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CrowdStrike Falcon vs Microsoft Active Directory comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.3
CrowdStrike Falcon improves productivity, reduces costs, minimizes downtime, enhances security, and delivers high user satisfaction with effective threat management.
Sentiment score
4.4
Microsoft Active Directory enhances efficiency and access control, providing value through centralized management despite lacking direct ROI calculation.
CrowdStrike Falcon saves time and offers good value for money, especially for enterprise companies, because it can stop breaches.
It's very easy to deploy without many IT admins, saving time.
The solution is really time-saving since I don't need to create users in each server or system manually, and user access control is streamlined.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
CrowdStrike Falcon's customer service is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though some suggest improvements in speed and communication.
Sentiment score
5.5
Microsoft Active Directory support is inconsistent, with varying response quality, reliance on online resources, and better service via premium options.
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.
Support documents are available on the internet in every language.
If you purchase retail, the support will be more difficult because they will assess the priority or rating from the customer.
Sometimes support takes long to engage and resolve, extending over weeks or even months.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
CrowdStrike Falcon is praised for its scalable, cloud-based infrastructure, allowing easy deployment and expansion for diverse business sizes.
Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Active Directory is scalable and integrates well, but faces challenges at larger scales, suggesting hybrid solutions.
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.
Microsoft Active Directory scales effectively; I don't foresee any issues with that at all.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
CrowdStrike Falcon is stable and reliable, though occasionally faces missed detections and minor disruptions during upgrades.
Sentiment score
6.4
Microsoft Active Directory is praised for its stability and reliability, with minor issues not significantly affecting performance.
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.
If you meet the installation requirements from Microsoft, it will be very stable.
With multiple domain controllers, stability is ensured.
I've been working with Microsoft Active Directory for over 3 years, and we've had no problems.
 

Room For Improvement

CrowdStrike Falcon requires enhancements in reporting, integration, UI navigation, feature set, pricing, support, and compatibility with older OS.
Microsoft Active Directory needs improvements in usability, integration, security updates, synchronization, setup, reporting, support, scalability, and email group sync.
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.
Exporting and verifying group memberships require command line scripts, which isn't simple.
There are some features that need improvements in terms of ease of use and frequency of updates.
Sometimes, it can be overly complicated, and when you apply Group Policy in an Active Directory environment, sometimes those settings apply and sometimes they don't.
 

Setup Cost

CrowdStrike Falcon is pricey but valued for security, with per-device pricing and discounts possible for enterprises; free trial available.
Microsoft Active Directory pricing varies by region and model; Azure offers cost-effective solutions for large enterprises despite perceived expense.
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.
For the cloud solution in our region, the pricing of Microsoft Active Directory is very high.
I consider Microsoft Active Directory expensive because if you buy this thing bundled with the Windows Directory Server, you get five user licenses for about a thousand euros, or a little bit less than this.
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing with Microsoft Active Directory is straightforward; you just buy the server and then have to buy the user CALs.
 

Valuable Features

CrowdStrike Falcon provides lightweight, AI-driven security with real-time response, easy integration, scalability, and minimal false positives.
Microsoft Active Directory simplifies management with integration, group policies, and scalable operations across on-premises and cloud environments.
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.
To assess the impact of Microsoft Active Directory's centralized domain management on security protocols and access permissions, Microsoft Active Directory itself has constraints with security because when we have a solution such as SSO or Single Sign-On, which makes it easier for users to log in, some parts have security openings.
One valuable feature is the centralized creation of IDs.
I can control all the devices in my domain by just changing the group policies in one place.
 

Categories and Ranking

CrowdStrike Falcon
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
135
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (6th), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (1st), Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (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 Active Directory
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (8th), Active Directory Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. CrowdStrike Falcon is designed for Extended Detection and Response (XDR) and holds a mindshare of 11.8%, down 17.9% compared to last year.
Microsoft Active Directory, on the other hand, focuses on Single Sign-On (SSO), holds 3.1% mindshare, up 2.7% since last year.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
CrowdStrike Falcon11.8%
Wazuh9.6%
Darktrace7.6%
Other71.0%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
Single Sign-On (SSO) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Active Directory3.1%
Microsoft Entra ID17.0%
Okta Workforce Identity7.6%
Other72.3%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

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.
Eko Kurniawan - PeerSpot reviewer
Has simplified credential management and improved secure access control across departments
The features I find most useful in Microsoft Active Directory are especially for the Single Sign-On. This is very useful for users, particularly if they have plenty of applications, such as tablet applications. When they log in to their computer, the application will automatically log in with their credentials. They don't need to remember another user and password to log in to the application because it's already maintained with Microsoft Active Directory using Single Sign-On. To assess the impact of Microsoft Active Directory's centralized domain management on security protocols and access permissions, Microsoft Active Directory itself has constraints with security because when we have a solution such as SSO or Single Sign-On, which makes it easier for users to log in, some parts have security openings. When their computer is compromised with a threat, malware, or other cyber threats, it becomes easier to enter the application without login permission.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise61
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise20
 

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 ...
What do you like most about Microsoft Active Directory?
The solution is easy to install and has good reliability.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Active Directory?
The best way to protect this is to use Microsoft Defender. For Microsoft support for Microsoft Active Directory, I would rate it as eight. If I give it 10, it would be too perfect. Eight is fair. M...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Active Directory?
My main use cases for Microsoft Active Directory are to manage user access and credentials.
 

Also Known As

CrowdStrike Falcon, CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon Threat Intelligence, CrowdStrike Identity Protection, CrowdStrike Falcon Surface
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike Falcon vs. Microsoft Active Directory and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
872,837 professionals have used our research since 2012.