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Cynet vs Microsoft Defender XDR comparison

 

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
6.7
Cynet effectively prevents cyberattacks, offering automation and affordability, with no reported issues in nearly two years.
Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Defender XDR provides high ROI by consolidating security tools, streamlining operations, and enhancing security, despite licensing costs.
The return on investment with Cynet is pretty good, as it doesn't require a dedicated resource to manage, being highly automated.
We can quarantine and isolate a device within minutes.
Microsoft Defender XDR has saved me at least 50% of my time.
Ever since we turned on the M5 feature set back in June, we have seen a reduced number of potentially malicious clicks and faster alerting when incidents occur.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Cynet's customer support is responsive and helpful, though some users note delays and suggest regional improvements.
Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Defender XDR's support is timely and responsive, yet smaller organizations experience slower, less effective assistance than larger ones.
Their SOC side support, when a threat is detected, is excellent.
My experience with the technical support of Cynet is excellent; they are just one click away.
Their technical support can be improved in terms of speed when opening a ticket.
You get stuck in low-level support for way longer than you should, instead of them escalating the issue up the chain.
It's critical to escalate SEV B issues immediately to a domestic engineer.
Once issues are escalated to the second or third layer, the support is much better.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Cynet scales effortlessly for businesses of all sizes, ensuring seamless integration and adaptability across various environments.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender XDR scales well for various organizations, efficiently supporting growth and flexibility despite some network deployment challenges.
The solution is highly scalable.
We can deploy Cynet for 50,000 users, and we have deployed it at that scale, with the capability to scale higher to 100,000 users without any challenges.
Cynet is very scalable.
Microsoft Defender XDR shows tremendous scalability, much more so than on-premises solutions.
Microsoft Defender XDR scales pretty well.
It is suitable for enterprise-level deployment but has room for improvement.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Cynet is praised for stability and reliability, efficiently handling threats with minimal impact and easy issue resolution.
Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender XDR is praised for high stability, reliable performance, minimal issues, frequent updates, and prompt issue resolution.
Within six years of usage, we have not had any issues such as outages or downtime.
The service has remained consistently online, with any issues isolated to specific components, suggesting a well-designed and modular architecture.
The services within our ecosystem have been reliable, meeting their SLAs.
It provides high-fidelity signals.
 

Room For Improvement

Cynet must improve mobile support, global reach, customization, integrations, user interface, AI, and manage false positives better.
Microsoft Defender XDR requires enhancements in speed, integration, automation, AI, ease-of-use, and industry-specific threat intelligence.
There should be more options than deploying solely through group policy, as the assumption that GPO is working isn’t always the case.
Having a DLP feature would also add value.
Integration with local Active Directory, not only Azure AD, is a must.
The licensing process needs improvement and clarification.
Improvements are needed in automated response capabilities.
Some inconsistencies exist between blades, which could be improved for a more seamless user and UI experience.
 

Setup Cost

Cynet provides cost-effective, flexible pricing with adaptable licensing, offering high value compared to competitors like CrowdStrike and SentinelOne.
Microsoft Defender XDR pricing is seen as complex but fair, with high costs alleviated in bundled Microsoft 365 packages.
I think the pricing of Cynet is fair and one of the better options in the market.
The price of Cynet is reasonable considering its features and support.
There are certainly savings when using Microsoft Defender XDR, which can range from 30%, 40%, and even up to 50%.
I would rate the pricing as eight out of ten, indicating it is a reasonable cost for the product.
Microsoft purposefully obfuscates this through marketing ploys to hide costs.
 

Valuable Features

Cynet provides advanced threat detection, real-time monitoring, and scalable cybersecurity with user-friendly design and competitive pricing.
Microsoft Defender XDR integrates tools for comprehensive security, offering threat detection, automation, identity protection, and enhanced efficiency.
The valuable aspects of Cynet are its EDR and XDR components, which are available at a reasonable price point.
The most effective features of Cynet are its ransomware protection and lateral movement deception.
The SOAR function, deception, and forensics are very useful.
With Microsoft threat intelligence information, it detects various types of threats, including insider attacks, malicious content, and data exfiltration.
This allows us to secure our systems in advance and proactively improve security, rather than waiting for incidents to occur.
Once we have it on the security dashboard, we can see a real-time storyline.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cynet
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
13th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (11th), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (16th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (3rd), Threat Deception Platforms (3rd), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (5th), Ransomware Protection (4th)
Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
5th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cynet is 2.7%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 6.1%, down from 8.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender XDR6.1%
Cynet2.7%
Other91.2%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

Featured Reviews

Suhas Dalvi - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive protection with minimal false positives enhances threat management
Cynet's real-time threat detection has helped reduce risks for our organization overall. Cynet's centralized control feature is very user-friendly, has a good user interface, and is very convenient, requiring hardly one or two people to manage the entire console, which is not resource-heavy and automates many processes, making it very easy to use without alert fatigue due to low false positives. Autonomous Breach Protection has helped us mitigate threats proactively by being highly automated, requiring very few people to manage it for forensics and investigation due to its low false positive rate, which is less than 1.3%, and it doesn't consume much memory, making it light on the endpoints. Cynet is the only platform in the industry in the endpoint XDR that meets all steps of the MITRE ATT&CK framework, scoring on all 143 odd steps, with a false positive rate of less than 1.3%. Cynet's machine learning algorithms are very effective in adapting to new threats.
MohtesanShaikh - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience improves security management and simplifies threat protection
I have created automated investigations, and while they work, they operate rather slowly in the Microsoft portal. If I automate something, it takes considerable time; if I do it manually, I can complete it in a quarter of the time. The automation response being slow is the main concern; when an incident occurs or if I run a remediation, it takes significant time to complete the remediation. There are some limitations regarding the scalability of Microsoft Defender XDR with specific licensing. For SMB customers, there is only Microsoft Defender for Business, and if they want more features such as XDR features and automation investigation or incident response, they need to purchase Defender for Endpoint. We are currently using the EDR.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise37
 

Questions from the Community

When evaluating User Activity Monitoring, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?
The support team that stands behind the detection and response. Is there adequate expertise and are they behind you 24x7x365? Cynet CyOps has been there for us.
What do you like most about Cynet?
In terms of incident response, Cynet can contain attacks, offer a trial period to customers, and uninstall if not continued. The most valuable aspect is its integration capabilities, covering endpo...
What do you like most about Microsoft 365 Defender?
Microsoft Defender XDR provides strong identity protection with comprehensive insights into risky user behavior and potential indicators of compromise.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft 365 Defender?
The pricing for Microsoft Sentinel operates on a pay-as-you-go model based on data ingestion. I recall that Defender XDR pricing is based on the number of endpoints.
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?
For Microsoft Defender XDR ( /categories/extended-detection-and-response-xdr ), there is currently no ability to reset passwords for on-premises accounts, which is a key challenge. Incident managem...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Meuhedet, East Boston Neighborhood Health Center
Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cynet vs. Microsoft Defender XDR and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.