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Elastic Security 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
5.9
Elastic Security provides positive ROI in 18-24 months, affordable for SMEs, though premium support may be lacking.
Sentiment score
7.3
Microsoft Defender XDR delivers substantial ROI by streamlining operations, reducing costs, and enhancing security with consolidated functionalities.
It does not require hefty security budgets and can be deployed for enterprise security effectively.
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
6.4
Elastic Security support varies; open-source praised for community help, commercial support seen as responsive but with some improvement needed.
Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Defender XDR support is responsive but varies; premium users receive faster resolutions than smaller organizations or basic plans.
Support is prompt and helpful.
Most of the time when my team encounters issues, they receive responses within 24 hours.
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
7.3
Elastic Security is praised for scalability, easily supporting small to large businesses and adaptable through configuration adjustments.
Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender XDR offers scalable adaptability for large enterprises, accommodating diverse needs by leveraging flexible cloud infrastructure and licensing.
It allows us to think about specific use cases, such as gathering malicious IPs in a single view and analyzing threats based on geolocation.
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
7.7
Elastic Security is stable and reliable, but requires proper setup and resource management; frequent updates can disrupt some users.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Defender XDR is highly reliable but has occasional performance issues on macOS/Linux and alert misclassifications.
In terms of stability, I would rate Elastic a solid eight out of ten.
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

Elastic Security faces challenges in usability, integration, scalability, and awareness, requiring enhancements in features and user support.
Microsoft Defender XDR requires improved UI, integration, clarity, support, AI, and threat detection for better user experience.
CrowdStrike and Defender have more established threat intelligence integration due to having a larger client base.
My security testing team continuously reports vulnerabilities, and we have to fix and update the versions frequently.
Elastic Security consumes a lot of resources, requiring a substantial deployment setup.
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

Elastic Security is cost-effective for SMEs but advanced features and lack of included support can increase costs.
Microsoft Defender XDR pricing varies; it's cost-effective with Microsoft 365, but potentially expensive standalone for smaller businesses.
The pricing is reasonable, especially for Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), making it a viable option for businesses building their security infrastructure.
This is beneficial for SMEs as they do not need extensive budgets for security solutions.
Elastic Security is considered cost-effective, especially at lower EPS levels.
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

Elastic Security offers rapid search, scalability, and affordability with strong machine learning and customizable dashboards for efficient threat detection.
Microsoft Defender XDR offers seamless integration, advanced threat management, and automation, enhancing security efficiency while reducing costs and tool complexity.
Elastic Security offers good insight regarding alerts, reports, and cases.
Elastic Security offers advanced features such as machine learning and integration with ChatGPT.
We require rapid processing speed for alerts and event data, and Elastic Security is very efficient at handling this level of data.
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

Elastic Security
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
16th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
9th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (10th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (5th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (7th)
Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
5th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Elastic Security is 5.3%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 6.5%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

Featured Reviews

SyedAli17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralized monitoring improves security posture through rapid data processing
The processing part of Elastic Security ( /products/elastic-security-reviews ) is very interesting for us since we handle almost 7,000 to 8,000 alerts per minute. We require rapid processing speed for alerts and event data, and Elastic Security is very efficient at handling this level of data. Additionally, Elastic Security helps improve the security posture of Pakistan through centralized visibility and real-time processing.
Gabor Nyerd - PeerSpot reviewer
Includes four services and four products, which can help organizations a lot
We found that sometimes integrations work, but testing them can take some time. Sometimes, configurations take much longer than expected. We have a configuration in place that needs to be synchronized with another server. However, the servers are four hours apart, so this can cause delays. In general, I believe that the time it takes to configure and test a service should be shorter. Sometimes, it can take a couple of hours to test a single configuration setting. Other times, it is only ten or fifteen minutes, which is normal. However, sometimes, even immediate actions can be triggered by configuration changes, and some settings can take up to eight hours to complete. I believe that this time can be improved. Microsoft is making a lot of improvements to its services in a short period of time. This is a good thing, as it means that the services are constantly being updated and improved. However, it can be challenging for customers to keep up with the changes. For example, a customer may read about an update, understand it, and share it with their colleagues and boss. However, it may take days or weeks to test the update and get the necessary approvals. This can be especially challenging for large customers with many users or machines. In some cases, Microsoft may change a service before the customer has had a chance to implement the previous update. This can be frustrating for customers, as it means that they have to constantly learn new things and adjust their workflows. On the one hand, it is important for Microsoft to keep updating and improving its services. This helps to ensure that the services are meeting the customers' needs and that they are staying ahead of the competition. Microsoft should also be mindful of the challenges that these changes can create for customers. One way to address this challenge is to provide customers with more time to implement changes. Microsoft could also provide more information about upcoming changes so that customers can plan ahead. Ultimately, Microsoft needs to strike a balance between keeping its services up-to-date and providing customers with a smooth transition to new features.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions are best for your needs.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
What do you like most about Elastic Security?
Elastic provides the capability to index quickly due to the reverse indexes it offers. This data is crucial as it contains critical information. The reverse index allows fast data indexing because ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
Since Elastic Security is community-based, it does not require significant costs. This is beneficial for SMEs as they do not need extensive budgets for security solutions.
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

Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Security vs. Microsoft Defender XDR and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.