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Fortinet FortiGuard vs Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 16, 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

Fortinet FortiGuard
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) (12th)
Microsoft Defender Threat I...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Yaw Agyare - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at Volta River Authority
Threat intelligence has consistently minimized downtime and safeguarded revenue
Fortinet FortiGuard's machine learning capabilities contribute to our cybersecurity by performing numerous predictions and assessing possibilities, enabling us to prepare ahead for potential incidents. I have benefited from automated threat response, which is absolutely brilliant because if we have to go through logs to see what is going on, we would never finish. Automating these things allows alerts to be given so we can concentrate effort on critical areas, helping us to optimize our resources effectively. We are also looking at automating the response, where response can be automated, and then we can focus on forensic investigations to understand what happened and see whether we need to tweak the automation to make it work better. The benefits I gain from using Fortinet FortiGuard include peace of mind. It has contributed to ensuring that we are always available and can meet our availability targets. This means that productivity is maintained, and revenues will rake in as planned. The moment something gets through and causes a breach, likely causing downtime, it means you're losing money.
Charles Mokoena - PeerSpot reviewer
Mobility & IT Project Manager at Voicevine Pty Ltd
Has strengthened our ability to detect threats in real time and improved internal security decision-making
The features that I find most valuable in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence include the Sentinel part of it. There are several features we've looked at, including Sentinel as well as extended Defender, which is XDR. I've used those two, and that's what I've found quite useful for us, especially in the hardening and analysis part of the whole threat analysis. We use the real-time threat detection features in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence. If it wasn't for that real-time threat detection on the vulnerability, I think we would not have survived the attack. The integration capabilities of Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence with other Microsoft security tools have benefited our organization's threat management process by initially being quite a challenge, especially coming from other security tools such as Fortinet and Check Point. However, once you've gotten used to it, it's quite easy and user-friendly. The dashboard, especially the threat analysis dashboard, is quite detailed in terms of providing a view of which areas in our environment need attention, making it quite useful.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best features in Fortinet FortiGuard that I appreciate are the nice interface, ease of use, and straightforward administration and setup."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its ease of use and efficiency."
"The content filtering feature helps protect data by filtering potentially dangerous websites and brings significant benefit to the organization."
"The benefits I gain from using Fortinet FortiGuard include peace of mind; it has contributed to ensuring that we are always available and can meet our availability targets, which means that productivity is maintained and revenues will rake in as planned."
"The main benefits Fortinet FortiGuard provides are that it secures the network from external threats, it provides security, and it has a very perfect graphical user interface that is very easy to use."
"The solution is one suite covering everything from email protection to threat intelligence and vulnerability scanning."
"The solution blocks incoming threats on the local PC or any cloud-based threats."
"They seem to be pretty up to date with the latest threats in the world."
"Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence assesses machines for vulnerabilities and gives remediations."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward."
"Microsoft collects trillions of signals from all over the world, which is incredibly valuable. It helps us identify zero-day vulnerabilities and global threats."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the insight it provides."
"Offers easy integration with a cloud-based infrastructure"
 

Cons

"Currently, for our usage, the areas that have room for improvement are pricing and customization."
"When creating a ticket for support with configuration features, the support is reluctant to provide that support."
"If the tool can be cheaper or less expensive, it can be good for users."
"I think that automated response could be improved if they can add automated response features into Fortinet FortiGuard."
"The dashboard is an important and integral part of the product that could be improved."
"The solution could be more stable and precise because, at times, the threats detected are not legitimate."
"I would like for there to be extra confirmation that there aren't viruses. Even if the virus detection software is always running there could be hidden applications that are using the computer."
"One area that can be improved is reducing false positives."
"It's a bit complicated to manage because you have many dependencies of servers, many dependencies in queue, and so on. Entries or different endpoints, and you make different configuration topics for each one. So that's a major problem."
"I would like to see more integration with other solutions. For example, integration well with Microsoft but not with other solutions."
"The software is expensive."
"There could be a better notification system."
"One area where Microsoft Defender could be improved is in its support for non-Microsoft products, particularly for systems running Linux or other open-source platforms across ecosystems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If one is very cheap and ten is very expensive, I rate the tool's price as a six to seven."
"There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the product."
"I use the product's default version, which is a free one and not the licensed version."
"The solution is relatively expensive; however, our status as a gold partner provides us with several complimentary licenses, which offsets the cost."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six or seven out of ten."
"The solution can be licensed, but most users would already have it in their Office 365 license."
"The solution's pricing is reasonable and not very expensive."
"Considering Microsoft is constantly changing licensing, I would give it a seven out of ten. It can be difficult to get your head around it, especially for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)."
"They offer two license plans: Microsoft Defender for endpoints and Microsoft Defender for businesses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
16%
Construction Company
9%
Venture Capital & Private Equity Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiGuard?
Regarding pricing, I must say it is quite pricey, but if you look at the value it gives you, I think the value justifies the cost.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiGuard?
When going for support and asking for support for features, the support team asks to go for professional services, which are not covered in the support agreement. This is the reason exploration of ...
What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiGuard?
Fortinet FortiGuard is used to filter emails coming to the email server. Fortinet FortiGuard threat intelligence is utilized, but not dedicatedly or specifically for threat intelligence purposes. F...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence?
From the telemetry data standpoint, I would prefer Defender data to be more open in future updates.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence?
We have tried Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence. I have expertise with Microsoft Defender products. I am not familiar with Microsoft Defender for IoT because we did not use that in our environ...
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence?
I will recommend Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence because it is a complete automation solution for threat production detection and an end-to-end solution for client security. Unfortunately, s...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike, Recorded Future, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP). Updated: April 2026.
893,915 professionals have used our research since 2012.