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 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"
"It notifies us if there's any suspicious file on any PC. If any execution or similar kind of thing is happening, it just alerts us. It doesn't only alert. It also blocks the execution until we allow it. We check whether the execution is legitimate or not, and then approve it or keep it blocked. This gives us a little bit of control over this mechanism. Fortinet FortiEDR is also very straightforward and easy to maintain."
"Fortinet FortiEDR's scalability is quite good, and you can add licenses to the solution."
"Fortinet FortiEDR's firewalling, rule creation, monitoring, and inspection profiles are great."
"Additionally, when it comes to EDR, there are more tools available to assist with client work."
"he solution is an anti-malware product that integrates well with other vendor products such as firewalls, SIEM, etc. It captures threat intelligence and gives you better visibility. The product also has sandboxing features."
"This is stable and scalable."
"Fortinet is very user-friendly for customers."
"The UI is simple and self-explanatory. Everything is easy to understand."
"Scalability is good. We have had no issues with it."
"It's ability to do threat hunting is really great, quite robust, and even allows you to do hygiene stuff."
"The ability to execute real-time response, or, that you can connect to the agent and see exactly what processes are operating, is the most important feature of this solution."
"It's given me a level of confidence that my network is secure."
"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."
"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 of CrowdStrike Falcon include Falcon Fusion workflows and endpoint detection capabilities."
"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."
"The product has given us more insight into potential avenues for attack paths."
"Provides a very good view of the entire security setup of your organization."
"We can create alerts that trigger if there is any malicious activity happening in the workflow and these alerts can be retrieved using the query language."
"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."
"It's got a lot of great features."
"Defender for Cloud is a plug-and-play solution that provides continuous posture management once enabled."
"The dashboard isn't easy to access and manage."
"FortiEDR can be improved by providing more detailed reporting."
"The amount of usage, the number of details we get, or the number of options that can be tweaked is limited in comparison to that with other EDR solutions"
"They can include the automation for the realtime updates. We have a network infrastructure with remote sites. Whenever they send updates, they are not automated. We have to go into the console and push those updates. I wish it was more automated. The update file is currently around 31 MB. It could be smaller."
"There's room for improvement in the quick response time and technical support for integration issues, especially when dealing with multiple vendors."
"Once, we had an event that was locked and blocked, but information about it came to us two or three days later."
"Cannot be used on mobile devices with a secure connection."
"We'd like to see more one-to-one product presentations for the distribution channels."
"There are some areas where some customers would prefer a different service."
"The dashboard does not have the facility to export the reports in a PDF format, which I can quickly share with internal stakeholders."
"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."
"They don't really have anything when it comes to scanning attachments."
"CrowdStrike Falcon could improve the EDR functionality. Once the functionality of the solution improves, it will be even better in the market and able to compete with Carbon Black."
"I would like to see a more accurate integration and an option to check the local machine."
"There are some aspects of the UI that could use some improvement, e.g., working in groups. I build a group, then I have to manually assign prevention policies, update policies, etc., but there is no function to copy that group. So, if I wanted to make a subgroup for troubleshooting or divide workstations into groups of laptops and desktops, then I have to manually build a brand new group. I can't just copy a build from one to another. Additionally, in order to do any work within a group, I have to first do the work on the respective prevention policy page or individual policy page, then remove the group if the group is assigned to a different prevention policy, remove the prevention policy, and then add the new one in. So, it can get a little hectic. It would be easier if I could add and remove things from the group page rather than having to go into the policy pages to do it."
"CrowdStrike Falcon could be enhanced by extending its security capabilities to include NDR and XDR."
"I would like to have the ability to customize executive reporting."
"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 solution could extend its capabilities to other cloud providers. Right now, if you want to monitor a virtual machine on another cloud, you can do that. However, this cannot be done with other cloud platform services. I hope once that is available then Defender for Cloud will be a unified solution for all cloud platform services."
"Another thing that could be improved was that they could recommend processes on how to react to alerts, or recommend best practices based on how other organizations do things if they receive an alert about XYZ."
"We would like to have better transparency as to how the security score is calculated because as it is now, it is difficult to understand."
"From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR."
"Microsoft Defender could be more centralized. For example, I still need to go to another console to do policy management."
"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."
CrowdStrike Falcon is ranked 3rd in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) with 105 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 2nd 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 Trend Vision One - Cloud Security. See our CrowdStrike Falcon vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud report.
We monitor all Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) 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.
