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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
4.7
Cortex XDR reduces operational costs, offers better value than Microsoft Defender, and enhances ROI via automation and integration.
Sentiment score
6.9
Organizations report financial and operational benefits from Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, including improved security, automation, and cost reduction.
Sentiment score
6.9
Mimecast Insider Risk Management offers significant cost savings, improved efficiency, and enhanced security, providing users with incalculable benefits.
They appreciate the rich telemetry data from the solution, as it provides in-depth threat identification.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks helps to reduce my total cost of ownership significantly.
Detection and Response Consultant at Inovasys
In Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, most of the remediation is automated and the accuracy is quite good.
Network Security Engineer at Cyberwell Solution
Without detection and protection measures, organizations would face substantial payments and reputational damage, including the necessity to inform customers about data breaches, potentially leading to loss of business.
Consultant at ACT4SERVICES
We have seen a return on investment when using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it saves labor by reducing the need for staff to focus on it.
IT CONSULTANT at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
The biggest return on investment for me when using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is the time saving.
Lead security engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection eases the workload through automation, through policies and rules that are pre-configured to handle complex tasks that would take hours and days for a team to initiate.
Senior Service Desk Engineer at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Cortex XDR support is praised for expertise and responsiveness, but faces inconsistency and regional communication issues. Ratings: 8-9/10.
Sentiment score
6.3
Microsoft support is praised for responsiveness and knowledge, but varies in quality; documentation and complex issue resolution need improvement.
Sentiment score
8.7
Mimecast excels in customer service with responsive support, effective solutions, and proactive communication, enhancing overall user satisfaction.
The technical support from Palo Alto deserves a mark of ten because they reach out within an hour whenever assistance is needed.
Head of data centers at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees
There is no back and forth, and they know what we are asking for and come up with the best resolution for a solution.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
If any of these services are missed, it becomes a problem in terms of support tickets, follow-up, or special configuration that needs to be done in the system.
Chief of IT Architecture at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The Microsoft agent, who did not actually work for Microsoft, is one of the vendors that Microsoft uses for support, said, 'Just to set expectations, my lunch break is in an hour and I am going to go away then.'
Security Analyst III at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
The level-one support seems disconnected from subject matter experts.
Office 365 Subject Expert at a government with 10,001+ employees
I rate Microsoft support 10 out of 10.
Team manager of it department at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
I have never had any problems with the customer support, and they are very responsive.
Cyber Security Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
I would rate customer support a seven out of ten because support is provided through a third party.
Senior Service Desk Engineer at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
I think the customer support is good, and they respond on time.
IT Administrator at a media company with 201-500 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cortex XDR efficiently manages extensive workloads across company sizes, praised for scalability, cloud capabilities, and high user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is scalable, seamlessly accommodating large environments with flexible deployment and integration with Microsoft's ecosystem.
Sentiment score
8.0
Mimecast's scalability is seamless and efficient, easily supporting growth in users with minimal configuration and cloud-based deployment.
You can onboard 10,000 endpoints in just hours, which demonstrates the excellent scalability of this product.
Assistant Security Architect at Cloudnomics
Activating the newly purchased licenses is instantaneous, allowing installations without adjustments since it's cloud-based.
Junior Security Analyst at ITSEC Asia
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can be expanded anytime by purchasing another license without any issues related to scalability.
Head of data centers at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees
We managed to scale it out in a short amount of time, with two months of planning and three months of implementation on 10,000 computers.
Team manager of it department at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is scalable enough to handle various devices across environments, whether they are laptops, Android devices, or operating in hybrid environments.
Snr. Infrastructure Architect (Data Centre) at LogicEra
Compatibility is its main feature.
IT CONSULTANT at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection has been able to keep up with our organization's growth, including adding more users, expanding across departments, and adapting to larger data volumes.
Deputy Director, Ict Security at a government with 201-500 employees
We do not have to manage the scalability part of it.
Soc Analyst at Payatu
The scalability of Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection can be challenging at times.
Senior Service Desk Engineer at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Cortex XDR is praised for reliable stability and improved performance, despite rare lag during high-stress data loads.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is reliable and efficient, with minor update issues, praised for integration and performance.
Sentiment score
7.9
Mimecast Insider Risk Management offers stable performance and reliability, with minor technical issues generally resolved quickly.
Cortex remains fast and responsive, even with increasing data and alerts.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
The thresholds we've seen on our firewall boxes at some instances reached 80% to 85%, but even at that level of utilization, we don't observe any latency or any issues reported with respect to accessing the application.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Cortex XDR is stable, offering high quality and reliable performance.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
I haven't seen any outages with Microsoft.
IT Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
I rate Defender 10 out of 10 for stability.
Team manager of it department at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Defender for Endpoint is extremely stable.
Systems engineers at Delta Dental of Colorado
Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection is stable in my experience.
Cyber Security Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Cortex XDR needs better integration, pricing, UI, feature parity, and automation, while reducing resource use and false positives.
Microsoft Defender users seek better AI integration, customer support, UI, security, customization, visibility, threat response, and simpler pricing.
Mimecast needs better reporting, integration, custom rules, speed, user support, AI, alerts, and training enhancements.
Improving reporting and dashboard customization, along with the addition of real-time and exportable reports, would help SOC teams greatly.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
The inclusion of this feature would allow the application of DLP policies alongside antivirus policies via a single agent and console, making it more competitive as other OEMs often offer DLP solutions as part of their antivirus products.
Pre Sales Architect at network techlab
If the per GB data could be provided at a certain level free of cost or at the same cost which the customer is taking for the entire bundle, that would be better.
Cyber Security Information Security Specialist at MHM Holding GmbH
Repeated interactions are necessary due to Level One's lack of tools and knowledge, hindering efficient problem-solving and negatively impacting our experience with Microsoft support.
Office 365 Subject Expert at a government with 10,001+ employees
In contrast, competing products offer reduced pricing for long-term commitments, which makes it difficult for us in that environment.
Solution Consultant at BIM Group of Companies
We use Microsoft partners to help govern the platform, and as part of an alliance, we want to gather data from each tenant and combine them for a complete view.
Team manager of it department at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Sometimes we do not have the capacity to train someone, but we would like to ensure that Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection is able to provide that training information.
Senior Service Desk Engineer at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
I suggest that Mimecast provide training and certification on that component and ensure that alerts are more accurate, including the fine-tuning of the alerts.
Deputy Director, Ict Security at a government with 201-500 employees
To improve Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection, I believe the product should provide more options for creating custom rules in the portal.
IT Administrator at a media company with 201-500 employees
 

Setup Cost

Cortex XDR offers competitive pricing between $55-$90, though setup costs are high, with flexible licensing for cloud and on-prem use.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers flexible licensing, integrating with Microsoft 365, providing cost-effective, feature-rich enterprise security solutions.
Mimecast offers scalable pricing and support, ideal for businesses needing comprehensive data protection and risk management solutions.
The pricing on SentinelOne is far more reasonable and cheaper than Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks.
Consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would say it is definitely not a cheap product, considering how mature it is and how scalable all Palo Alto products are together.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Cortex XDR is perceived as expensive by some customers, yet offers dynamic pricing.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
That has been the trend we have seen with Microsoft lately—it is just getting more and more expensive.
Assistant Director, Hybrid Infrastructure & Operations at a insurance company with 501-1,000 employees
Given our extensive Microsoft licensing, transitioning to Defender for Endpoint did not affect licensing costs.
Team manager of it department at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
It costs $15 per VM for the P2 plan, which is seen as affordable for customers.
Snr. Infrastructure Architect (Data Centre) at LogicEra
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing indicates that pricing is always very expensive.
Senior Service Desk Engineer at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
 

Valuable Features

Cortex XDR offers advanced AI-driven analytics, multi-layered security, and automation, enhancing threat detection and incident response efficiency.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers seamless integration and advanced threat protection with centralized management and low resource usage for enterprises.
Mimecast provides advanced data protection and cybersecurity features with machine learning, ensuring security, compliance, and seamless deployment.
It incorporates AI for normal behavior detection, distinguishing unusual operations.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
The product provides automation responses in case of a threat attack, severity assessments, centralized manageability, and comprehensive compliance features, resulting in reduced costs.
Pre Sales Architect at network techlab
It includes machine learning to easily analyze data and detect complex threats across endpoints, networks, or clouds.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
Defender for Endpoint's coverage across different platforms in our environment is pretty good. We have devices running Linux, Mac OS, Windows, iOS, and Android. It covers all of them.
Team manager of it department at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint provides a unified management interface allowing customers to manage their on-premises and hybrid infrastructures from a single pane.
Snr. Infrastructure Architect (Data Centre) at LogicEra
One of the best features of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is its database for identifying zero-day attacks or malware attacks.
Consultant at ACT4SERVICES
Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection has positively impacted our organization as it has helped us identify a lot of phishing emails and stopped many unauthorized disclosures or accidental disclosures of information.
Soc Analyst at Payatu
Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection offers the ability to conduct a deep dive and granular access to previous data in our organization.
Senior Service Desk Engineer at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
The best features Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection offers include providing a timestamp of each incident, which indicates when it triggers and its accuracy.
Cyber Security Analyst at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (6th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
213
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
Mimecast Insider Risk Manag...
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint6.8%
CrowdStrike Falcon6.0%
SentinelOne Singularity Endpoint4.6%
Other82.6%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection2.7%
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention6.2%
Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention4.8%
Other86.3%
Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
 

Featured Reviews

ABHISHEK_SINGH - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Gained full visibility and streamlined threat detection through behavior-based insights and AI integration
Initially, we got to have a lot of false positives when we onboarded, but nowadays it's quite smooth. We have fine-tuned our security policies and allowed different levels of policies to get rid of those false positives. Currently, we are getting a fairly good amount of incidents that are not false positives or benign, but actionable items. The process is streamlined. In the initial days, the operations used to get involved in a lot of benign and other activities, but now the process is streamlined. We are leveraging the auto-detection and remediation plans. The operations teams are now more involved in other business roles as well, not just looking into the logs and fetching out what's happening there. They have fixed a lot of things. Initially, they didn't have IAC code drift detection, cloud posture management, or security posture management, but they have those now. They purchased different vendors and did a merger with that. They have now Prisma Cloud that gets integrated and now they are working with Cortex Cloud. Everything that was negative has now been addressed, and the product altogether looks to be in a very better and mature shape now. Currently, it's more or less detecting the workloads with AI-based best practices. Since most organizations are consuming AI agents and other things, we are looking forward to seeing what other feature enhancements Palo Alto can support in that.
Robert Arbuckle - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Analyst III at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Automatically isolates threats and integrates with logging to reduce response time
Overall, I would evaluate the Microsoft support level that I receive at probably about a seven, but that depends on the day. It has been spotty. We have had issues where the urgency level of the Microsoft support is not as high as ours, especially during a data breach or potential data breach situation. We have had issues with some of the offshore support being lackluster. One specific thing that comes to mind is we were on a support call with our CISO on the call, and the Microsoft agent, who did not actually work for Microsoft, is one of the vendors that Microsoft uses for support, said, "Just to set expectations, my lunch break is in an hour and I am going to go away then." For us, it was already ten o'clock at night and we had been working on this for a couple of hours, trying to get a security engineer on with us. For him to tell us that he was going to go away and have lunch, it was, "Okay, but go find somebody else if you need to." It was just the lackluster approach, and it seemed like he did not really care. We seem to get a lot of this when we get non-Microsoft support. I can identify areas for improvement with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it is kind of a convoluted mess to try to take care of false positives. Especially when they have been identified as false positives but they keep going off over and over again. It is great for my pocketbook because it generates a lot of on-call action, but I would really prefer more sleep at two o'clock in the morning than dealing with false positives. I would say that the unified portal for managing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is suitable for both teams as they are all in there. It would be great if they would stop moving things around and renaming things, which makes sense. The new XDR portal is pretty nice. Being able to have it central again inside of the regular Security Center without having to open up two windows is helpful. Overall, I think it is pretty good. There is always going to be something that could be improved, such as alerting and the ability to modify alerts would be a little bit helpful to have. Being able to add more data into the alerts and turn off alerts that are not as useful would be beneficial. It is hard to say what the quantitative impact the security exposure management feature has had on our company's security, because a lot of it is kind of subjective. I think we are sitting at around a fifty percent score still, and a lot of it is just kind of unusual circumstances that we cannot really implement without breaking the organization.
ES
Senior Service Desk Engineer at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
Email continuity has protected finance communications and automates security and retention policies
Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection could be improved if they can offer a remote app for ease of use. If the team is not working from a workstation, we usually have the service access through our laptops, and if there's an interface on a mobile basis, that would be useful. Ease of use for our newer recruits is an area for improvement. When someone just joins our team, we want an easy onboarding process for them to understand why Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection is in place. Sometimes we do not have the capacity to train someone, but we would like to ensure that Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection is able to provide that training information to get them up to speed on what our system is, what our setup is in the Mimecast platform. Maybe implementing a deep dive AI tool that understands our organization much better and can relay information to anyone that we're training would help. This way, we can pull training parameters to track areas where our technical teams can improve their understanding and knowledge base and skill base into making use of Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection better.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise51
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise45
Large Enterprise96
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. Sentinel One
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. SentinelOne SentinelOne offers very detailed specifics with regard to risks or attacks. ...
Comparing CrowdStrike Falcon to Cortex XDR (Palo Alto)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Both Cortex XDR and Crowd Strike Falcon offer cloud-based solutions th...
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,...
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 sol...
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 pu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint?
We have been discussing pricing, setup cost, and licensing, and we are currently on an E3. We are discussing going to...
What advice do you have for others considering Code42 Next-Gen DLP?
My advice for others looking into using Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection is to evaluate it, and i...
What needs improvement with Code42 Incydr?
There are no particular reviews on improvement from my side regarding Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Prote...
What is your primary use case for Code42 Incydr?
My main use case for Mimecast Insider Risk Management and Data Protection is email security, as I have deployed it as...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
Mimecast Incydr, Code42 Next-Gen DLP, Code42 Next-Gen Data Loss Protection, Code42 Forensic File Search, Code42 Backup + Restore
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Adobe, Okta, Samsung, Taylormade, Boston University, Lending Club, North Highland, Stanford University, Ping Identity, Qualcomm, Pandora.
Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike, Microsoft, SentinelOne and others in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP). Updated: June 2026.
899,645 professionals have used our research since 2012.