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Crowdstrike Falcon Endpoint Security and XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

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
7.4
CrowdStrike Falcon enhances productivity and security, reducing costs and downtime while efficiently managing threats with rapid deployment and detection.
Sentiment score
7.3
Organizations achieve financial gains and efficiency by using Microsoft Defender, eliminating third-party solutions, and enhancing security management.
CrowdStrike Falcon saves time and offers good value for money, especially for enterprise companies, because it can stop breaches.
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.
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.
The biggest return on investment for me when using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is the time saving.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
CrowdStrike Falcon support is valued for responsiveness and expertise, though growth causes delays; premium support is highly rated.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft's Defender for Endpoint support is generally effective but experiences vary; premium options offer swift, knowledgeable assistance.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the technical support as a 10 because they resolve many issues for us.
The CrowdStrike team is very efficient; I would rate them ten out of ten.
They could improve by initiating calls for high-priority cases instead of just opening tickets.
The level-one support seems disconnected from subject matter experts.
I rate Microsoft support 10 out of 10.
Due to our size, we don't have access to direct technical support, but the knowledge base, Microsoft Learn, and the articles available are really good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
CrowdStrike Falcon's scalability and adaptability make it ideal for diverse platforms, though costs may limit expansive deployments.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint efficiently scales with diverse enterprises, integrates seamlessly with Microsoft products, supporting growth effectively.
It has adequate coverage and is easy to deploy.
In terms of scalability, I find CrowdStrike to be stable, and I have not encountered any limitations with it.
There's no scalability limitation from CrowdStrike itself, as it just requires agent deployment.
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.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is scalable enough to handle various devices across environments, whether they are laptops, Android devices, or operating in hybrid environments.
Compatibility is its main feature.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
CrowdStrike Falcon is highly regarded for its stability, efficiency, and reliability, with minor update issues quickly resolved.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is praised for stability, efficiency, and low resource impact, despite minor occasional bugs.
I have never seen instability in the CrowdStrike tool.
We are following N-1 versions across our environment, which is stable.
The biggest issue occurred when every computer worldwide experienced a blue screen.
I haven't seen any outages with Microsoft.
I rate Defender 10 out of 10 for stability.
Defender for Endpoint is extremely stable.
 

Room For Improvement

CrowdStrike Falcon needs system integration, better reporting, reduced false positives, enhanced support, advanced features, and flexible pricing.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint struggles with support, integration, UI, performance issues, and lacks essential features and platform support.
Simplifying the querying process, such as using double quote queries or directly obtaining logs based on IP addresses or usernames, would be beneficial.
Another concern is CrowdStrike's GUI. It changes annually, making it hard to work and find options.
Threat prevention should be their first priority.
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.
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.
Providing more detailed information on how Microsoft Defender for Endpoint detects vulnerabilities.
 

Setup Cost

CrowdStrike Falcon's pricing ranges from $30-$100 per user annually, ideal for large enterprises but costly for smaller businesses.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers cost-effective, flexible pricing options integrated with Microsoft services, including discounts for education and volume.
It is expensive compared to SentinelOne, but as the market leader, it is worth it.
The licensing cost and setup costs are affordable.
The solution is a bit expensive.
Given our extensive Microsoft licensing, transitioning to Defender for Endpoint did not affect licensing costs.
It costs $15 per VM for the P2 plan, which is seen as affordable for customers.
The pricing, setup, and licensing were very easy and simple.
 

Valuable Features

CrowdStrike Falcon provides robust threat intelligence, AI-driven detection, and seamless integration with minimal system impact and intuitive interface.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers seamless integration, real-time protection, and automated response, ensuring robust security with minimal impact.
I can investigate by accessing the customer's host based on the RTR environment and utilize host search to know details for the past seven days, including logins, processes, file installations, malicious processes, and network connections.
The real-time analytics aspect of CrowdStrike performs well because we get all logs in real-time, with no delay, allowing us to take action immediately.
Being an EDR solution, it helps us identify attacks in real-time.
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.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint provides a unified management interface allowing customers to manage their on-premises and hybrid infrastructures from a single pane.
One of the best features of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is its database for identifying zero-day attacks or malware attacks.
 

Categories and Ranking

CrowdStrike Falcon
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
2nd
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
132
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (6th), Threat Intelligence Platforms (1st), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (1st), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (1st), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
1st
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of CrowdStrike Falcon is 10.8%, up from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 10.6%, down from 14.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Waleed Omar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides effective real-time threat detection with potential for cost optimization
Some features such as device control, firewall management, and file analysis are standalone products that we need to purchase separately. If these features came out of the box within the product, it would be much more beneficial for us. Other providers such as SentinelOne include these features in their base product. We attended a CrowdStrike Falcon event where they discussed some shallow AI features, but we cannot see these in our panel yet. We work with different solutions such as Darktrace and SocRadar, where AI features are automatically displayed in our dashboards after release. However, for CrowdStrike Falcon, we cannot see these features.
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.
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Answers from the Community

NC
Sep 13, 2021
Sep 13, 2021
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 but on the platform, you can drill down the events to find the starter of a blocked event. It does have basic features to whitelist programs and paths, does show you information about what kind of th...
See 2 answers
KM
Sep 7, 2021
Depends on your budget and on the conditions of a Microsoft license. If you have an M365 license (like E3 or E5), Microsoft is cheaper. In terms of functionality, CrowdStrike is better.
HB
Sep 13, 2021
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 but on the platform, you can drill down the events to find the starter of a blocked event.  It does have basic features to whitelist programs and paths, does show you information about what kind of threat was blocked, gives you information about user logged, machine details (SO, version, serial, Mac Address, Local and WAN IP,...) and grants you with the time, the file that executed the event, allows you to group devices and define exclusion, detection, response policies based on them.  It does allow you to create specific profiles for each type of user like helpdesk analysts, managers, etc (with different access, etc). The solution is pretty good, actually and I'm pretty happy with it. I don't have experience with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint but will do in a couple of months to update this. =]
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 that are very scalable, secure, and user-friendly. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto offers ...
How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing user interface that makes setup easy and seamless. CrowdStrike Falcon offers a cl...
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 ...
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...
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint?
The most valuable aspect lies in its automation capabilities, particularly within security automation.
 

Also Known As

CrowdStrike Falcon, CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon Threat Intelligence, CrowdStrike Identity Protection, CrowdStrike Falcon Surface
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike Falcon vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
856,874 professionals have used our research since 2012.