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Cuckoo Sandbox vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 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

Cuckoo Sandbox
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
14th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
210
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (3rd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Anti-Malware Tools category, the mindshare of Cuckoo Sandbox is 1.8%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 10.6%, down from 18.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Anti-Malware Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint10.6%
Cuckoo Sandbox1.8%
Other87.6%
Anti-Malware Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Adrián Rodriguez Garcia - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Threat Intelligence & Hunting Analyst/Consultant at Wise Security Global
Provides detailed behavior analysis while needing improvements in signature detection
I use Cuckoo Sandbox primarily for automated malware behavior analysis. Specifically, it helps me extract indicators of compromise (IOC) to add to different platforms in the security environment of my company Cuckoo can show me every behavior in a machine. For example, it shows all files…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cuckoo Sandbox is very stable and reliable."
"The scalability is an eight out of ten."
"Cuckoo Sandbox is very stable and reliable."
"The dynamic analysis feature in Cuckoo Sandbox is excellent compared to others."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is extremely stable."
"The investigation aspect is the most useful. It's user friendly and has a good user interface."
"The integration with all variations of Microsoft Defender, for Endpoint, 365, and Cloud is valuable."
"The notification and reporting features are most valuable because we are part of a compliance project, and maintaining SOC 2 compliance is critical."
"Easy to understand and easy to set up endpoint security solution. It's a multifeatured product with web content filtering and automated investigation features. It also has a fantastic vulnerability management dashboard."
"The detection features are valuable, as is the fact that it is easier to port these logs into Sentinel. That is also useful for us. It is more comprehensive."
"You have endpoint security to keep your devices safe. That's the feature that we're interested in."
"The stability keeps getting better and better."
 

Cons

"Cuckoo Sandbox could improve its signature detection because it currently only shows simple file modifications and connections to different botnets."
"It lacks correlation with other types of information, such as explaining why a particular file was modified or identifying the specific process responsible."
"The only issue is with the installation, which requires some adjustments."
"I want the command to be quicker."
"What I think can be improved on Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is that the whitelisting abilities are pitiful, and the understanding of how you go about doing that by the support techs that you speak with is really bad, so that I think is an area where Microsoft Defender for Endpoint needs improvement; the understanding and support of that and what actually works is pretty buggy."
"There are still some things where I think they don't quite match up or are a bit hard to find or understand."
"Integration with third-party vendors could be better. It would be better if it integrates with other protection solutions or other products outside of Microsoft. Nowadays, anti-virus protection doesn't really have to be planned as overall protection for your environment in terms of security. There are really different avenues that bad actors can take to wreak havoc on your machine."
"It's not easy to create special allowances for certain groups of users. It can be a little heavy-handed in some areas where Microsoft has decided to lock a feature out, meaning they make it hard to make an exception... One company we work with needed to use about 20 different thumb drives for about 20 users. To make that exception for them was very difficult. In fact, you can't really make an exception. But what you can do is allow them to use it and, while it will still alert, you can actually suppress those alerts."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's licensing is confusing. It has conflicting information on the website. We also faced integration issues with other systems. It makes laptops slower than traditional antivirus systems."
"I miss having an executive dashboard or a simple view for viewing things. Everything is extensive in this solution. Everything is configurable and manageable, but the environment of Microsoft 365 has about 13 administrative dashboards, and in each of the dashboards, there are a gazillion things to set up. It is good for a large enterprise, but for a 200-seat client, you need to see 5% of that."
"The solution should be updated by Microsoft with new features from time to time."
"From an audit point of view, our auditors would like to have more reports on how things are used, if things go wrong, and how they went wrong. For example, if something got a warning, "Why?" So, we would like more versatility for tracing and reporting. That would improve the product, as long as the user interface doesn't get bogged down."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have to pay five to ten thousand dollars for this solution."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is included with a Microsoft E5 license."
"It is free."
"The subscription is part of Windows, so we don't have to pay anything extra for this product."
"AV solutions are pretty expensive because they are necessary, not just for protection, but many businesses need them to comply with regulatory bodies and receive accreditation. We recently purchased an E5 license, which gives us access to the entire Microsoft suite. I would say the pricing is competitive; most tools of this kind are similarly priced. There are minor differences between the competitors, but they aren't spectacularly different. Defender for Endpoint makes sense because all our solutions are in the same place, paid for with a single license. The subscription price is around £50 per user per month, though it may have increased slightly."
"When customers haven't deployed the solution and don't have licenses, it can be expensive to start from scratch."
"It came with Windows."
"You just pay Windows 10 prices, then you have antivirus software. As a price comparison, Defender's costs are very low."
"The solution is an open source version and was free with a paid version of Windows 10."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
10%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise92
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cuckoo Sandbox?
I don't know the price as I always use the free version of Cuckoo Sandbox.
What needs improvement with Cuckoo Sandbox?
The only issue is with the installation, which requires some adjustments. We need to check the OS level for compatibility. This can be challenging for those who are new to Cuckoo Sandbox.
What is your primary use case for Cuckoo Sandbox?
We are using Cuckoo Sandbox ( /products/cuckoo-sandbox-reviews ) for phishing emails and malware analysis.
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

No data available
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
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