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.
"Using Security Center, you have a full view, at any given time, of what's deployed, and that is something that is very useful."
"It takes very little effort to integrate it. It also gives very good visibility into what exactly is happening."
"With respect to improving our security posture, it helps us to understand where we are in terms of compliance. We can easily know when we are below the standard because of the scores it calculates."
"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."
"It's got a lot of great features."
"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."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the insights, meaning the remediation suggestions, as well as the incident alerts."
"It isn't a highly complex solution. It's something that a lot of analysts can use. Defender gives you a broad overview of what's happening in your environment, and it's a great solution if you're a Microsoft shop."
"The visibility into threats that 365 Defender provides is really good. You get a full review of your security system and what can be improved. In the Microsoft 365 Defender portal the first page gives you a really big summary of which security policies you are following and what can be improved."
"I like that it's fully integrated with Windows, Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, and Outlook. It is better than other antivirus solutions because it's fully integrated with all Microsoft products. It's easy to integrate them and onboard all Windows devices from SCCM."
"It's a very scalable tool that can be used in a very small environment or in a very large environment. Everything can be managed from a simple dashboard and can be scaled up or down depending on the customer's environment."
"Microsoft 365 Defender's most valuable feature is the ability to control the shadow IP."
"The common and advanced security policies for threat hunting and blocking attacks are valuable."
"My clients like Defender's file integrity monitoring. They're monitoring Windows and Linux system files."
"It's a great threat intelligence source for us, providing alerts for things it detects on the network and on the machines. We've used it often when there is a potential incident to see what was done on a computer. That works quite nicely because you can see everything that the user has done..."
"Many people don't realize that Microsoft Azure, Exchange Online, and the security and compliance portal all sync together. For instance, within the Azure portal you can set security restrictions and policies to help secure your tenants... The good part of it is that these products have already been integrated. When you sign on as an admin you have global admin rights and that gives you access to all these features."
"They could always work to make the pricing a bit lower."
"Azure is a complex solution. You have so many moving parts."
"When you work with it, the only problem that we're struggling with is that we have 21 different subscriptions we're trying to apply security to. It's impossible to keep everything organized."
"Sometimes it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or a special kind of product."
"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."
"It needs to be simplified and made more user-friendly for a non-technical person."
"The product must improve its UI."
"As an analyst, there is no way to configure or create a playbook to automate the process of flagging suspicious domains."
"The support team is not competent or responsive."
"The logs could be better."
"The only problem I find is that the use cases are built-in. There is no template available that you can modify according to your organization's standards. What they give is very generic, the market standard, but that might not be applicable to every organization."
"We should be able to use the product on devices like Apple, Linux, etc."
"Offboarding latency should be reduced. Even after a device has been successfully offboarded using a particular offboarding script, it still shows up as onboarded."
"Automated playbooks and automated dashboards would be preferable to the way the data is currently being presented."
"While the XDR platform offers valuable functionalities, it falls short of other solutions in its ability to deliver a cohesive identity experience."
"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."
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 76 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.
