Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Anomali vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 1, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Anomali
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
22nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (34th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (19th), Threat Intelligence Platforms (7th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (28th)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (1st), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Anomali is 1.2%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 8.9%, down from 11.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

CC
Enables automated threat intelligence sorting and enhances proactive threat hunting capabilities
You have to have at least a threat intelligence background or a SOC analyst background to use it, as that's the information you'll dig around with in there. If you don't have that kind of knowledge, it probably can be a little hard to use, but they do provide training. They offer training not only for how to use the platform but also some basic threat intelligence training to explain what these things are and what these terms mean. My company is a customer of Anomali. I would recommend it to other people. I would advise making sure you don't pick it without testing other products and have your use cases well thought out and documented before testing, so you know it will solve the problems you're trying to address. Keep an open mind with it and realize that whatever you can dream of, you can probably do with the platform. Overall, I would rate Anomali an eight out of ten.
Sudhen Swami - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to update with good protection and a useful cloud portal
We've mainly used it for endpoints. However, we've also used it for DLP as well. We're also in the process of implementing it for cloud and identity as well. However, it's very good for endpoints, and that's our main focus. The malware protection is good. The visibility it provides is very useful. We can combine visibility with wider security features and alerts around malware, misconfiguration, or any other kinds of threats. The cloud portal is quite good. From there, we are able to see alerts and have colleagues review issues and monitor to see if any patterns arise. It's serving us quite well overall. It allows us to look at other items, like application and browser control. It helps us prioritize threats. We have a process in place now where we can review issues and remediate them effectively. We have been able to integrate a variety of Microsoft security products together. We use Azure AD, for example, and we've begun to implement DLP, among other items. We're looking at labeling and tagging and will expand into that soon. Defender has more stringent system requirements than, for example, Check Point. So when we implemented the Check Point Endpoint agent, that solution didn't mind what version of Windows you were using. When we moved to Defender, Defender had certain system prerequisites that had to be met. So we had to make sure that we're on a minimum version of Windows when we're utilizing Office, and Office has to be a particular version as well. It has more stringent system requirements that have to be met before you can implement it. It works natively together with other Microsoft solutions. Once you get more and more of those different components across the environment, then you start to get better visibility. So, rather than having lots of different solutions, you have fewer solutions and a single vendor solution. That way, you start getting into a position where you get better visibility and integration as well. The standardization is good. It's important. It's helping me with monitoring and learning. Updates and upgrades are quite smooth and seamless. Defender helps us automate routine tasks. Quite a lot of Microsoft is straightforward for us now. Previously, we didn't have enough resources and were unable to look at the alerts. Having this in place makes things a lot more straightforward for us. We have both the technology and the people in place now, alongside the process. We do see the benefits in that, and that's why we're continuing our adoption across the estate in terms of client and server as well. It's helping us avoid looking at multiple dashboards and centralized monitoring. We're not fully there yet. We're getting there. While we haven't witnessed time saving yet, once it's fully deployed, it will. By then, we'll have standardized processes across a single solution. We have saved money, however, as we continue to reduce non-Mircosft systems. Since we won't be using various competing technologies, we can save on licensing costs. We've likely so far saved 15%. While it's hard to estimate exactly how much, the solution has helped us decrease time to detection and time to respond.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I have found Cyber threat intelligence (CTI) very useful and concise. The solution is easy to use."
"We now have a very robust collection of threat intelligence based on the capabilities that Anomali provides."
"The most valuable aspect of Anomali is the threat modeling capability."
"The feature I have found most valuable is credential monitoring. This feature is easy and quick."
"I enjoy using the live response feature, which allows me to remotely access different endpoints and investigate malicious files, such as malware that people may have downloaded, and other related issues."
"I am using it for very simple purposes. It is perfect and quite effective. I have been using it for a while, and I have never had any virus infection, data leak, or other security breaches. It works fine for standalone purposes. If you log on to OneDrive, it has ransomware protection."
"This is not an inventory solution, but it helps you take count of how many workstations you have, as well as what software is installed on each of them."
"It can reach our applications and PC activities in the cloud."
"I like the fact that it has the ransomware solution in there. I'm glad that the ransomware solution is built into it. That's probably the biggest thing that I see in Microsoft Defender."
"The most valuable feature is ransomware protection, which can detect malicious activity from IPs or a malicious payload in DLLs, or other things that can corrupt the system."
"The feature I find most valuable in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is that it blocks the process and keeps the endpoint from getting infected with malware."
"The solution has good performance, I have not seen a problem."
 

Cons

"An area for improvement is the intelligence sharing within the Anomali community. The tagging system can be inconsistent, as any company can use any tags for their reporting."
"Less code in integration would be nice when building blocks."
"Support in the past has been top-notch, but recent trends indicate that it has taken a back seat, as we often don't get answers for days."
"A lot of tools can give you many features, such as CTI intelligence and a tax service reduction. However, many people are combining different tools together to have more capabilities. It is up to the consumer whether they want to have multiple tools or have one tool that serves the purpose. Anomali Enterprise could improve by combining all the other tools' features into one solution."
"We would like more customization."
"I would like to have a dashboard that shows an overview of the results for the enterprise."
"There are likely some technical improvements or features that could be added, however, I cannot say, off the top of my head, what they would be."
"With regards to the interface, a challenge I found was that there was not enough documentation on how to tune it. I had to read multiple sources on the internet to learn how to configure the tool appropriately."
"Notifications are always popping up — I hate that."
"The log searches for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint are pretty difficult to navigate. It needs a better UI or more intuitive search and filter mechanisms to make it easy to get through and filter through all the data logs."
"We encountered some misbehavior between Microsoft Office Suite and Defender. We had issues of old macros being blocked and some stuff going around the usage of Win32 APIs. There is some improvement between the Office products and Defender, and there is a bunch of stuff that you can configure in your antivirus solutions, but you have several baselines, such as security baselines for Edge, security baselines for Defender, and security baselines for MDM. You have configuration profiles as well. So, there a lot of parts where we can configure our antivirus solution, and we're getting conflicting configurations. This is the major part with which we're struggling in this solution. We are having calls and calls with Microsoft for getting rid of all configuration conflicts that we have. That's really the part that needs to be improved."
"We would like to see more tools for managing on-premises security... Sometimes, we have the tools, like Defender, to manage security in the cloud, but because we are so focused on the cloud, we forget the fact that we need to be sure about the security of the on-premises environment, specifically Active Directory."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When comparing the price of Anomali Enterprise to other solutions it is in the medium to high range. However, I am satisfied with the price."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is included with a Microsoft E5 license."
"We have an enterprise agreement so from my perspective, this is a product that ships with Windows and it is not priced standalone."
"The cost is high, compared to other products in the market, if you look at it as a separate product. If you look at the cost where it is part of a bundle, the cost is okay."
"I got it with the Microsoft Windows license."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comes with Windows 10, and it's free. But for you to be able to manage it in the cloud and use the console, you need to have either an Office 365 E5 subscription or a Microsoft M365 subscription. You need to buy an extra license."
"The price is higher than others because it is doing more than what the others are doing."
"We went for Microsoft Defender once we were informed that it would be part of our Office 365 package. So, we combined the licensing for the OS with Office 365. Yeah. We thought it was a good bargain."
"The price was a problem for me three years ago, but they improved their E3, E5, and a la carte licensing. In other words, you have to get all of E5. That used to be a problem because you had E3, Defender, and guardrails, but you needed an E5 license to get the management suite and the analytics. It's more flexible now. You can switch from a la carte to the entire suite when it starts to make sense. It's becoming more economically competitive to go that route."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) solutions are best for your needs.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Anomali ThreatStream?
An area for improvement is the intelligence sharing within the Anomali community. The tagging system can be inconsistent, as any company can use any tags for their reporting. Combining all aliases ...
What is your primary use case for Anomali ThreatStream?
I use Anomali ( /products/anomali-reviews ) for threat hunting, threat collection, operationalization of intelligence, such as indicators of compromise (IOCs), and dissemination of reports for repo...
What advice do you have for others considering Anomali ThreatStream?
For new users, I recommend taking the training provided by Anomali as it is very well articulated. I advise reading the user manual and taking the instructor-led training sessions from the customer...
How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-ba...
Which offers better endpoint security - Symantec or Microsoft Defender?
We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior solution. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security s...
How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?
The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never push your machine hardware to "test", you don't have the usual "scan now" feature ...
 

Also Known As

Match, Lens, ThreatStream, STAXX, Anomali Security Analytics
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bank of England, First Energy, UBISOFT, Bank of Hope, Blackhawk Network
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Anomali vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.