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Exabeam vs Microsoft Defender for Identity 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
6.3
Exabeam Fusion SIEM provides cost savings, a seven out of ten ROI rating, and enhanced security with machine learning.
Sentiment score
4.8
Microsoft Defender for Identity enhances threat detection, reduces efforts, minimizes risks, and optimizes costs despite varied ROI assessments.
Exabeam offers more machine learning models that detect anomalies.
Analyst at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
I have seen a return on investment with Exabeam Fusion SIEM, and it is worth the money.
Enterprise Account Manager South at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Exabeam's customer service is praised for responsiveness but faces concerns over response delays and regional support limitations.
Sentiment score
6.4
Microsoft Defender for Identity offers knowledgeable support, yet response times can vary, especially with complex issues or initial contacts.
Even with TAM support from Exabeam, many issues go unresolved.
Lead Technical Engineer Security at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
I would rate Exabeam Fusion SIEM support team a nine out of ten; I do not give anyone a perfect score.
Enterprise Account Manager South at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees
I also had the chance to look at the documentation, and the documentation is good.
Solution Architect at CTC
Generally, the support is more effective than other providers like Oracle.
Owner at Alopex ONE UG
The quality of support is very good, but troubleshooting can take time due to complex setups and the need to provide many logs.
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The people I normally use for support are very knowledgeable, especially when they help remote in and get to where I need to go and show me much faster and help me understand what I should be doing.
Technology Coordinator at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Exabeam is praised for scalability, ease of expansion, and SaaS benefits, despite minor performance concerns with filters and latency.
Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Defender for Identity is highly scalable and adaptable, excelling in large enterprises with efficient cloud-based processing.
I believe Exabeam Fusion SIEM is excellent regarding scalability, and I would rate it at approximately an eight out of ten.
Enterprise Account Manager South at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees
Regarding Exabeam's scalability and how well it adapts to its customers' needs, I would rate it an eight.
Solution Architect at CTC
In a Microsoft-centric organization, especially with Azure infrastructure and Office 365, Microsoft Defender for Identity is scalable.
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Exabeam is stable, meeting user expectations, with minor issues like errors and patch-related downtime resolved swiftly.
Sentiment score
7.1
Microsoft Defender for Identity is highly stable, reliable, with minimal downtime; occasional issues require support for agent redeployment.
These problems were not frequent, and the last six to eight months have been stable.
Lead Technical Engineer Security at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Regarding stability, I would rate Exabeam Fusion SIEM at approximately eight to eight and a half out of ten because it is very stable.
Enterprise Account Manager South at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees
Overall, I think Exabeam's stability level is good.
Solution Architect at CTC
Microsoft Defender for Identity is quite robust and built on Azure hyperscale infrastructure, with a 99% availability.
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
We do not see any issues with the stability of Microsoft Defender for Identity.
Deputy Manager at Servion Global Solutions
Having recently started using it, reliability is affirmed, but manual investigation is often performed to verify if alerts identified by auto-remediation are accurate.
Instrumentation Engineer at Toyo Engineering Corp
 

Room For Improvement

Exabeam needs improved real-time analysis, customization, and integration, alongside better UI, documentation, and quicker updates and response times.
Microsoft Defender for Identity needs improvements in alert accuracy, UI/UX, asset integration, automation, anomaly detection, and third-party integration.
Exabeam needs to improve its documentation and provide more customization for dashboards and case management.
Lead Technical Engineer Security at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
I have explored the SaaS version; it offers many new features.
Analyst at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Exabeam's integration capabilities are not good, as Exabeam has a very limited number of integrations and no out-of-box integration.
Solution Architect at CTC
If Microsoft could develop a feature that indicates when impossible travel is caused by VPN connections, it would prevent unnecessary password resets and session disruptions, especially for VIP users in organizations.
CyberSecurity Engineer | Information Security Management at Self Employed
One improvement I would recommend is the integration of an admin application within Teams, allowing easy access to attack information on a mobile platform.
Owner at Alopex ONE UG
Reducing false positives is something we've been working on with Microsoft.
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Exabeam's pricing is seen as reasonable and flexible, competitive against pricier rivals, with no extra costs beyond licensing.
Microsoft Defender for Identity pricing aligns with E5 licenses, offering value in hybrid setups but can be costly at scale.
The pricing for Exabeam Fusion SIEM is not cost prohibitive, but it was a little more than I initially thought.
Enterprise Account Manager South at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees
If they can reduce the costs, organizations will be happy, and it will compensate for using the Azure environment, which is more expensive on the infrastructure as a service side.
CyberSecurity Engineer | Information Security Management at Self Employed
Ensuring a fair price according to market standards.
Owner at Alopex ONE UG
From an organization perspective, using E5 licenses is value for money, especially if Azure and Office 365 are already in use.
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Exabeam offers user-friendly analytics, automation, clear dashboards, and strong integration, excelling in security investigations and incident response.
Microsoft Defender for Identity enhances threat detection and security integration, offering streamlined investigation with automated alerts and behavioral analytics.
Exabeam's AI capabilities, like the natural language mode, convert natural language into Exabeam queries, enhancing ease of use.
Lead Technical Engineer Security at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
The product offers useful features like the dashboard, timeline, and session views, which enhance our security tools.
Analyst at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Exabeam's UEBA is the most valuable feature that I have found so far.
Solution Architect at CTC
We receive an advance report of risky users, allowing us to take preemptive action before an attack causes damage to organization details.
Instrumentation Engineer at Toyo Engineering Corp
The most valuable feature is its hybrid artificial intelligence, which gathers forensic data to track and counteract security threats, much like the CSI series in effect.
Owner at Alopex ONE UG
The advanced threat protection is one of the strengths of Microsoft Defender for Identity, as it utilizes user and entity analytics and can detect indicative attacks.
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Exabeam
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (14th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Security Incident Response (5th), Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) (9th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (10th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (9th)
Microsoft Defender for Iden...
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (8th), Microsoft Security Suite (5th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Exabeam is designed for Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and holds a mindshare of 1.7%, up 1.4% compared to last year.
Microsoft Defender for Identity, on the other hand, focuses on Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR), holds 8.9% mindshare, down 17.4% since last year.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Exabeam1.7%
Splunk Enterprise Security7.3%
IBM Security QRadar5.3%
Other85.7%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Identity8.9%
CrowdStrike Falcon12.2%
Huntress Managed ITDR6.3%
Other72.6%
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2265966 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Account Manager South at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees
Advanced analytics have transformed our threat detection and streamlined incident investigations
I would appreciate seeing additional dashboards in Exabeam Fusion SIEM or perhaps more options or the ability to customize them further. While we can customize them currently, there may be additional options available. I value the outcomes navigator because it matches the log piece to the use cases, which is helpful. The correlation rules are excellent. I am interested in whether there are additional threat intelligence feeds available that we could use, whether we can integrate our own, or if we could ingest different ones.
Peter Arabomen - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Engineer at Fidelity Bank Plc
Has supported hybrid identity management while integrating well with cloud directory services
The only challenge I have with Microsoft Defender for Identity is the latency. I may not put that entirely on Microsoft, because latency could be network related. At times when trying to authenticate, the prompt is delayed. We tried implementing passwordless authentication, especially for on-premises workloads, but we haven't been able to achieve that. Passwordless authentication is part of the identity functionalities, particularly when it comes to enforcing passwordless for on-premises workloads. In terms of improvements, you can't create OUs on Azure AD. Regarding giving users privileges on what they can do across different OUs, I haven't seen that feature on Microsoft Defender for Identity. Microsoft Defender for Identity needs to be able to plug into third-party applications that are not Microsoft. For instance, with a human resource application used to manage users and leave requests, when staff leaves the organization, they are first exited from that application before AD. Integration between Azure AD and third-party applications would allow automatic syncing when removing staff. The initial setup of Microsoft Defender for Identity is not hard. However, setup is one thing, and getting value from the application end-to-end is another. It can be set up and running from the first day but not functioning optimally. Initially, when we did the setup, it wasn't optimal. Over time, with continuous improvement, which we're still doing, we've gotten to a comfortable level, but there's still room for improvement.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What are the biggest differences between Securonix UEBA, Exabeam, and IBM QRadar?
It mostly depends on your use-cases and environment. Exabeam and Securonix have a stronger UEBA feature set, friendlier GUI and are not licensed based on capacity (amount of logs and information in...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Exabeam Fusion SIEM?
I would say the pricing for Exabeam Fusion SIEM is not cost prohibitive, but it was a little more than I initially thought.
What needs improvement with Exabeam Fusion SIEM?
I would appreciate seeing additional dashboards in Exabeam Fusion SIEM or perhaps more options or the ability to customize them further. While we can customize them currently, there may be addition...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Identity?
I really would have to sit down to think about how Microsoft Defender for Identity can be improved. I didn't take stock in what needs to be improved because I appreciated having the tools right the...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity?
My main use cases for Microsoft Defender for Identity include Conditional Access, checking risky users, remediating risky users, and user sign-ins. I can easily remediate or determine what the user...
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Defender for Identity?
I don't really use Microsoft Defender for Identity a lot because my new role doesn't allow me to take time to do so. I don't really use the threat intelligence feature of Microsoft Defender for Ide...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Hulu, ADP, Safeway, BBCN Bank
Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Splunk, IBM, Wazuh and others in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM). Updated: May 2026.
899,258 professionals have used our research since 2012.