, etc., and she couldn't figure out how to make any of those work. I told her that I bet CrowdStrike could handle this. Sure enough, CrowdStrike can do exactly that. It's the same solution that the Defense Department gets. It works, but it's a little complicated to implement. It could be simpler to set the policies."
"On the firewall management side, there should be more granularity. There should also be more granularity for device control. Everything else is brilliant."
"The tool gives inconsistent answers and crashes a lot."
"Microsoft frequently changes the names of its products, sometimes even renaming entire portals or features."
"What could be improved in Microsoft 365 Defender is its licensing, e.g. it should be more consolidated and would be good if it has some optimizations. Improving the alerts and notifications, in terms of adding more details, would also be good for this solution."
"The cost can be high if you want to build custom license packages. Another area for improvement is the policies. In Azure, we need to implement policies in JSON format, but in 365 Defender 365, it would be helpful to use a different format so we can customize the platform."
"Advanced attacks could use an improvement."
"It would be highly beneficial if CoPilot could identify anomalies within the network and notify the IT team."
"From an integration standpoint, it is always improving overall. With Security Copilot coming out, as partners, we are waiting for the GDAP support so that we can actually see Security Copilot on behalf of customers if they subscribe to it."
"We should be able to use the product on devices like Apple, Linux, etc."
CrowdStrike Falcon is ranked 1st in Extended Detection and Response (XDR) with 107 reviews while Microsoft Defender XDR is ranked 5th in Extended Detection and Response (XDR) with 78 reviews. CrowdStrike Falcon is rated 8.8, while Microsoft Defender XDR is rated 8.4. 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 XDR writes "Includes four services and four products, which can help organizations a lot". CrowdStrike Falcon is most compared with Darktrace, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Trend Micro Deep Security, Trend Vision One and VMware Carbon Black Endpoint, whereas Microsoft Defender XDR is most compared with Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager, Wazuh, Trend Vision One and Microsoft Entra ID. See our CrowdStrike Falcon vs. Microsoft Defender XDR report.
See our list of best Extended Detection and Response (XDR) vendors and best Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) vendors.
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